#he also made the first animated documentary with his film about the sinking of the Lusitania

[cursmudgeon]

Also I believe the first adaptation of a comic to film

Other than roast beef, mustard, and cheese (the Dickensian classics), what are some foods popularly thought to cause strange dreams if eaten before bedtime?

[ghoulciifer]

hc: calling Bokuto, Kuroo, and Oikawa daddy for the first time.

tw: none

tags: nsfw, daddy kink, established relationships

note: so the person who requested this decided to go on anon after i reached out bc tumblr deleted the draft while i was working on it, but i want them to know that i loved writing this asdlfjfhshs thank you for blessing me with this prompt. as always, thank you for your support and my inbox is open ❥

» we all know bokuto’s got a size kink, so a daddy kink really isn’t that hard to believe

» but you didn’t know that! he’s a nervous boy when you two start getting intimate, he wants to sit down and have a talk about preferences but is too afraid it’ll make you uncomfortable since your sexual relationship is still pretty fresh what a sweet boy

» so of course you stumble upon his love for the term by complete chance

» bokuto’s got you pinned to the mattress, his strong arms folding your thighs to your chest as he pounds into your dripping cunt with fervor

» your breathy moans and slurred praises only spur him on, earning you a few grunts and moans of his own as he picks up his already brutal pace, all so he can hear more of your sweet noises

» this does the trick because you’re immediately screaming his name and gasping for air, holding onto his shoulders to ground yourself as he presses further, the new angle allowing your pussy to swallow him more

» somewhere in between your babbling it kinda just slips out

» “Ah-ha, fuck, Kou-... daddy, it feels so g-good...”

» man’s brain literally short circuits, like his eyes widen a little and his jaw drops

» once you feel his hips falter a bit you open your eyes to see his expression

» honestly you weren’t even aware that you said the word

» but when you finally realize you did, in fact, just call your boyfriend daddy, heat rushes to your face and embarrassment rises in the pit of your stomach

» bokuto is quick to regain his composure though and flashes you a toothy grin, brow quirked upward as a muscular arm moves to rest one of your legs against his shoulder, deepening the angle so his length is sheathed to the hilt inside you

» he then leans forward and sneaks a hand between your sweat ridden bodies to find your neglected bundle of nerves, mouth hovering over yours while his fingers work miracles

» this promptly earns a pleasured yelp from you and he doubles his efforts in filling you up once more

» “Babygirl, daddy’s gonna take such good care of you. Keep singin’ for daddy, yea?”

» i feel like this mf would hint at having a daddy kink after a while, also probably would be too nervous to bring it up bc he’s scared to make you uncomfortable

» so of course he’s gonna approach it with humor

» “Haha wouldn’t it be hot if you called me daddy? jk jk... unless?”

» you know, Kuroo things god he’s such a dork

» so eventually you do decide to indulge him, plus, you’ve kinda been waiting to do it too

» and when’s the best time to drop that on him? completely out of the blue, of course

» you were curled up into his side under a pile of blankets on the couch, kuroo’s arm swung over the back while watching some science documentary he swore you would like because it had animals in it

» but of course he was wrong and you found yourself bored out of your mind not long after the film started

» you tried so hard to pay attention, even using your boredom as an excuse to soak up all the cuddling time you were getting from your boyfriend, but that feeling didn’t last long, either

» “Babe... can we watch something else, please? This documentary’s too long and the guy’s voice is putting me to sleep.”

» “Come on, Y/N, it’s not that bad.”

» that’s the only response you get because his eyes are still glued to the TV, completely focused on the information splayed across the screen

» you groan quietly and cross your arms at the lack of attention. was this stupid documentary really more important than your sanity?

» suddenly the idea springs into the forefront of your mind and you can’t suppress the grin that tugs at your lips

» sitting up completely, you throw the blanket in your lap off to the side and pull your legs beneath you to sit on your knees beside him

» he shifts slightly to allow you more room to move but he doesn’t so much as spare a glance your way

» you scoot closer to him and rest one hand on his thigh, bringing the other to his chin so you can properly turn his head toward your waiting lips and whisper

» “Can we please watch something else, daddy?”

» kuroo has never moved so fast in his life

» he lurches forward to hit the off button on the remote before turning and pinning you against the sofa cushion, his mouth latching onto the soft skin at your throat

» you can feel his lips twitch into a sinister grin when you gasp at his already hard cock pressing into your inner thigh through the fabric of his sweats, and his fingertips find their way down to dig into your hips

» “Oh, kitten, you have no idea what you started...”

» oikawa seems like the kinda guy to have that intimacy talk before things start getting hot and heavy, just bc he wants to know what is and isn’t acceptable before putting you in such a vulnerable situation

» so you pretty much knew ab his daddy kink since you started having sex lol

» BUT you didn’t spring it on him just yet because he made it very clear that you don’t have to do anything he wants to, he wants to take it at your pace

» truthfully you were eager to indulge in that side of him but you wanted to wait a bit, so when you do finally surprise him it’ll be that much sweeter

» it’s a good while into your relationship, around the 8-9 month mark, before you just can’t hold it in anymore

» oikawa’s got you pulled onto his lap in the backseat of his car, you ride his length at an achingly slow pace and your cunt squeezes his twitching cock for all its worth with each roll of your hips

» his hands are bruising your thighs as he sucks harshly at the sensitive skin just at the juncture between your neck and collarbone, leaving his mark wherever he can in an attempt to satiate his need to devour you as soon as possible

» your own hands tangle their way into the (now) messy brunette locks atop his head and tug harshly whenever he tries to thrust his hips upward to sink deeper into you, earning a guttaral moan from him every time

» “Fuck, Y/N, I need you to go faster for me, baby.”

» he practically whimpers against your skin, trying to maintain the deep tenor of his voice but the way your pussy is clamping down on his cock so tight, so slowly makes his tone waiver

» you can’t help but grin at your achievements before deciding now is a good a time as ever, so you lean forward and whisper softly into his ear between each labored breath

» “Then make me, daddy.”

» you swore you felt his dick get impossibly harder inside you the second the words left your mouth

» his palms move up to put your hips into a vice grip before he’s slamming you down onto his cock, the head nudging harshly against your cervix and promptly knocking the wind out of you with a squeal

» he takes advantage of your open, gasping mouth and shoves his tongue into it before setting an absolutely brutal pace against your sopping wet core

» your nails are digging into his shoulders in a failed attempt to ground yourself but he’s already got you seeing stars, and as he leans back for air he’s got the most sinful smirk on his face

» “I’ve been waitin’ forever to hear you say that, princess. Daddy’s gonna fuck you nice n’ hard, now, don’t you worry.”

[tcm]

Something New Has Been Added: Inside Tex Avery’s Madcap Animated Universe By  Donald Liebenson

“The secret in animating is first to have an everlasting sense of humor, next to be able to see the commonplace in a funny way and most important of all, to be able to sketch your idea so that the other person will think it's funny."—Tex Avery, The Dallas Morning News, 1933

At the start of Fred “Tex” Avery’s RED HOT RIDING HOOD (‘43), the Wolf, Red Riding Hood and even Grandma rebel against a traditional rendering of the classic fairy tale and threaten to quit the cartoon right then and there. “Every cartoon studio in Hollywood has done it this way,” Red complains. “I’m pretty sick of it myself,” Grandma chimes in. And just like that, something new had been added, with a cat-calling, zoot-suit-bedecked Wolf cruising Hollywood Blvd.; Red Hot Riding Hood (aka that Sweetheart of Swing) knockin’ ‘em dead at a Hollywood night club; and a slang-slinging Grandma (“Hiya cousin, what’s buzzin?’”) waiting for a wolf of her own in her penthouse digs.

RED HOT RIDING HOOD kicks off TCM’s early morning tribute to Tex Avery, which will easily be the funniest thing you see all day. The cartoons will be preceded by John Needham’s British documentary TEX AVERY: KING OF CARTOONS (‘88). It is an ideal primer into the Avery-verse that charts his legendary career from high school cartoonist through his tenures with Walter Lantz Productions, Warner Bros. and MGM. Along with a generous sampling of clips from his Warner Bros. and MGM cartoons, there are priceless interviews with equally legendary colleagues such as Chuck Jones, Heck Allen and Mike Lah, along with June Foray, the Queen of Cartoons and Joe Adamson, who wrote the essential book, also titled Tex Avery: King of Cartoons. (Coincidence, isn’t it?)

Needham told TCM he was encouraged to make the documentary by Chuck Jones, whom Needham had profiled for the BBC arts series, Omnibus. “He simply said, ‘We should make a film about Tex,” he said. As an Avery fan himself, Needham was all in. “I think it’s his ability to take a gag to the extremes and then take it further and then take it even further,” he said. “Chuck said that he could never copy Tex because he didn’t have a clue what Tex was doing, he just knew that he was a genius. I’m sure I don’t know either, but what he did was incredibly funny.”

The seven cartoons included in the TCM tribute meet the “incredibly funny” standard. They were produced for MGM. These are not as well known or as widely seen as his cartoons for Warner Bros., where, most notably, Avery directed A WILD HARE (’40), the cartoon that established Bugs Bunny’s brash personality. Avery was an outlier at the tony studio that boasted “more stars than there are in the heavens.” MGM did make sparkling and sophisticated romantic comedies directed by the likes of George Cukor and Ernst Lubitsch, but MGM was where clowns went to die.

Buster Keaton wrote in his memoir that signing with MGM was “the worst mistake” of his career. THE CAMERMAN (’28) was an auspicious beginning, but gradually, Keaton lost the lion’s share of his creative control, suffered studio interference and was partnered with Jimmy Durante. The Marx Brothers’ association with the studio likewise began promisingly with A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (‘35), but soon the iconoclastic highs of the brothers’ Paramount films were but a dim memory and the brothers were relegated to playing second fiddle to insipid romantic leads like Kenny Baker and Florence Rice in AT THE CIRCUS (‘39).

But MGM could not tame Tex Avery. Or perhaps studio execs didn’t think animation was worth the time and trouble to meddle with, allowing him to work unimpeded. The best of the cartoons he made for the studio between 1942-55 put the “mad” in madcap, if that’s your idea of a good time. In his book, Adamson observes: “No artist, in any century, on any continent, in any medium, has ever succeeded in creating his own universe as thoroughly and overwhelmingly as Tex Avery.”

You might say that a Tex Avery cartoon is like that proverbial box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get. “Say, what kind of a cartoon is this gonna be, anyway?” asks the title character in SCREWBALL SQUIRREL (‘44), another of the Avery 7 to be featured in TCM’s mini-Avery-palooza. Well, it’s NOT going to be a charming Disney-esque romp with adorable forest creatures. Screwball Squirrel sees to that when he takes one of them behind a tree and violently disposes of him, assuring the audience, “The funny stuff will start as soon as the phone rings.”

BAD LUCK BLACKIE and KING-SIZE CANARY, two masterpieces that are highlights of TCM’s Avery cartoon block, break all rules of the physical world and nature. In the former, a black cat brings instant bad karma each time he crosses the path of a bullying bulldog. At one point, the unfortunate pooch must dodge a succession of falling objects that escalate from a sink to a battleship. In the latter, a chase between a cat, mouse and dog escalates to gigantic proportions thanks to a bottle of Jumbo Gro.

What critic James Agee wrote about the Marx Brothers also applies to Avery in that even lesser Tex is better worth seeing than most other things I can think of. SYMPHONY IN SLANG (’51) is a succession of silly sight gags inspired by a hipster’s arrival at the Pearly Gates. He tells his life story to a befuddled Noah Webster, who pictures literal translations to such phrases as, “I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth,” “It was raining cats and dogs” and “I died laughing.”

SCREWBALL SQUIRREL features some great self-referential gags, such as the title character peeking ahead to the next scene to figure out what to do next. But the character was so obnoxious that he was actually killed off at the end of his fifth, and final, cartoon.

Avery’s influence is vast. When in THE LITTLE MERMAID (‘89), Sebastian’s jaw drops like an anvil when he spies Ariel nursing an injured Prince Eric, that’s a classic Tex Avery take. THE MASK (‘94) pays direct homage to RED HOT RIDING HOOD when Jim Carrey’s Mask man is undone by nightclub chanteuse Cameron Diaz. And the Tex Avery force is strong in Animaniacs’ helter-skelter pacing and fourth-wall breaking.

But there is nothing like the real thing. No one made cartoons that were loonier. The secret? As Avery told Joe Adamson, he didn’t think in terms of the age of his audience: “I tried to do something I thought I would laugh at if I were to see it on the screen.”

[mrs-march-ahs]

CONGRATULATIONS ON 900 !! 🥺 you deserve every single follower and you’ll be at 1K in no time!! we love you so much!! please don’t put too much pressure on yourself!

you don’t have to do this at all and it’s kind of lame but,,I’d love some evan hc’s with a (gn or male) reader who just- loves spoiling them? truth be told all of these boys have been through a lot and I just wanna take care of them yknow so 👉👈

Reader Spoiling The Evans

THANK YOU!! I LOVE YOU!! That’s sooo sweet, thank you babey<3 it’s mostly gender neutral, until half of Kai, i’m really sorry about that, but i couldn’t really think of many ways to spoil him, there are still a few things for Kai that are neutral!!

I did very specific snuggling with Tatey because @tatesimper wanted it, no problems, I got you darling<3

ALSOOOO I just really quickly wanna say that I made a 

roleplay account for James March and Kai Anderson called @murder-daddies,

if you want to send a message on anon (or off!) or follow, that’d be great! I thought it’d be really fun to have an rp account:)

okay, enjoy! :)

--

Tate

-Loves being spoiled with your attention more than anything else -Any sort of praise or reassurance makes him soft and blushy -He loves cuddling and would melt completely if you initiated cuddles -Him standing at the end of your bed and you open your arms - “c’mere” -He’ll timidly climb and crawl over to you and flop in your arms -He’d love to hold hands with you as you cuddle together -He would love to hear you read to him -Give him big slobbery kisses “mwah” -Obviously listen to him when he talks -Rub his back -Let him lay on your boobies/chest and play with his curls -Share your snacks with him, but feed them to him and he’ll love it -Perfect scenario is watching a film or documentary, Tate laying between your legs while you shovel popcorn into his mouth

Kit

­-The best way to spoil Kit is to do things for him or make things for him -He’s grateful every single day that you make dinner and says thank you every single day - “She’s pretty, she can cook, is there anything you can’t do?” -Baking cupcakes or cookies for him is one of his favourite treats as Kit has a huge sweet tooth -Kit loves when you buy him little gifts, even like flowers -Though you don’t have much money, so maybe stick to baking -Although Kit loved when you bought cigarettes for him, or lit them for him, or even occasionally smoked them with him, he would be willing to quit if you wanted him to -You would have to help him and support him to the nth degree -He would come home frustrated after a long day and not have anything to calm him down since he’s trying to not smoke -Let him take his frustration and anger out on you:) -Also tell him that every time he gets an urge to smoke he should kiss you -Which leads to your cheeks always being wet -Listen to him rant about work even though you don’t understand any of the specifics

Franken Kyle

-If you give him literally anything he will treasure it, because you gave it to him so it’s special -If he’s supervising (trying to help, but really just watching) as you cook, you have to give him a spatula to stand and hold so he doesn’t feel useless -He’ll stand there and take his job of holding it very very seriously, and if you take it from him to stir, you have to put it back in his hands -If you put it on the counter, he won’t pick it up he’ll just whine until you give it back to him -He absolutely adores soft cuddly things, so every stuffed animal you give him he cherishes -He earns a present when you leave him with somebody else while you have to go do adulty things -Even though you obviously can take him everywhere if you wanted to, sometimes it’s just easier to leave him at home while you quickly go out and buy food or sort things out -If you leave him with somebody, he doesn’t interact with them much and only needs them to keep an eye on him -But he’s always very whiney when you leave, so if he’s a good boy and stays at home with Cordelia or Fiona, then he gets a stuffed animal brought back -They will not leave his arms, even during dinner -He’ll try very hard to bring them into the bath with him but you won’t let him, so you compromise and leave the stuffed teddy on the sink, facing Kyle so he can watch him have a bath -If you give Kyle a kiss goodnight you have to also kiss the teddy -Kyle loves to cuddle up to you and absolutely loves when you play with his hair or stroke his shoulder or something -Whines if you stop touching him, even for a second to scratch your nose -Wants to be the sole focus of your attention -And he always is

Jimmy

-That boy is a snuggle machine -He loves having you close like most of them do -But he specifically melts at kisses -A single kiss on his cheek or his hand will make his entire day -He’ll automatically smile and put his hand to his cheek where you kissed him, before promptly regretting it as now he can’t feel the imprint of the kiss anymore -Loves when you show you listen to him -He’ll tell you that he’s super worried about doing a certain new act, but he’ll be rambling while you brush your teeth, assuming that you’re not even listening -But then the next day you’ll go with him to the main tent and give him a big smooooch on the cheek and tell him that he’ll kill at his new act -His whole face will light up, not even realising that you really were listening to him -He’ll be so happy and confident from your kiss that he’ll do great at his new act -To really treat him, take him somewhere -He loves the reassurance that you aren’t embarrassed to be around him -He also loves drinking so -Take him to a diner or bar, or to be super special, maybe for his birthday (June 23rd), you could take him on a mini vacation -Save up, and if Miss Elsa is in a generous mood, she can give you a few pennies to help you out -Most likely pay for the taxi to the hotel you booked -Jimmy loves spending time with you so he’ll adore being on a one-on-one holiday with you and just you -Have lots of sexy fun time

James

-He yearns to be with you, feel you, smell you and touch you -Spoiling him with attention and affection will make him melt inside -He also wants to feel comfortable and safe around you -Being there for him and listening to him when he’s a little down or frustrated about something means the world to him -He adores to listen to you too -Before going to bed you take it in turns to talk -Because you love his voice so much he will lay in bed with you snuggled at his side and read aloud The Great Gatsby, or a different book he’s reading -Either a literary classic or a murder mystery -If it’s your turn, you’ll snuggle up to him and stroke his hair -His hair when wet gets a little curly and you tease him about it -Wrap his little curlies around your fingers as you tell him a story about a strong knight in shining armour saving a princess called Y/N from an evil dragon - “Isn’t that a little juvenile, darling?” - “Do you want to know how it ends or not?” - “Apologies, please do continue”

Kai

-The best way to make Kai feel spoiled is just to not make his ‘job’ any harder than it already is -Don’t resist pinky powers or murder missions and just listen to him and be obedient to him -He’ll feel so much more comfortable around you if he doesn’t have to constantly fight with you -Although he wants strong people in his cult, he wants sheep that are devoted to him a lot more -If you murder somebody near him, you’re showing that you’re hard and strong but just be sweet to him -The sweeter you are to him the more vulnerable he’ll become towards you -Letting him talk to you about his parents and how he feels, even if his thoughts don’t make much sense -Honestly, the biggest compliment is Kai coming to talk to you about his feelings, even if his thoughts and feelings don’t make sense -Because if he has it all figured out, he already thought about it for a long time by himself -But if he doesn’t know what to think himself, then clearly he values your input and needs you to help him figure things out -Willingness to do everything for him -Listening to all of his plans and only contributing if he wants you to -I’m sorry, I know you requested gender neutral but the rest is about making babies, Kai is hard -If you’re willing to start a family with him he’ll convince you that the only holy way to do it is to get married first and do it properly -He’ll probably never ask you to marry him or be his s/o, because that’s a little cheesy -He’ll just take you out and take you to a jewellery store with some savings and ask you which ring you like, and then take you to get married -He’ll tell you and reassure you how good of a cause it is that you’re giving him a Messiah -You’re everything he’s ever wanted in a woman -Obedient to him but defiant against everybody else

━━━━━━♡♤♡━━━━━━

taglist<3

@milly-louise  @amourtentiaa  @kitwalker02  @tatestripedsweater  @therenlover  @maria-akira         @tatesimper  @margaretboothsear  @mossybank  @ahsxual  @mxlti-fand0m-imaginess  @mrs-march-ahs-biggest-fan  @kitwalkerangel  @kitisagoldenretrieverboy @darlingkitt  @blackbat2020 @divinerulerluvr  @undeadcortez @whiiiiplaaaaash @kaismessiahbb @elaineygrace

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: How the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami Influenced Anime Over the Past Decade

Image via Netflix

  In a single moment, everything changed; after one great shake of the earth, the world was never the same again. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, also known as 3.11 in Japan. At a magnitude of 9.0, it was the biggest earthquake to ever hit the island. The earthquake, and the subsequent tsunami that followed, also killed an estimated 15,899, injured 6,157, and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. The meltdown of the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant followed — rendering parts of Japan uninhabitable to this day — with many still unable to go back to their home even ten years on.

  The shaking was felt all the way in Tokyo and beyond, leaving physical scars on the world’s biggest metropolitan area. This was nothing compared to the devastation seen in the prefectures of Miyagi, Fukushima, and Iwate. For those who lived through the event, whether that be in Tohoku or Tokyo, the feelings of that day have left psychological scars that have influenced their daily lives. 

  Image via Netflix

  Aftershocks from the seismic event can still be felt even today: a magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit the region a little under a month ago, raising fears that another big quake could shake Japan at any time in the near future. 

  For creators living in Japan, these overwhelming emotions have manifested in their works. Creators such as Hayao Miyazaki, Masaaki Yuasa, Hideaki Anno, and Makoto Shinkai have internalized the events that transpired in their backyard and used 3.11 to help spread awareness, unravel some of the hanging threads, or even try and bring hope and happiness to fans. 

  Hayao Miyazaki looking at the debris leftover from 3.11 in an NHK documentary 

Image via NHK

  Hayao Miyazaki isn’t one to mince words and always just gets on with the job. A few weeks after 3.11, the Studio Ghibli director introduced his son’s latest work at the time, From Up on Poppy Hill. While Miyazaki tried to keep the press focused on the film, inevitably the topic of the tragedy from two weeks ago arose. Responding to why he felt it was okay to hold a press conference after the earthquake, Miyazaki spoke about his local bakery, explaining that “the old man at the bakery where I always buy dumplings and sweets has continued to make bread. That's why I think we should keep making movies.”

  At the time, Miyazaki dismissed the thought that 3.11 would affect how he made his next work. But in a 2013 interview with Jiji upon the release of his then “final work” The Wind Rises, the director said the film “has not been affected by the earthquake or the nuclear accident. [The idea] was there from the beginning. I think that the times have caught up with us and overtaken us.” The Wind Rises contains a very realistic – almost chilling – interpretation of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake.

  The earthquake scene from The Wind Rises

  For Japan Sinks 2020, Masaaki Yuasa used some of his own experiences to highlight how characters would be feeling in the moment. In multiple scenes, the main characters are left worrying about what is going on without a clear line of communication – in fact, sometimes getting misinformation from sources not fully aware of the situation. 

  Yuasa himself explained in an interview in AnimeAnime that he felt like he didn’t know what was the “correct information” when he felt the quake in Tokyo in 2011. As he looked for information online, he heard rumors that Tokyo was in imminent danger. He was scared. Reflecting, Yuasa knew in his “heart” that he wasn’t as scared as those in the Tohoku region, but was “horrified” by what he saw on the news. Yuasa used a lot of those emotions he felt at the time to aid in telling the Japan Sinks 2020 story.

  Image via Netflix

  But it wasn’t just anime creators who were affected by 3.11. The 8th part of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga series, JoJolion, debuted only a few months after the quake in 2011. Set in a town called Morioh (similar to the town in Diamond is Unbreakable), the location is based on manga creator Hirohiko Araki’s hometown of Sendai. The manga was being conceptualized when the earthquake occurred and Araki felt that he “couldn't avoid” touching on the subject in the series, he said in an Asashi Shimbun interview in 2014.

  Araki’s family home, which had been around for 14 generations, was also swept away in the tsunami. He added that was shocked at the loss of his childhood home and felt that he should draw manga to bring entertainment to readers and fans.

  Araki wasn’t the only manga creator to touch on the events of 3.11 in their long-running series. Tetsu Kariya’s long-running series Oshinbo touched on some controversial aspects of the aftermath of the tragedy, with one of the characters in the series suffering from a nosebleed after being in the town of Futaba – a town that is still not open to the public.

  This caused an outcry with government officials on the national and prefectural level, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying that “the government will make the best effort to take action against baseless rumors” in reference to the manga. These protests saw the collected volume version of the arc change some of the wording slightly as to “clarify the intention of what was said," and that "some of the characters' lines have been altered.” The series has been on hiatus after the arc ended two chapters later in May 2014.

  Image via Netflix

  The Japanese government was also at the forefront of Hideaki Anno’s 2016 film Shin Godzilla, with many reviewers noting the similarities between the government in the film and what had occurred in the aftermath of 3.11. As Godzilla walks the neighborhoods of Kanagawa, waters rise, boats come ashore, and people are fleeing en-masse, meanwhile, the government is claiming that everything will be okay.

  This sharp social satire of the events may be skin deep as the film goes on, but exposes the fact that Japan has a recent event that is very real and emotive to reference. Shin Godzilla Producer Akihiro Yamauchi explained in a 2016 Nippon.com interview that 3.11 “changed Japan more than anything else in the past 12 years.” He went on to say that the film had the option of “escaping into fantasy...but Anno-san and I talked it over and we both agreed that an approach like that would be meaningless.” 

  Image via Netflix

  Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 movie Your Name, was directly influenced by the 2011 earthquake and the change in the psyche of the Japanese people. Taki, the male protagonist, at one moment in the movie says “You will never know when Tokyo could become like this,” vocalizing the fear that festers away in many people living in Japan. 

  Genki Kawamura, a producer on both Your Name and Weathering with You, explained at a discussion at the Aoyama Shachu think tank in 2019 that “Your Name is aware of the Great East Japan earthquake.” Shinkai later explained in a 2017 interview with Huffington Post Japan that the disaster aspect of Your Name is only the underlying layer of the film, and the film had to end the way it did for it to feel complete to both him and the audience.

  In a 2018 Makoto Shinkai Exhibition in Sendai, the first prototype sketch drawn of Your Name by Shinkai was shown to the public. It depicted the area of Yuriage in Natori City, Miyagi prefecture, which was completely wiped out in the tsunami. The population of the area only had 30 minutes to evacuate before waters overtook the town. There weren’t many survivors.

  Image via Asahi Shimbun

  Shinkai visited the area of Yuriage in July 2011 and drew the sketch shortly after, which later became the springboard for what then became Your Name. He said solemnly in a TBS program “This could have been my town.” 

  Shinkai explained in the Huffington Post interview that 3.11 changed the way people in Japan thought about the world. "Before they’d think that “somehow...Japanese society will continue as it is," he said. "But since 2011, I think that idea has collapsed. The town does not remain a town forever.” 

  Because of this, Shinkai decided to focus on the little things that made up life: A late train, cutting up food, texting. Shinkai thought it was “necessary to draw meaning from the monotony of daily life.” Nowadays these beautifully crafted moments from Shinkai’s works are shared online as some sort of social media anime ASMR. 

  In the end, Shinkai’s main driving factor for the film was to make the audience “happy.” And it struck a chord with a wide audience, as the film would later go on to become the third highest-grossing anime film of all time worldwide.

  Image via Netflix

  As we look back at how one event changed the world view of many, it’s good to know that despite the hardships faced in the unexpected, the desire to create and bring smiles to audiences perseveres. Many creators have used 3.11 as a chance to reflect, and it's only to be seen how the long tail of 3.11 continues to impact creators and their works.   

  The Tohoku region is still feeling the effects of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, with families torn apart and homes unable to be returned to. Japan NPO Center has a website set up with ways to donate to local charities and not-for-profit organizations within the Tohoku region that has been set up to serve affected communities.

    Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram. 

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daryl Harding

[saijspellhart]

Things I binged recently:

(Still coping with grief and depression, and one of the ways I tend to do that is just to distract myself from it all with Netflix. Here are some things I watched or tried watching. And my thoughts on them.)

The Office: Hated this show. Which was a shame because I really really enjoyed Parks and Rec, and these shows are supposed to be similar in style. Unfortunately this show is cynical, mean, and pessimistic. Characters get away with being outright racist, sexist, and antagonistic. Are unapologetic about their hurtful actions, and it sickens me. I was told season one was bad, and to watch season two, and I did. And even season two was awful. And I shouldn’t have to slog through three seasons of a show before it gets to a point where it’s like-able and good. If it takes you three seasons to figure it out, then no thanks. That’s a lot of show I have to suffer through before I MIGHT get to something I enjoy. I loved Parks and Rec because the characters loved and cared about each other, had genuine friendships, aspirations, and optimism. They strived to better the world around them, despite many mishaps and obstacles along the way. Parks and Rec was uplifting and sincere, where The Office is cynical and mean. 1/10.

A Whisker Away: Good, although I found the romance between the main character and her crush to be insincere and weak. I think the message of love would have been stronger if the best friend ended up being the one going to rescue her in the end. It never felt like the boy actually had feelings for her, just a begrudging respect and budding friendship. And it felt like his feelings were guilted and coerced by her actions to run away in the end. Like, “shit, I messed up and she ran away from home. Better tell her I love her, so she comes back home.” I understand that wasn’t what they were trying to do in this film, but it’s how the relationship came across. Manipulative. Especially since most of it was one sided, with her spying on his life as a cat. The love someone has for a pet does not equate romantic affection. Excellent movie for the heavy themes, Magic, and story, just think the overall message and relationships should have been overhauled, and worked around. I think the love the main character’s best friend had for her was more pure and powerful that the one-sided obsessive crush she had on the boy. 6/10.

Brand New Animal: Great show. Both my husband and I loved it. And were gushing about it even after we finished it. My only critique is all the heavy handed exposition. It felt clunky, ham-handed, and unnatural. I think with a few more episodes to the show they might have been able to parse out that exposition and find more natural ways to feed the audience that information, rather than huge unsolicited info dumps on the Main Character. Especially since half the time she didn’t earn that info, didn’t need it, didn’t ask, and just plain shouldn’t have been told some of it. Like why would you just spit classified secret information out to a character you know can’t keep secrets, or even follow directions?? Aside from that, solid characters, solid friendships, cute story, lots of interesting events, and just a blast from start to finish. Would highly recommend it to anyone. If you like Zootopia or Beastars, you’ll probably enjoy this too. 8/10.

Japan Sinks 2020: I. LOVED. THIS. SHOW. Omg, it had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I just couldn’t stop watching. It’s in the disaster movie genre. Like Volcano, Dante’s Peak, or The Day After Tomorrow. That “what if this catastrophic natural disaster occurred,” and you follow this group of survivors as they work together to stay alive. And damnit if I wasn’t emotionally invested in every single one of them. I wanted to see them survive, and see how they made it through. I wasn’t sure if I was gonna be able to connect as strongly with their struggle given that it was animated rather than live action. But that didn’t matter at all. The tone is serious, and everything is given the weight and consideration it deserves. The animation style has a realistic tone to it, and the fact that it was an anime never got in the way of the journey and the emotions and the intensity for a second. I felt ALL of it. 10/10.

Unsolved Mysteries Netflix (documentary): I’m a slut for documentaries, all kinds of documentaries. So it’s no surprise I watched this. If you like unsatisfying true stories then this is it. A whole season of unsolved crimes. You get all the information wrapped up and handed to you in a neat little interesting package, and are left to just gnaw on it wondering who did it, and if they’ll ever solve it. One of the episodes isn’t a crime though, it’s a UFO story, which was a weird change of pace and tone from the rest of the season. Still creepy, but in a different way. I liked it, but it can be frustrating when you want answers. It gets an 7/10 because I wanted answers.

Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts: I could watch this show over and over again. My husband and I were foaming at the mouth waiting for season 2, and when it finally released, we gobbled it up and then watched it again right after. Excellent show. Post-Apocalyptic story, where the surface of the earth is overrun with mutant animals, and humans are living underground in “burrows.” The main character Kipo gets separated from her people and stranded on the surface, and has to find a way home. Along the way she makes some human friends, and mutant friends, and connects with people through music. And even learns some deep dark secrets about her Mom and Dad, and even herself. It’s a beautiful story emotionally, but also an exciting adventure. I love it. 10/10.

Eurovision, the Story of Fire Saga: Good. Which is saying something because I’m not a fan of Will Ferrell and he plays one of the main characters in this movie. I enjoyed the movie, and it made me laugh. Which was another surprise because I’m a cold-hearted bitch when it comes to comedy, and most things don’t make me laugh. So when a comedy works for me it’s a surprise. And this comedy worked in places. Not ALL places, but it did get some chuckles and a laugh or two. And I did enjoy the story it told. The movie is about two friends who are musicians/singers that enter singing/performance contest, and the drama that ensues along the way. It’s a cute underdog story. 6/10.

Floor is Lava (game show): The name of the game says it all. Groups of three contestants must navigate rooms using only furniture, and chandeliers, and shit. They can’t touch the floor because the room is flooded with hot orange koolaid. And if they fall in they “die.” Prepare to watch grown ass adults hop, hobble, and flop over furniture, tables, and other obstacles, as they try to get from one side of a room to the other side without falling into the koolaid. It’s exciting, and fun, and although the commentary is awful, the struggle of the contestants more than makes up for it. 8/10.

Splice: Never seen this movie before. Thought I’d give it a try since it just showed up on Netflix. It’s... odd. I’m having a hard time deciding if I loved or hated it. It’s an interesting look into what could happen should we start experimenting with human DNA and other sentient life. And how that could go all kinds of wrong very quickly. I like horror, and this delivered on some of the horror elements, but mostly it just jabs you over and over again with moral dilemmas. And you end up feeling like all the characters in the movie majorly failed each other, and they were all the bad guys. I’ll give it a 5/10 because I’m conflicted whether I liked it or not. But it was worth seeing once.

Ju-on Origins: I’ve seen a couple of the Grudge movies, which is the Americanized version of this horror franchise. But I’ve never seen any of the Ju-on movies. So it was a new experience watching this. It’s non-linear storytelling can be challenging to follow, but the stories it’s telling are fascinating and unnerving. I had to watch it with the shitty English dub because my attention span is too short for subtitles. And this wasn’t just a single movie, it’s a show with an entire first season. Episode 4 was definitely where shit hit the fan, and things got really scary. But I like slow burn horror, so I enjoyed the build up of the previous three episodes, and how they just carefully built on the apprehension and dread until things really got scary in the fourth episode. After that the rest of the show is just a roller coaster of highs and lulls, that leave you wondering where the series is gonna go in season 2. Definitely my favorite installment in the Grudge/Ju-on franchise that I’ve seen so far. And it’s got me curious to check out the other Ju-on movies. 8/10.

The Girl with all the Gifts: I’m a sucker for zombie movies and this was a unique and refreshing take on them. The idea is that the zombie outbreak is caused by a strain of the Cordyceps fungus that ends up infecting humans. And the surviving humans are using children born from infected mothers to try and find a cure for the outbreak. The children are like this functioning hybrid of fungus and human, and not completely lost like the humans who were directly infected. The movie explores the moral dilemma of how the children are treated, and the further of humans. I enjoyed the movie, and the concepts. It was a great addition to the zombie franchise. Would recommend. 7/10.

Abducted in Plain Sight (documentary): another crime documentary. This one dealt with a kidnapper/pedophile who managed to kidnap the same girl twice, and the lasting trauma his actions had on that girl. It was sad, and heartbreaking, and horrifying. If you like crime documentaries and have a steely stomach, check this one out. I won’t give it a rating because it deals with real life stuff and children and it’s not a show.

Evil Genius (documentary): one last documentary on this list. I was on a crime documentary spree. Usually I like animal documentaries. This one was about a couple who masterminded a bank heist by attaching a collar bomb to a man and sending him on a wild goose chase scavenger hunt. There’s also a case about a corpse in a freezer, and how the two cases are connected. It’s absolutely bonkers. Just wow. It’s four episodes long, a mini-series, but just an interesting experience. I mostly watched/listened to this while slowly chipping away at a commission. If you like crime documentaries it’s worth a watch. I give this one a 6/10 because I won’t be watching it a second time, but also because I think the format and how they explained everything was kinda long winded.

[watusichris]

You Oughta “Get Carter”

Another old Night Flight piece, tied to a Turner Classic Movies airing, about a movie I never tire of watching. (Unfortunately, the Krays film “Legend” turned out to be not so good.) ********** The English gangster movie has proven an enduring genre to this day. The 1971 picture that jumpstarted the long-lived cycle, Get Carter, Mike Hodges’ bracing, brutal tale of a mobster’s revenge, screens late Thursday on TCM as part of a day-long tribute to Michael Caine, who stars as the film’s titular anti-hero.

We won’t have to wait long for the next high-profile Brit-mob saga: October will see the premiere of Brian Helgeland’s Legend, a new feature starring Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dark Knight Rises, Locke) in a tour de force dual role as Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the legendarily murderous identical twin gangleaders who terrorized London in the ‘60s. The violent exploits of the Krays mesmerized Fleet Street’s journalists and the British populace until the brothers and most of the top members of their “firm” were arrested in 1968.

The siblings both died in prison after receiving life sentences. They’ve been the subjects of several English TV documentaries and a 1990 feature starring Martin and Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet. However, the Krays and their seamy milieu may have had their greatest impact in fictional form, via the durable figure of Jack Carter, the creation of a shy, alcoholic graphic artist, animator, and fiction writer named Ted Lewis, the man now recognized by many as “the father of British noir.”

Born in 1940 in a Manchester suburb, Lewis was raised in the small town of Barton-upon-Humber in the dank English midlands. A sickly child, he became engrossed with art, the movies, and writing. The product of an English art school in nearby Hull, he wrote his first, unsuccessful novel, a semi-autobiographical piece of “kitchen sink” realism called All the Way Home and All the Night Through, in 1965.

He soon moved sideways into movie animation, serving as clean-up supervisor on George Dunning’s Beatles feature Yellow Submarine (1968). However, now married with a couple of children, he decided to return to writing with an eye to crafting a commercial hit, and in 1970 he published a startling, ultra-hardboiled novel titled Jack’s Return Home.

British fiction had never produced anything quite like the book’s protagonist Jack Carter. He is the enforcer for a pair of London gangsters, Gerald and Les Fletcher, who bear more than a passing resemblance to the Krays. At the outset of the book, recounted in the first person, Carter travels by train to an unnamed city in the British midlands (modeled after the city of Scunthorpe near Lewis’ hometown) to bury his brother Frank, who has died in an alleged drunk driving accident.

Carter instantly susses that his brother was murdered, and he sets about sorting out a hierarchy of low-end midlands criminals (all of whom he knew in his early days as a budding hoodlum) responsible for the crime, investigating the act with a gun in his hand and a heart filled with hate. He’s no Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe bound by a moral code – in fact, he once bedded Frank’s wife, and is now sleeping with his boss Gerald’s spouse. He’s a sociopathic career criminal and professional killer – a “villain,” in the English term -- who will use any means at his disposal to secure his revenge.

Carter’s pursuit of rough justice for his brother, and for a despoiled niece, attracts the attention of the Fletchers, whose business relationships with the Northern mob are being disrupted by their lieutenant’s campaign of vengeance. As Carter leaves behind a trail of corpses and homes in on the last of his quarry, the hunter has become the hunted, and Jack’s Return Home climaxes with scenes of bloodletting worthy of a Jacobean tragedy, or of Grand Guignol.

Before its publication, Lewis’ grimy, violent book attracted the attention of Michael Klinger, who had produced Roman Polanski’s stunning ‘60s features Repulsion and Cul-de-Sac. Klinger acquired film rights to the novel before its publication in 1970, and sent a galley copy to Mike Hodges, then a U.K. TV director with no feature credits.

Hodges, who immediately signed on as director and screenwriter of Klinger’s feature – which was retitled Get Carter -- was not only drawn to the taut, fierce action, but also by the opportunity to peel away the veneer of propriety that still lingered in British society and culture. As he noted in his 2000 commentary for the U.S. DVD release of the film, “You cannot deny that [in England], like anywhere else, corruption is endemic.”

Casting was key to the potential box office prospects of the feature, and Klinger and Hodges’ masterstroke was securing Michael Caine to play Jack Carter. By 1970, Caine had become an international star, portraying spy novelist Len Deighton’s agent Harry Palmer in three pictures and garnering raves as the eponymous philanderer in Alfie.

Caine had himself known some hard cases in his London neighborhood; in his own DVD commentary, he says that his dead-eyed, terrifyingly reserved Carter was “an amalgam of people I grew up with – I’d known them all my life.” Hodges notes of Caine’s Carter, “There’s a ruthlessness about him, and I would have been foolish not to use it to the advantage of the film.”

Playing what he knew, Caine gave the performance of a lifetime – a study in steely cool, punctuated by sudden outbursts of unfettered fury. The actor summarizes his character on the DVD: “Here was a dastardly man coming as the savior of a lady’s honor. It’s the knight saving the damsel in distress, except this knight is not a very noble or gallant one. It’s the villain as hero.”

The supporting players were cast with equal skill. Ian Hendry, who was originally considered for the role of Carter, ultimately portrayed the hit man’s principal nemesis and target Eric Paice. Caine and Hendry’s first faceoff in the film, an economical conversation at a local racetrack, seethes with unfeigned tension and unease – Caine was wary of Hendry, whose deep alcoholism made the production a difficult one, while Hendry was jealous of the leading man’s greater success.

For Northern mob kingpin Cyril Kinnear, Hodges recruited John Osborne, then best known in Great Britain as the writer of the hugely successfully 1956 play Look Back in Anger, Laurence Olivier’s screen and stage triumph The Entertainer, and Tony Richardson’s period comedy Tom Jones, for which he won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Osborne, a skilled actor before he found fame as a writer, brings subdued, purring menace to the part.

Though her part was far smaller than those of such other supporting actresses as Geraldine Moffat, Rosemarie Dunham, and Dorothy White, Brit sex bomb Britt Ekland received third billing as Anna, Gerald Fletcher’s wife and Carter’s mistress. Her marquee prominence is somewhat justified by an eye-popping sequence in which she engages in a few minutes of steamy phone sex with Caine.

Some small roles were populated by real British villains. George Sewell, who plays the Fletchers’ minion Con McCarty, was a familiar of the Krays’ older brother Charlie, and introduced the elder mobster to Carry On comedy series actress Barbara Windsor, who subsequently married another member of the Kray firm. John Bindon, who appears briefly as the younger Fletcher sibling, was a hood and racketeer who later stood trial for murder; a notorious womanizer, he romanced Princess Margaret, whose clandestine relationship with Bindon later became a key plot turn in the 2008 Jason Strathan gangster vehicle The Bank Job.

Verisimilitude was everything for Hodges, who shot nearly all of the film on grimly realistic locations in Newcastle, the down-at-the-heel coal-mining town on England’s northeastern coast. The director vibrantly employs interiors of the city’s seedy pubs, rooming houses, nightclubs and betting parlors. In one inspired bit of local color, he uses an appearance by a local girl’s marching band, the Pelaw Hussars, to drolly enliven a scene in which a nude, shotgun-toting Carter backs down the Fletchers’ gunmen.

The film’s relentless action was perfectly framed by director of photography Wolfgang Suchitzky, whose experience as a cameraman for documentarian Paul Rotha is put to excellent use. Some sequences are masterfully shot with available light; the movie’s most brutal murder plays out at night by a car’s headlights. The breathtakingly staged final showdown between Carter and Paice is shot under lowering skies against the grey backdrop of a North Sea coal slag dump.

Tough, uncompromising, and utterly unprecedented in English cinema, Get Carter was a hit in the U.K. It fared poorly in the U.S., where its distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer dumped it on the market as the lower half of a double bill with the Frank Sinatra Western spoof Dirty Dingus Magee. In his DVD commentary, Caine notes that it was only after Ted Turner acquired MGM’s catalog and broadcast the film on his cable networks that the movie developed a cult audience in the States.

Get Carter has received two American remakes. The first, George Armitage’s oft-risible 1972 blaxploitation adaptation Hit Man, starred Bernie Casey as Carter’s African-American counterpart Tyrone Tackett. It is notable for a spectacularly undraped appearance by Pam Grier, whose character meets a hilarious demise that is somewhat spoiled by the picture’s amusing trailer. (Casey and Keenan Ivory Wayans later lampooned the film in the 1988 blaxploitation parody I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.)

Hodges’ film was drearily Americanized and relocated to Seattle in Stephen Kay’s like-titled 2000 Sylvester Stallone vehicle. It’s a sluggish, misbegotten venture, about which the less that is said the better. Michael Caine’s presence in the cast as villain Cliff Brumby (played in the original by Brian Mosley) only serves to remind viewers that they are watching a vastly inferior rendering of a classic.

Ted Lewis wrote seven more novels after Jack’s Return Home, and returned to Jack Carter for two prequels. The first of them, Jack Carter’s Law (1970), an almost equally intense installment in which Carter ferrets out a “grass” – an informer – in the Fletchers’ organization, is a deep passage through the London underworld of the ‘60s, full of warring gangsters and venal, dishonest coppers.

The final episode in the trilogy, Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon (1977), was a sad swan song for British noir’s most memorable bad man. In it, Carter travels to the Mediterranean island of Majorca on a Fletchers-funded “holiday,” only to discover that he has actually been dispatched to guard a jittery American mobster hiding out at the gang’s villa. It’s a flabby, obvious, and needlessly discursive book; Lewis’ exhaustion is apparent in his desperate re-use of a plot point central to the action of the first Carter novel.

Curiously, the locale and setup of Mafia Pigeon appear to be derived from Pulp, the 1975 film that reunited director Hodges and actor Caine. In it, the actor plays a writer of sleazy paperback thrillers who travels to the Mediterranean isle of Malta to pen the memoirs of Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney), a Hollywood actor with gangland connections. Hilarity and mayhem ensue.

All of Lewis’ characters consume enough alcohol to put down an elephant, and Lewis himself succumbed to alcoholism in 1982, at the age of 42. Virtually unemployable, he had moved back home to Barton-upon-Humber, where lived with his parents.

He went out with a bang, however: In 1980, he published his final and finest book, the truly explosive mob thriller GBH (the British abbreviation for “grievous bodily harm”). The novel focuses on the last days of vice lord George Fowler, a sadist in the grand Krays manner, whose empire is being toppled by internal treachery. Using a unique time-shifting structure that darts back and forth between “the smoke” (London) and “the sea” (Fowler’s oceanside hideout), it reaches a finale of infernal, hallucinatory intensity.

After Lewis’ death, his work fell into obscurity, and his novels were unavailable in America for decades. Happily, Soho Press reissued the Carter trilogy in paperback in 2014 and republished GBH in hardback earlier this year. Now U.S. readers have the opportunity to read the books that influenced an entire school of English noir writers, including such Lewis disciples and venerators as Derek Raymond, David Peace, and Jake Arnott.

Echoes of GBH can be heard in The Long Good Friday, another esteemed English gangster film starring Bob Hoskins as the arrogant and impetuous chief of a collapsing London firm. Released the same year as Lewis’ last novel, the John Mackenzie-directed feature is only one of a succession of outstanding movies – The Limey, The Hit, Layer Cake, Sexy Beast, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels among them – that owe a debt to Get Carter, the daddy of them all.

[lilahdesignforperformance]

PRECEDENT WORKS

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 1/5

The Mending Project - Lee Mingwei

The Mending Project is an interactive conceptual installation in which they use very simple elements—thread, colour, sewing—as points of departure for gaining insights into the relationships among self, other, and immediate surroundings. It also constitutes an act of sharing between Lee Mingwei and a stranger.

Visitors initially see a long table, two chairs and a wall of colourful cone-shaped spools of thread. During gallery hours, Lee is seated at that table, to which visitors could bring various damaged textile articles, choose the colour of thread they wish, and watch as he mends the article. The mended article, with thread ends still attached, is then placed on the table along with previously mended items. Owners return to the gallery to collect their mended articles on the last day of the exhibition.

The act of mending takes on emotional value as well, depending on how personal the damaged item is, e.g., a favourite shirt vs. an old but little-used tablecloth. This emotional mending is marked by the use of thread which is not the colour of the fabric around it, and often colourfully at odds with that fabric, as though to commemorate the repair. Unlike a tailor, who will try to hide the fact that the fabric was once damaged, Lee Mingwei’s mending is done with the idea of celebrating the repair, as if to say, “something good was done here, a gift was given, this fabric is even better than before.”

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 2/5

Article 14.1 - Phuong Ngo

Amid the polarity of debate about Australia’s refugee policy, too rarely do we hear the voices of refugees themselves. In Article 14.1, artist Phuong Ngo gives voice to those who flee persecution, focussing on the experience of Vietnamese refugees seeking asylum in Australia, following the fall of Saigon. The title refers to Article 14.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: ‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’

The artist’s own history is deeply rooted in the refugee experience, and he pays respect to this heritage by occupying the gallery for the ten-day duration of the exhibition, while subsisting on the same meagre supplies his family survived on in their journey. Phuong Ngo, seated at a small table at the front of the gallery, quietly folds small origami boats from ‘Hell Bank Notes’, a form of paper currency that is traditionally burnt as an offering to the dead. The audience are invited to remove their shoes and sit at one of eight red tables.

On each table a short video loops on a tablet, demonstrating the art of making the paper boats. Visitors are invited to fold their own boats while listening to recordings of refugees’ intensely personal stories of their journey to a new life in Australia. The origami boats will be burnt at a ceremony on May 11; the stories are moving and intimate. In one, we hear of a refugee, then 17 years old, who tried on twenty separate occasions to escape by boat. Only three times did he actually board, with his money usually stolen by scammers who then notified authorities of his attempt to flee, resulting in him being jailed. In another, we hear of a parent’s sleepless nights before deciding to make a dangerous journey with a five-year-old child.Sadly, we also hear the untold stories of those that didn’t make the journey.

The act of folding the small, paper boats creates a deep sense of communion with refugees’ stories as they are told. The artist has cleverly engaged the audience in this meditative act, busying the hands while the mind is focussed solely on these compelling tales of hope and loss. Much like how sharing a meal can allow difficult conversation to flow, involving the audience in this simple, shared act breaks down the barriers between the subject, the artwork and the viewer. Paradoxically, the mind is distracted so that the story may be heard. The design of the performance space also plays its role, with the red tables, stools and rugs channelling the warmth of community and family, universal themes in the refugee story.

Phuong Ngo has created a vital reminder that such rights do not apply to particular groups, countries or peoples as a whole, but to mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, who each have their own important story to tell. This performance seamlessly melds recorded narrative and performance into a compelling exploration of the refugee experience.

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 3/5

One Year Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock Piece) - Tehching Hsieh

For one year, from 11 April 1980 through 11 April 1981, Tehching Hsieh punched a time clock every hour on the hour. Each time he punched the clock, he took a single picture of himself with a 16mm movie camera, which together yield a 6-minute film animation. He shaved his head before the piece, so his growing hair reflects the passage of time. Taiwanese-born performance artist subjected himself to an extraordinary ordeal of sleep deprivation in a relentless quest to investigate the nature of time and methodically observe time’s passing.

One Year Performance 1980-1981, which opened at Sydney’s Carriageworks on Tuesday, displays the documentary evidence of that work: 365 punch cards, 365 film strips, showing an increasingly long-haired and bleary-eyed Hsieh, the plain grey uniform he wore, a 16mm movie he made, compressing the year into six minutes, witness statements attesting to his strict routine and the time clock.

For Hsieh, Time Clock Piece — as the work documented in the Carriageworks installation is informally known — recalls the labours of Sisyphus, who, in Greek mythology, was forced to roll a rock repeatedly up a mountain, only to watch it fall down again. And while it may seem to convey a message about the tedium and conformity of industrial labour, he tells Guardian Australia he is “not a political artist, although people are at liberty to interpret my work from a political standpoint … I’m interested in the universal circumstances of human life”.

Time is the common thread running through the five one-year performances, all of which involved extreme physical and psychological challenges. For Cage Piece, Hsieh spent 12 months in near-solitary confinement in a cage he built in his studio, furnished only with a bed, a blanket, a sink and a pail, banned (by himself) from talking, reading, writing, listening to the radio or watching TV.

All have been intensely personal projects, probing questions of existence and the human condition. For Time Clock, Hsieh — who was an illegal immigrant during his first 14 years in the US, jumping ship in 1974 from an oil tanker in Philadelphia — set himself the task of never sleeping or leaving his studio for more than 59 minutes. “It was like being in limbo, just waiting for the next punch,” he recalls.

Shaving his head at the outset, and photographing himself each time he punched the clock, he missed just 133 clock-ins, mostly because of sleeping through, despite arming himself with an especially loud alarm clock. The single frames he shot with a movie camera later became the film, in which each day is compressed into one second.

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 4/5

While Nothing Happens - Ernesto Neto

Tubes of Lycra netting filled with spices hang from a glass ceiling in a soft sculpture called ‘While nothing Happens’ by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto. The aromatic socks are suspended from the glass ceiling at the Macro Hall gallery in Rome, Italy. The interactive installation was designed to stir up memories of such things as travel and of one’s past. As visitors brush up against the spicy drops, some of which are only a few feet from the floor, the exotic fragrances mingle and fill the air.

Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto (Rio de Janiero, Brazil, 1964) He has adopted a new approach to the work, drawing on its visual appeal and alluring aromas, and making it a plastic place which, in its interaction with the gallery, offers visitors an intimate, meditative place to collect themselves. While Nothing Happens, is a fragrant, fluctuating installation suspended in the air and containing five ground, coloured spices: black pepper, cumin, cloves, ginger, and turmeric. Juxtaposing materials and spaces, colours and smells, Neto has created a work that calls on a viewer’s every sense, breaking down the distances between art and life, and creating “an art that unites and that helps us interact with others, showing us the limits, not as a wall but as a place of sensations, exchanges, and continuity.”

The piece was specially created for the macro hall in rome and forms a floating architecture as its hangs from the gallery’s glass roof. the piece hangs at its lowest one meter from the ground. ‘while nothing happens’ is made from a lycra netting which is filled with a variety of ground spices that form stalagmite like forms. the spices emit an aroma that is further enhanced by visitors interacting with the piece. the smell is designed to evoke memories as we interact with the sculpture.

Precedent works related to current performance proposal 5/5

Shrink - Lawrence Malstaf

The work of Lawrence Malstaf is situated on the borderline between the visual and the theatrical. He develops installation and performance art with a strong focus on movement, coincidence, order and chaos, and immersive sensorial rooms for individual visitors. He also creates larger mobile environments dealing with space and orientation, often using the visitor as a co-actor. His projects involve physics and technology as a point of departure or inspiration and as a means for activating installations. His work SHRINK consists of two large, transparent plastic sheets and a device that gradually sucks the air out from between them, leaving the body vacuum-packed and suspended. The transparent tube inserted between the two surfaces allows the person inside the installation to regulate the flow of air. As a result of the increasing pressure between the plastic sheets, the surface of the packed body gradually freezes into multiple micro-folds. For the duration of the performance the person inside moves slowly and changes positions. 

[ablogcalledrevenge]

I’m so intrigued as to why you hated Peter Rabbit so much omg. Please tell!!

I’m putting this under a read more because it got really long and complicated. Sorry, but I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about this and Peter Rabbit is the vessel.

That being said, if you like the movie, that’s okay! You’re allowed to like it and you shouldn’t let me make you feel bad. I love tons of bad movies! Spice World always makes me smile!

Also I want to say that I am not blaming or mad at the actors, crew, the CGI people. Like they did the best with what they had and I don’t fault them. I mostly blame the writers, director, and producers. Especially the producers.

BUT we can’t forget that, at the end of the day, this movie was a cashgrab, merchandise factory of a movie. This is, as my old roommate coined, a parking ticket movie. Basically the only reason half of the people worked on this movie was because they got a bad parking ticket and needed some quick cash. I do not believe for a second that Margot Robbie or Domhnall Gleeson looked at this script and went “yes, this seems like exactly the kind of children’s movie I’ve always dreamed of doing.” Everyone involved with this film did it for the money or because they were contractually obligated. And honestly, that’s okay. I could live with that. These are their jobs and they’re allowed to make money. But when you do a project because you’re forced to, or for the payout, it shows in the work. We can tell when your heart’s not in it. But the movie had bigger issues than the motivations behind it.

1. The movie didn’t have a good villain. Perhaps this is because I’m older and have more sympathy but Thomas McGregor is a very ineffectual villain. We start the movie, meeting him, as if he were the main character! We see that he’s a bit of a control freak and that he can be a little rude to people and then we see him lose his job and have a mental breakdown. He gets this house in the country and all he wants to do is sell it and move on. The rabbits are actively (and against their own desires, but we’ll get into that later) working against him to make selling the house harder. This guy’s supposed to be the villain? This guy who basically lost everything in his life and just wants to go home and spends half the movie getting electrocuted because he doesn’t want animals in the house when he’s trying to sell it? Maybe it’s because Domhnall can make anyone charming, or maybe it’s poor writing, but I watched the movie asking why I was supposed to hate McGregor. He hadn’t done anything wrong! To be honest, as you go through the movie it seems like the rabbits are the antagonists! If the movie was hoping to make him a Cruella DeVil figure, they failed. Thomas is a sad, broken man and I just felt bad for him. Also I don’t enjoy seeing my husband getting beat up by CGI rabbits, it’s embarrassing, but that’s beside the point.

2. The romance between Bea and Thomas is forced, unnecessary, and unlikely to last. Considering they’re supposed to get married and have a baby in the sequel, I think it’s even more ridiculous. The third movie will have them getting a much needed divorce. Like this is a kid’s movie, I don’t know why it needed a romance?? But basically Bea and Thomas have absolutely nothing in common. This isn’t a cute ‘opposites attract’ thing, this is that their values and morals and desires don’t match up at all. They’re completely different people! The fact that Thomas spends the whole movie basically lying to get Bea to like him should be proof enough that whoever wrote the characters never intended them to be a legitimate couple. They’re pushed together because, idk it’s a movie and we have to have a happy ending which means a wedding because apparently we’re in Shakespeare’s time?? People are allowed to be friends and they work better as friends! Also do you think Bea knows anything about shibari? That’s what Thomas needs and you expect this little granola painter to be able to tie him up and rough him around? Oh please.

3. The movie is just bad. The humor and plot are very weak and the characters are mostly one dimensional. I think I laughed once during the entire time I watched it. I must admit, in an effort for transparency, that I didn’t finish the movie. I had to stop watching after 45 minutes because I couldn’t take anymore. What does it say about your movie that 45 minutes in and the plot hadn’t really even started yet? It was ALL exposition and that’s bad! This is a kid’s movie, the action needs to start sooner! The humor was oddly topical and unoriginal; the whole movie was. It was clear this was a rip off of Home Alone, Alvin and the Chipmunks, 101 Dalmatians, The Minions. If not through plot than through style. Playing a Top 40 song during an opening scene doesn’t make your movie better, it just makes it lazy. It’s clear you didn’t pick “Feel it Still” by Portugal the Man because it added something to Peter’s character. You added it because people know the song and it will make them sing along and smile. The plot is weak too, it doesn’t make sense. The whole point is that the rabbits want McGregor to leave... he does too! They actively sabotage themselves by pulling all these stunts on him. If they had just left him alone for 2 weeks, he could’ve sold the house and left. He probably would’ve sold it to some rich family that wouldn’t care about a garden full of animals! But instead they realize Thomas doesn’t like them and decide to electrocute him and humiliate him because he doesn’t want them in his garden for a specific amount of time that has an end date. Until the rabbits bothered him, Thomas didn’t care about them! If they had left him alone, he wouldn’t have ‘fallen in love’ with Bea and their other problems wouldn’t have happened too! They caused their own misery! What is this plot?! 

4. Bea is just an idiot and I can’t stand her. No shade to Rose Byrne because she is literally so pretty but the character is very dumb and annoying. She’s supposed to be Beatrix Potter which is also a very strange inclusion considering Beatrix was a real person and had her own life, just saying. But anyway, we can see early on in the film that Bea can communicate with the rabbits. They respect her and listen to her. So why does she let them, and at times, instigate them towards McGregor’s garden! She knows how dangerous it is and that Peter’s dad died there. They literally have the whole forest and her property and they can’t stay out of a 10 square foot garden? If she cares about those rabbits so much why doesn’t she grow some vegetables? Why doesn’t she stop them from bothering the guy who clearly wants nothing to do with them? She’s so caught up in ‘respecting nature’ and ‘being an artist’ that she’s so oblivious to everything else in her life and completely useless in every other way. Thomas deserves a better partner and Beatrix Potter deserved a better interpretation.

5. The characters are mean. Peter Rabbit is supposed to be a bit of a rascal and a scamp. He’s a troublemaker compared to his goody-two shoes siblings. We know this, it’s in the books. But everyone in this movie, especially Peter, is just so mean! Every other comment he makes is something disparaging against Benjamin or one of the other animals. He spends the whole movie being rude and dismissive and cocky. We’re supposed to root for this character? At times, considering his dialogue, Peter seems like more of an antagonist than Thomas. At least Thomas is nice to Bea, at least Thomas, in the beginning, only tries to keep the rabbits out and not hurt them. Peter’s a jerk and I don’t like his character. I don’t like any of the animal characters, they’re all so sarcastic and unsympathetic. So much of the ‘humor’ comes from one of the characters making fun of another and the jokes fall flat because of it. Beatrix Potter’s characters have such a softness to them, they invoke warm and cozy feelings. This movie was such an insult to her work.

Right before Peter Rabbit came out, I saw the Mr. Rogers documentary. Seeing him be so passionate about children’s media really made me think about the stories we give our kids. They deserve better than this recycled garbage! They deserve better characters and better stories. They deserve to be treated like human beings with brains and feelings and talents, instead of just mindless meat bags we plop in front of a screen to keep them out of our hair. I’m not saying that we can’t have entertainment that’s silly or stupid but when every kid’s movie is exactly the same, I start to feel bad. Children deserve quality! 

So here’s my pitch for a Peter Rabbit movie: Up until Thomas goes to drop the rabbits in the river, everything is the same. I would make Peter and his siblings nicer and more inclined to work together as a team but otherwise everything is the same. Then, right before Thomas drops the bag, he stops. What is he doing? What has his life become? He’s about to kill innocent animals because he lost his job? He sinks down on the bridge and starts to cry. He starts telling the rabbits, because he has no one else, how terrible he feels. His job was the most important thing to him. He has no friends, no hobbies, no direction. He doesn’t know what to do with his life now. Maybe Peter pokes his head out and snuggles up to Thomas, showing empathy. Thomas goes on to say that while he enjoyed his job, he realizes now that he wasn’t truly happy and that getting revenge won’t make him happy. He looks down and sees the binoculars, the first gift he’s gotten in years. He looks and sees the rabbits curling up against him and he thinks maybe he doesn’t have to sell the house. Maybe he doesn’t have to go back to his life. So, with the help of his friend Bea and the rabbits, Thomas learns how to calm down and enjoy life. He learns to appreciate the small things and respect the beauty of nature. Maybe there’s a funny montage of Thomas trying to mow the lawn or garden. Maybe he makes everyone dinner with his vegetables and it’s really bad and everyone makes a funny face. It ends (a little like the original ending) with Thomas realizing that he may have lost his successful glamorous job in the city, but now he has friends. Now he has people who care about him and good food on his table. So the movie ends on a toy shop. Thomas is showing a little boy how to fly a remote control plane. Benjamin and Cottontail are in the middle of a tea party with a little girl. Bea is wrapping a gift for customer and Flopsy gets her paw stuck in the bow. Everything seems perfect and wonderful when we hear a huge crash offscreen. PETER! End Credits

[kcwcommentary]

VLD8x07 – “Day Forty Seven”

8x07 – “Day Forty Seven” (I have no idea why the episode’s title officially does not have a hyphen between Forty and Seven like it should.)

This is another episode that is an absolute waste of time. Again, I’m not fundamentally against episodes of shows that are less directly tied to the main story. Episodes like this can be great for doing more detailed character study. But with the executive producers having complained about how there wasn’t enough time in the show to include vital fallout and character follow-up to plot events, when the episodes of this season’s main story are so complicated and confusing and needed more time to depict and explain what happens, having episodes like “Day Forty Seven” are a waste of time because that time is blatantly needed for other, more important content.

Before this episode, I already didn’t like Rizavi, and I only liked the potential that Kinkade had. But since both of them commit crimes in this episode and also violate the trust and privacy of their fellow officers, I can’t say that my opinion of them has improved.

I do, however, really like Hunk in this episode.

Look, it’s Kinkade. He’s the main character of this episode. It’s another episode that significantly shoves the show’s main characters to the side in order to pretend that the side characters are interesting. Yes, Hunk and Allura each get a bit of focus for a couple of scenes in this episode, but it’s predominantly not about them. Almost the entirety of this episode is focused on side characters, and none of them are interesting.

After I watched season eight for the first time however many months ago that was now, thinking of this episode in context of the whole of season eight made me wish that this episode had been centered not on Kinkade but on Curtis. What if Curtis had been filming personal videos throughout the episode? I know the show did not even slightly plan on having Shiro and Curtis end up together, that the series Shiro-Curtis wedding epilogue was a really, really late-production addition, but I can’t help but think about how, even if they didn’t have much time to set up anything between Shiro and Curtis, how this episode would have been the perfect time to hint at it. Have Curtis with the video camera, have him get a shot of Shiro in the distance, have him linger on Shiro a beat or two too long, have Veronica or someone come up beside him and ask him what he’s filming, have Curtis turn the camera on that person, who’s shown looking at Shiro, realizing that Curtis had been gazing at Shiro, and have that person conclude, “Oh, I see what you were looking at.” If the show absolutely couldn’t include any more, that would have worked to set up the plausibility of a Shiro-Curtis relationship developing. But again, having Shiro and Curtis end up together was a hasty super-late addition. There could be no set-up for it because the executive producers, story editor, and writers weren’t planning on having Shiro end the show with anyone. I can’t help but to think, what if, though.

Kinkade brushes his teeth while Leifsdottir sleeps within arm’s reach. There’s a bathroom sink next to their beds in the barracks? “I know it seems strange, but before Earth was attacked, I didn’t go anywhere without my camera,” Kinkade says. Who would think that it was strange that someone interested in videography would engage in videography but stopped because aliens invaded and occupied Earth for three years? This is supposedly funny: “Back home, people asked me why I like recording things. They also asked me why I didn’t talk that much. To both of those things, I’d always say, ‘Hmm.’” This kind of feels like this line was specifically written in response to criticism that Kinkade didn’t really ever say anything in season seven. Cut to Kinkade doing pull-ups. Granted, I haven’t spent a lot of time in gyms in my life, but the time that I have, I have never heard anyone counting their reps out loud while they were doing them. Romelle is puzzled by Kinkade’s recording, and James comments about how this is something Kinkade’s known for. Okay, we get it, he makes videos. “Being a fighter pilot was actually his back-up plan,” James says of Kinkade. Being a fighter pilot is hard, it’s not realistic that it would be anyone’s back-up plan.

“It’s true: I learned to shoot with a camera before I learned to shoot with a rifle.” Is that supposed to be impressive or something? Honestly, it mostly sounds like the writer thought he was being clever using two meanings of the word “shoot.” “I guess filming is just a small piece of the larger puzzle that makes up the picture of who I am.” How would we have figured this out without his exposition to tell us – in other words, this is the type of thing people are talking about when they say that in writing you should show, not tell. We don’t need Kinkade to tell us this because by fundamental nature of this episode being framed as his videography, we are being shown. And then we get a cliché gun assembling moment.

There’s a sequence of meandering shots of Kinkade walking to his fighter, touching his fighter, shocking himself by touching some electrical part of its system. I guess maybe he accessed the system because he was going to do maintenance? Fighter pilots don’t do the maintenance of their craft, at least from the impression I have about how it works in the U.S. Air Force they don’t. There are maintenance specialists who do that work, not the pilots.

This almost feels like a lampshade of criticism about this episode: Rizavi comes in and says, “Please tell me this is going to be more exciting than that project you did for Mr. Pollard’s biology class about yeast.” This episode isn’t really more exciting than that. Rizavi forces her way into Kinkade’s project.

They interview Pidge. The Atlas is heading somewhere there’s a disabled Robeast. Pidge asks if she “needs to explain that the Robeast was one of the ones used in Honerva’s galactic ritual?” I guess this line is supposed to be about Pidge commenting on the process of successfully constructing a documentary? It feels more like unnecessary exposition because the audience of this show would easily know the context of the referenced Robeast because that was just last episode. Pidge continues with more telling exposition. Rizavi turns to Keith to try to make their recording more exciting by asking Keith about the danger of the mission. Keith’s dialog is more unnecessary exposition.

Save us Hunk from this empty episode. Hunk asks to be in their movie, but then, “Wait, if this is an action movie – is it? – I don’t want to be in it.” At least I got a little laugh out of that. Rizavi complains about Hunk interfering in their filming their documentary. All I can think of is why didn’t Kinkade or Rizavi lock down the location for filming with Pidge and Keith then if they didn’t want to be bothered. They’re literally just sitting in the mess hall.

Hunk has a new recipe of a cake. Kinkade is actually interested and asks Hunk if he can watch Hunk work. Hunk’s cool with the idea. Rizavi, who butted her way into Kinkade’s personal project, complains. Of the four MFE pilots, the only reason I dislike James more than Rizavi is because James is such a blatant, cruel bully. Rizavi is not an interesting, likable character, and I really wouldn’t mind if she hadn’t been in this series.

Thankfully an emergency interrupts this waste of time. The ship is called to battle stations. Somehow, as Kinkade pulls Rizavi out of the mess hall through a door in front of where the camera is pointing, the camera tumbles over backwards away from that door and ends up not still in the mess hall, but in a corridor. The Holt’s dog finds and picks up the camera. He enters an elevator which opens onto the bridge directly behind Shiro. Guess what isn’t supposed to be behind Shiro on the bridge: An elevator. The door behind Shiro on the bridge opens to a corridor, as seen literally last episode when Zethrid came to the bridge. So, this inconsistent animation falls somewhere in with ignored established set design and/or bad storyboarding. Also, how is the dog able to make the elevator function? He doesn’t push any buttons to indicate the bridge as a destination, nor is he able to give a verbal command to the elevator to go to the bridge. This elevator just automatically goes to the bridge.

Of course, the entirety of the dog carrying the camera is contrived to keep going with the videography framing of the episode. The Atlas is being attacked by a giant squid. The MFE ships and Voltron fly around outside the Atlas. There are huge explosions in the clouds outside. None of this action scene means anything because the conflict is not defined, not connected to any character. It’s just meaningless action.

Since they can’t see the squid because of the clouds, so someone, Curtis maybe?, establishes a visual by scanning for the “biometrics” of the squid. The squid then seems to, like way too many large creatures do in this series, shoots a blaster beam at the Atlas. It scares the dog, who drops the camera and runs. The mice briefly look into the camera. Then the camera somehow falls down a corridor. How did it get into a corridor to fall down it? Did the other side of the door behind Shiro suddenly become a corridor again instead of the elevator it was a few seconds ago? The camera tumbles down a hallway and ends up in the room where Sam and Slav work, where Sam finally explains that the gravity has been knocked out. One, the camera hitting the walls of the hallway would have decreased its momentum in a near-zero gravitational situation. Two, despite falling into this room with notable speed, as soon as the camera sights on Sam and Slav it instantly stops moving. But the gravity isn’t on, so it shouldn’t stop hard like it does. I don’t know why I’m trying to analyze this. The camera’s relocation is totally contrived.

Slav complains about something being red, and thus he can’t grab it like Sam says. It’s not important. I don’t know why this piece of a scene even exists. The camera gets hit by a box that floats by and suddenly the camera is out in another hallway to film miscellaneous crew moving through the hallway. There’s a shipwide announcement that the Atlas is going to transform. The dog comes back to pick up the camera in its mouth, the camera conveniently floating right in line of the dog’s mouth as it floats down the hallway. Contrived.

There is ten seconds of blackness and dog breathing because that’s worth spending time on, then we hear Colleen talk to the dog while we get four more seconds of blackness before she pulls the camera out of the dog’s mouth. Shiro’s shipwide communications announces a countdown of the Atlas transforming, and Colleen is all, “Oh no,” like she just realized she’s in an unsafe location. Colleen is floating still in the corridor but then starts moving down the corridor, but there’s no gravity, and she’s not shown to have been close enough to a surface that she could push off of in order to move down the hall. Yeah, I still want accurate depictions of easily known scientific understanding on this show, even though I know I won’t get it.

The camera and/or the hallway shakes as if the camera is sitting on something and the gravity is on despite the fact that the camera is floating in near-zero gravity, so there would be no shaking whatsoever. Somehow a panel in the hall as part of the transformation process does not smash up the camera, but just knocks it, sending it spinning until the camera suddenly stops spinning without anything being there to stop it. Unless something stopped it, it would have kept spinning being in near-zero gravity. Basic laws of inertia.

It conveniently stops to point out a window where giant squid and the MFEs and Voltron still are fighting. And the camera loses power.

Cut to later when Kinkade has somehow reacquired his camera despite the hugeness of the Atlas. The whole action sequence was a waste of time. Kinkade floats down a hallway and runs into someone who I’ve never seen before and don’t know. The guy is going to be leaving the Atlas to take samples of something back to Earth. It’s a moment that’s portrayed, especially with the music, like it’s supposed to be some kind of emotional goodbye, but I have no idea who this guy is. The scene is 35 seconds long, and I have no idea why it exists at all. So, I google and eventually find out that this character is named Seok Jin and was done in memory of an animator and storyboard artist who died during the show’s production. I can understand wanting to memorialize a coworker, but there’s nothing about this scene that conveys that. It just seems like a miscellaneous waste of time within the context of the episode’s story. Without googling to find out, the scene is just confusing.

It still weirds me out that there’s so much floating on the Atlas, but objects (which includes people) do not follow the laws of physics that would govern their floating. Through the window into the mess hall, the dog and Sal are standing and sitting like they’re in gravity, but just on this side of the window where the camera is in the hallway, there is no gravity.

Cut to Kolivan being interviewed. It’s supposed to be funny. He’s boring and Rizavi makes fun of him being boring. This is a waste of screen-time. Rizavi says that they need to get someone more exciting in here. Cut to Coran.

Thank you, Coran, please save us from this absolutely pointless, uninteresting episode!! His antics are funnily delivered. The information of his storytelling does nothing to tell us anything new because it was only a retelling of a few of the events last episode. And then the scene is done. Coran is severely underused this season. Eliminate all the time given to the MFE pilots and to Sam and give it instead to Coran, please. Back to the standard boring that is this episode.

Now, Rizavi is interviewing Sam. There are several shots of a bunch of displays that don’t reveal anything important. Slav complains about Altean writing on the Atlas. The Atlas might be based on Altean technology, but it was built by humans on Earth, so why did they build the Atlas so that the writing used on the Atlas was in Altean? Did the Galaxy Garrison during the three years of the occupation of Earth make everyone learn to read Altean? This is something absolutely illogical but it’s in here because it was supposed to be seen as a joke. It just seems wrong to me.

“Our gravity generator is actually a fluid system, ever changing depending on the specific needs of the location,” Sam says. In other words, the show is lampshading the fact that they didn’t bother to create this episode or the series to actually follow the laws of physics. In other other words, people like me who expect the experience of being in a space ship to have even the most basic respect for and understanding of what the experience would be like can just shut up. The show actively rejects the expectation that it try to be at least somewhat realistic. It’s amazing that the show’s creative team is admitting to being this lazy.

Kinkade condescendingly calls Slav “weird” when Slav freaks out about landing on a crack. Anyone else remember how respectful Shiro was over Slav’s freaking out about cracks in 2x10 “Escape from Beta Traz?”

Cut to Colleen in the plant room. I was going to call it hydroponics, which tends to be a sort of trope in space-based science fiction, but hydroponics is specifically growing without having soil to plant things in. And the first shot is of Altean flowers growing in soil. So, plant room. I haven’t been shy in past episodes about how much I do not like Colleen. She, like her husband, should be in prison for what they did in 7x01 “The Last Stand Part 1.” She gives a tour of the plant room. “So much recycled poop,” she’s happy to point out. Yeah, this episode feels like we’re walking among some recycled poop.

Rizavi grabs the camera and puts together some footage of “extreme space harvesting” and its stylized as overwhelming “extreme” video. It’s supposed to be funny, juxtaposing “extreme” style with this empty talk about plants. I’m a science-loving guy, so I know I could actually find someone passionately talking about plants to be fun. Colleen doesn’t talk passionately about plants. She says the most generic statements possible because to have her genuinely depicted as nerding out over plants would require too much research about plants for the writer to bother with on this show. So, this is a waste of time.

Thank you, Hunk for interrupting. Hunk wants some specific yeast. I actually like that Kinkade, who had earlier been referenced as having done an old school project on fermentation, is interested in what Hunk’s doing. He had earlier been interested in watching Hunk cook too. They’re both small moments, but it’s just enough that it makes me want to see Hunk and Kinkade become friends. Hunk says, “I think I’ve got the topping down, but I’m still trying to figure out the sweetbread.” Did the writer of this show not know that sweetbread isn’t bread? Sweetbread is the thymus or pancreas of a creature. It’s not bread, it’s meat. But Hunk wants yeast, so he’s baking, so he means actual bread.

Cut to Rizavi and Kinkade floating down a hallway. The Atlas has come to some star system. They try to interview Lance about his going down to a planet, and Lance freaks out. I have no idea why Lance is freaking out. It’s played for humor, but it has no foundation. It’s just trying to make fun of someone having anxiety over something they have never been shown to have anxiety over. It’s such a meaningless moment.

Rizavi sneaks, against protocol, the camera into the meeting room. Shiro, Sam, Coran, and Veronica, and I guess Rizavi and Kinkade too, monitor the Paladins on their mission to the planet. They’re checking out one of the fallen Robeasts from last episode. Surprise, the Paladins get attacked by some ship that pops off the Robeast. The Paladins fire on it with their bayards, Shiro orders the Atlas to target and fire on it. It’s such meaningless action.

Somehow, in putting this documentary together, Rizavi and Kinkade get access to helmet cam footage from Pidge. Why her helmet cam recorded everything with a blue filter, I don’t know. The footage that Shiro and crew were watching on screen on the Atlas was normal, not tinted some color. Hunk says he has no sign of a pilot inside the ship. Keith calls out to the other Paladins and Pidge totally unnecessarily says, “Keith’s found something, let’s go.” It’s a waste of dialog because everything her line does was already accomplished by Keith’s line. They’ve found the tube that the Altean Robeast pilots are in when they pilot the Robeasts.

Almost 17 minutes into the episode (my number includes the time needed for the opening title sequence) and we finally have actually gotten to something that matters to the show. They’ve been capturing the Alteans pilots. Kinkade says that this is the sixth Altean pilot they’ve “recovered from the powered-down Robeasts after Honerva escaped Oriande.” Where are they getting six from? I would assume when the white hole went boom that that destroyed any Robeasts there. So, are they just getting them from the planets where they were siphoning quintessence? There were only four such Robeasts for that, not six. Where did the other two come from? Kinkade says that Allura has tried but they won’t talk to her.

Cut to a clear shot of an “authorized personnel only” sign. In other words, it is a violation of the rules for them to be bringing this camera here. Why are so many characters on this show, characters who are supposed to be members of at least a partially military organization, so blatantly violate the law, protocol, and rules? Why did this show so strongly write a message to the kids who were the target audience of this show that there’s nothing wrong with violating rules? It makes the show feel like the people in the creative team who produced this show were all a bunch of really immature people.

Kinkade covers his camera temporarily, but we hear Rizavi give orders to someone that “Commander Shirogane says that you two are needed on the bridge.” So, Rizavi just falsified orders. That, in the U.S. military, would result in a court martial and potential punishment of dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay, and/or five years confinement.

This show has flagrantly displayed an anti-military disdain, particularly in how Sam Holt and Iverson were never punished for their severe insubordination against Admiral Sanda in 7x08 “The Last Stand Part 2.” Here, knowing that Rizavi is not subject to punishment for this, the show continues to demonstrate a disdain for the military. It’s offensive that this show wants the appearance of military action, but similar to how they want the appearance of space science, they don’t want to have to actually do the work to write the characters to behave in the necessary ways to achieve that. Maybe it’s not a disdain for the military (still feels like it though), but maybe the creative team for this show are just lazy and think that things like what Rizavi just did isn’t a big deal even though it’s a huge deal.

Kinkade and Rizavi are revealed to have lied their way into a security center so that they can use the Atlas’s security system to sneak and get secure footage they absolutely are not allowed to have. This would be another crime they’re committing.

Allura and Romelle try talking to Tavo, a Colony Altean who Romelle says she grew up alongside. Romelle looks a lot younger than Tavo does, so how did they grow up together? She asks him to trust her, but he says that his people were told that Romelle was a traitor and says he “can see now that it is true.” Allura says she’s “done with all of them” and gets up and leaves.

Rizavi sneaks the camera to secretly record a private conversation between Allura and Lance. Yeah, I really don’t like Rizavi. I really wish this show didn’t portray her behavior as being acceptable. What she is doing is wrong. She is betraying her fellow officer’s trust. Allura is talking to Lance about official, serious stuff, and Rizavi gets a look on her face like she knows the scene is going to turn romantic. This is the writer severely ahead of what the plot is actually depicting.

Allura talks to Lance, saying, “You have no idea what it’s like to find out […] you’re not the last of your kind, only to be rejected by them.” This moment is more that makes me think Allura is heavily depressed this season, and why, aside from her being a female character of color who’s killed off to fix everyone’s problems, her death at the end of the series is so infuriating. I like how Lance responds to her. He says, “I don’t.” I like that he doesn’t try to diminish what she’s feeling by arguing against or trying to negate her having said, “You have no idea what it’s like […].” He’s actually being very supportive right now. He does say he wishes he could make things better for her. He acknowledges how much he recognizes the suffering in her experiences and says her perseverance is one of the reasons he fell in love with her.

Allura and Lance hug and go in for a kiss, and before they can kiss, Kinkade grabs the camera and says, “No, that’s private.” The whole thing was private. You violated their trust and their privacy the whole time and you only care right before they kiss? Clearly since it’s part of this episode, Kinkade didn’t destroy the footage, so he never recognizes that everything before the kiss was as private as the kiss itself. And of course, Rizavi is annoyed at Kinkade for his having blocked filming the kiss. Again, I just can’t help but to question how the executive producers and writer thought it was okay to send a message with this episode that this behavior is acceptable.

Cut to Romelle being interviewed. The camera is all up in her face/Romelle’s eyeball is nearly on the lense. Kinkade says, “Please don’t touch that.” Romelle doesn’t really move within her posture much, so it’s not like she was leaning forward far, and the camera zooms out, so it seems like she wasn’t actually anywhere near the camera the way it was made to look.

I’m kind of surprised that Romelle would agree to this interview, since the content is about sensitive (not emotionally sensitive, though that too, but sensitive in a security sense) topic. She still feels like the Colony Alteans are good people, despite the fact that they tried to commit genocide. I know the show seemingly had the planetary populations of the four planets the Robeasts destroyed last episode evacuated, but those Alteans went to those planets fully intending to kill everyone on those planets. They were trying to commit genocide. They’re not good people. I guess in the same way that this show wants to excuse Honerva and Zarkon for committing genocide, the show expects us to forgive the Colony Alteans for trying to do so too? If I’m being lenient, I’d say maybe the creative team of this show just did not realize the severity and full implication of the things they wrote in this story. That doesn’t make what the Colony Alteans tried to do not genocide though.

Romelle says, “If only there was just some way to get through to them.” Behold the foreshadowing.

Cut to the mess hall. James is still bothered by the tentacles of the squid that they fought earlier in the episode. Guess what, I don’t care about James.

Cut to Hunk stirring a mixture, just about to add the yeast.

Cut to an interview with Allura. Kinkade thanks her for doing this. I doubt she would do it if they let her know that they committed two crimes in falsifying orders and recording footage of her conversation with Tavo. I doubt she would do it if they told her that they violated her privacy by recording her conversation with Lance.

Allura expresses some of her frustration with the Colony Alteans. She says, “Oriande was destroyed. Lotor is back.” But he’s not really. Maybe this is just another of the executive producers’ and writers’ notorious audience manipulations, but the show is very much making it look like the narrative is stating that Lotor is still a part of this story. I know the EPs would probably just say that this is just what Allura thinks, not that it’s actually true. But if it isn’t true, then who was piloting the Sincline last episode until Honerva used her space magic to stop it? Even Honerva spoke as if Lotor was still piloting the Sincline. That he’s eventually shown to have been a melted corpse definitely makes the idea that the season was heavily re-edited seem plausible.

Allura’s comments suggest that the methods they had used to track Honerva previously are no longer producing results. They’re not detecting any traces of wormhole generation and the like.

Cut to Hunk in the kitchen. He pulls “an authentic Altean dessert” out of the oven that he plans on giving to the Colony Alteans. While there would be something to the Colony Alteans’ culture that could still possibly be traced by skilled anthropologists to the Altean culture of Allura’s 10,000 years ago, that 10,000 years would have caused the Colony Alteans’ culture to significantly change. Coran gave Hunk this recipe, but it’s not realistic that the Colony Alteans would have preserved this recipe through those millennia.

I really do like that Hunk is again able to find a way to apply his interest in food to his tendency toward wanting to engage in diplomacy. This show has made too many fat jokes about Hunk, but moments like this are genuine and nice.

Hunk says that when Coran gave him the recipe, “I think his memory was like a little bit fuzzy, so I did some improvising. No big woop.” In other words, it’s not “an authentic Altean dessert.” Improvising the recipe is not being authentic. This is so wrong.

Cut to Tova and several other Colony Alteans staring at Hunk’s baking. Eventually Tova tastes it and says that it reminds him of home. For him, home was the Colony, not Altea. But the show is treating it as nearly the same for the sake of convenience. None of these Colony Alteans would actually know what Altea was like.

Hunk points out that he made the dessert with help “from someone raised on Altea.” Hunk tells them that Allura and Coran were there at Altea until it was destroyed and would have remained if they hadn’t been sent away. Anyone else think that it was a failure of this show’s storytelling that we never did get to truly see the destruction of Altea, to see how Coran and Allura survived? The closest we got was Alfor violating his daughter by rendering her unconscious so that she couldn’t object to being sent away.

Tova mentions stories he’s been told about some spot on Altea that was supposedly beautiful. I love Hunk’s line, “They never told me about them, but I’m sure they’d love to tell you themselves.” The door opens and Allura and Coran are waiting to talk to the Alteans.

Cut to Kinkade winding up his day’s recording.

The only thing in this episode that was actually important was that ending scene with Hunk and the Colony Alteans. Emotionally, it was a nice scene if I set aside my issues with the realism of an “improvis[ed]” recipe being presented and effectually functioning as “authentic.”

I really did not like how otherwise the episode is a giant waste of time. I really did not like how Rizavi and Kinkade’s behavior is treated as okay when some of it is criminal and some of it is a violation of others’ privacy. I really don’t like how the show is glossing over that these Alteans tried to commit genocide. The story can still have Allura needing to talk to them while acknowledging the severity of what the Alteans were doing.

There really were only two things that was worth watching in this episode. One, the short scene of Coran’s antics when he retells the story of last episode. Two, Hunk’s small storyline, especially when he actually gives the dessert to the Alteans.

[chiseler]

The Madness of Ken Russell

Critical thinking in Britain has always taken the view that Ken Russell was a wild, ill-disciplined talent who ultimately went artistically mad: this was also the view in the film industry. The only major disagreement was about when he went from being merely excessive to being balls-out crazy: different parties chose different tipping points.

(WAIT! WHO CARES ABOUT CRITICS?)

(Bear with me: in Russell’s case, the critical consensus serves as a valuable reverse barometer.)

Russell, a suburban boy, former merchant seaman and Catholic convert, made a few brilliant short films with his wife and fellow genius, costume designer Shirley Russell, before landing a job at the BBC’s flagship arts program, Monitor. His stint here taught him to fight, and placed him under the stern patronage of producer Huw Weldon, probably the only authority figure he ever respected. Many good fights were enjoyed. When Russell joined the program, there was an absolute ban on dramatization and re-enactment: the most he was allowed was to show a composer’s hands at the piano. By the time he finished up on the show, he’d managed to twist it out of shape to the point where he’d been allowed to make complete dramatic works in the guise of documentary. These TV plays are highly cinematic, kinetic and bold: like Kubrick, Russell had a love of both stark symmetry and dynamic movement. Control and its opposite.

Russell found actors he liked, including Oliver Reed, with whom he enjoyed a strange kinship: both were heavy drinkers, both affected a casual attitude to their work, though Russell was never ashamed to call himself an artist. Ollie became the John Wayne to Russell’s Ford (in a roiling, nightmare vision of classical cinema).

The point when Russell moved out of TV is the first moment his detractors choose to mark his decline into self-indulgent craziness. He made a modest, eccentric comedy, French Dressing (with mounds of inflatable girls piled up like Holocaust victims) and a wild, idiosyncratic spy movie, The Billion Dollar Brain, a Russophile anti-Bond movie full of flip humor and Eisenstein homages. Critics saw these films as work-for-hire, as perhaps they were, and largely discount them. They are quite brilliant.

Women in Love is counted by others as the last pre-madness film, and its relative sanity can be attributed to the control exerted by its writer-producer Larry Kramer. Russell’s excesses are held in check, it is argued, and the tension between its creators was productive. It’s a very good film, but I find it too sedate in places, though the vivid color and Shirley Russell’s bold designs, and some scenes of genuine wildness and invention stave off actual boredom.

The Music Lovers, his dream project, expanding the TV composer film to the big screen and color, is where a real case for craziness begins to be made: the choice to explore Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality now seems mature rather than lurid, but Ken is undeniably pushing the biopic into unfamiliar terrain: fantasies of decapitation by cannon-shot, a filthy madhouse, a demented honeymoon on a train rocking like the Starship Enterprise, complete with crotch shots. Maybe even worse, from the critics’ viewpoint, Russell, who had directed one TV commercial before walking away from that business in disgust, co-opted the visual language of the shampoo commercial to depict the images conjured by the composer’s music. Russell was in love with romanticism but saw through it too. Ironically, the filmmaker constantly castigated for unsubtlety injected an irony into the film that critics missed, taking the soppiness at face value and not seeing how the concealed satire blended perfectly with the overt caricature and phantasmagoric visions.

Still, the subject was respectable, but with The Devils, Russell managed a film maudit that took decades to be reappraised, and earned him criticism of a uniquely vociferous sort, admittedly in keeping with the hysteria of the film itself. An account – or channelling – of a 16th Century witchcraft trial in France, the movie didn’t so much push as cremate the envelope as far as sex, violence and blasphemy were concerned: Russell, who had converted to Catholicism in his youth, lost his faith while making this one, converting to an animist worship of the Lake District, a religion of his own devising. Well, he did have a substantial ego.

Russell was upsetting: apart from the torture, abuse and madness, the film threw in discordant tonal shifts, creative anachronisms and deployed all of his cinematic influences, which prominently featured Orson Welles, Fellini, Fritz Lang’s German silents, and the musicals of Busby Berkeley, which supplied the top-shots used to depict the rape of Christ on the cross, a scene cut by the censor and lovingly preserved by the director for a future restoration, still explicitly forbidden by the film’s backers, Warner Brothers.

Asides from his crisis of faith and crises in his marriage and his dealings with the studio, Russell was also knocking back the wine. “Better before lunch,” was his prop man’s characterization of the director. Production designer Derek Jarman recounted Russell asking him, “What can I do that’ll really offend the British public?” “Well you could kill a lot of people,” mused Jarman, “but if you really want to upset them you could kill some animals.” A plan was then devised to have King Louis with a musket blowing the heads off the peacocks on his lawn: the birds were to be fitted with explosives at the neck, like Snake Plissken, but Russell backed away from this extreme, even by his standards, approach, and instead had the target practice performed with a man dressed as a blackbird, and the King saying “Bye-bye, blackbird,” and Peter Maxwell-Davies’ remarkable score quoting the popular twenties song, and that infuriated the critics just as much as actual bird-blasting would have.

Less amusingly, Russell was also guilty of unsafe practices involving the naked girls and rowdy extras: the stories here get really dark. As does the film: a demented masterpiece that shows Russell for once engaging with the political: a film about corruption that uses physical disintegration alongside social and spiritual rot.

Just to confuse us even more, Russell made The Boy Friend the same year, an epic music and a miniature at the same time, allowing him to recreate Busby Berkeley’s pixilated fantasias in a seedy English theater. It’s light and charming, but Russell’s version of these qualities was not recognized by the critics, and it’s true that his wit is clodhopping, his whimsy grotesque, everything is overplayed, in your face: but you have to climb aboard the film, get into its spirit, and then it really is a very lovely reversal of the usual nightmare.

The seventies brought more composer films, Mahler and Lisztomania, and also the rock opera Tommy, which earned Russell slightly better reviews as his boisterousness was judged more in keeping with the material (critics, it seemed, could not stand the idea of a filmmaker responding to classical music for its passion and energy, its rock ‘n’ roll qualities, rather than for its assumed civilising effect). Russell got away with showing Ann-Margret humping her cushions while slathered in feculent chocolate sauce, shot Tina Turner with a 6mm lens to uglify her as she thrashed around a steel sarcophagus studded with hypos, and put Elton John on ten-foot platform shoes.

Lisztomania is another movie that’s seen as marking the decline into lunacy: its producer, David Puttnam, hugely impressed by Russell’s flare and his ability to shoot Mahler after half the budget fell through, felt that ultimately the relentless negative press knocked his enfant terrible off-balance. Instead of rolling over in submission, Russell perversely doubled down on the excess and became a parody of himself. And he had already been a parody to begin with (but a parody without an original, unless we take him as a combined burlesque of all his cinematic influences). I’ve always adored Lisztomania, which knows it’s going too far, knows its japes and conceits are ludicrous and indefensible, knows it can’t get away with Roger Daltrey as Liszt and Ringo Starr as the Pope. And just. Doesn’t. Care.

Valentino, which marked the end of the Russell marriage (there would be a bunch more), was dismissed by Russell as the fag-end of his first British period, “everything about it was bored and boring, including me,” but it’s actually rather good. Nureyev as Valentino (well, he was used to being called Rudolph), Russell as Rex Ingram wielding a megaphone the size of a cannon. The twenties, as lived by Rambova, Dorothy Arzner, Fatty Arbuckle, or as dreamt by Mad Ken.

Russell had made his career in Britain at a time when the industry was in collapse: he largely missed the explosion of energy that marked Swinging London, the British new wave, and the only kitchen sink he liked was the one he was always throwing in. Now, the domestic business seemed to have expired of ennui, senile dementia and blood poisoning, but Hollywood beckoned. Russell was bottom of a long list of directors who all turned down Paddy Chayefsky’s Altered States, a late-mid-life crisis film about sensory deprivation tanks and psychedelics which takes John C. Lilley and fuses him with Dr. Jekyll. Russell took it on despite being forbidden from changing a line of dialogue, but got his revenge by having his actors speak fast -- like Jimmy Cagney fast, not so much throwing away their lines as firing them like tennis balls. And by having them eat at the same time. And by expanding the hallucination sequences until they took over the movie, so that they were all anyone talked about. Druggie audiences would hang out into the lobby, Russell gleefully reported, posting a sentry in the auditorium who would yell “Hallucination!” whenever one was starting, and everyone would rush back in to get a hit of audiovisual delirium.

A bit like Women in Love, Altered States benefited from the creative clash between director and writer (who took his name off the script in protest at Russell’s backhanded fidelity), but the reaction among respectable types was mainly a theatrical eye-roll: the maniac was up to his old tricks. Crimes of Passion, starring Kathleen Turner and Anthony Perkins, was next, with she as a Belle de Jour career girl by day, working girl by night, he as an insane sex-obsessed preacher, some forgettable soap opera type as leading man, the whole thing soaked in neon colors and spliced full of Bearsley and Hokusai, whom the American censor duly deleted in horror. “They cut out anything to do with art,” observed the filmmaker.

And that was it for America, save occasional pieces for HBO, progressively more televisual, the locked-off symmetrical winning out over the kinetic. Russell returned to the UK to make theatrical features, and again you heard the cry off “Whatever happened? He used to be good!” Gothic dealt with Byron and the Shelleys and the birth of Frankenstein, and was fruity, literate, dirty good fun. The Rainbow was a return to Women in Love territory, on a lower budget and with less energy and star wattage: Russell declared it his best film since that imagined zenith, and a few critics wanly agreed. The Lair of the White Worm was another journey beyond the pale, thrusting some of the same actors into a ludicrous vampire and snake goddess phallic farrago with Hugh Grant and a kilted Peter Capaldi attempting to snakecharm with bagpipes. A vampirized policeman gets his head impaled on a deco sundial. Marvelous. And the sequence was rounded out with Salome’s Last Dance, which stages Oscar Wilde’s biblical wet dream in a Victorian brothel, an inspired no-budget solution and a film which, unlike Altered States, really respects its words, lingering over them, rolling them salaciously over its tongue. Add in also Ken’s episode of Aria, in which he stages Nessun Dorma as an accident victim’s operating room hallucination, with porn mag model Linzi Drew, a new Russell favorite, in the lead.

Time was running out, the budgets shrinking like a Fu Manchu death chamber, the ceiling pressing down and clearly constraining what Russell could achieve, despite his continuing ambition. Lady Chatterley’s Lover for the BBC scored huge ratings, and he was never asked back. Commercial television’s top arts programme, The South Bank Show, run by Russell’s old screenwriter from Women in Love, Melvyn Bragg, kept him going with more-or-less annual commissions: he’d come full circle, or did when he moved back to home movies, shot in his garden or in his favorite Soho pub, which he hoped to “flog on the internet.” The symmetry of the career, its ourobousness, is more pleasing to contemplate than it must have been to live, though the last marriage lasted and was happy, and the ever-moving critical pendulum had reached the place where people were starting to say that The Devils and some of the other seventies work was really good, actually.

I can admire everything up until the final home movies, and maybe I’ll come round to them: Russell was right to admire all his earlier films. He spent decades more or less brushing off French Dressing, then saw it on TV and thought, “This is a masterpiece!” which it is. But only a minor one compared to what was those around it. Seaside-postcard humor, musical comedy performances, pop art imagery, Wagnerian and Stravinskian soundtracks, a defiant rejection of subtlety. “I don’t believe there’s any value in understatement […] This is the age of kicking people in the balls and telling them something and getting a reaction […] Picasso was not restrained, Mahler was not restrained!’” His detractors thought he should be, possibly in a straitjacket and with megadoses of Thorazine, but Russell was a volcanic eruption in cinematic form, a purple-faced tyrant of the Stroheim school, a demonic force driven to possess reels of celluloid and make them glow in the dark with a sugar rush radiation that has yet to decay. He was too big, too vulgar, too beautiful, too nasty and too beautiful for a national cinema mired in lethargic literary-theatrical respectability. “The visual arts have never had a foothold in England,” he sneered.

Ken!

Life is not a Ken Loach movie. It is a Ken Russell movie.

by David Cairns

[ghoulishboyhummel]

HOLY SHIT IS THAT [ AVAN JOGIA ]?! Oh, wait it’s just [ AARON HUMMEL ]. Damn, [ HE ] looks good for [ 22 ], good thing that they’re [ BISEXUAL ], I might have a chance. I hear that they call them the [ MISCREANT ] of the [ SOUTH SIDE ]. I guess that’s because they’re [ SELFISH ] and [ DISRUPTIVE ]. But I don’t think a lot of people know that they’re also [ CHARISMATIC ] and [ PROTECTIVE ]. Can’t wait to see what kind of trouble [ LOGAN/25/CST ] will bring.

01.  BASICS

Full Name: Aaron James Hummel

Nickname: A, A A Ron, Assron, Hummel, Ghoulie King, Ronny {no longer in use}

Sex/Gender: Cismale

Birthday: October 31st, 1996

Age: 22

Astrological Sign: Scorpio

Occupation: Stripper at the Ho Zone

Spoken Languages: English and ASL

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Birthplace: Greendale

Relationship status: Single

02. PHYSICAL TRAITS

Hair Color/Style: Black, shoulder length, occasionally in a ponytail.

Eye Color: Dark Brown

Face Claim: Avan Jogia

Height: 5′10

Weight: 168lbs.

Tattoos: Ghoulie tattoo on his left forearm

Piercings: Both earlobes and helix on his right ear

Unique Attributes: Birthmark on his back

Defining Gestures/Movements: He cracks his knuckles pretty often

Posture: Shitty

03. PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet Peeves: People who walk slow and snitches.

Hobbies/Interests: Filming and guitar playing

Special Skills/Abilities: Sneaky

Likes: Onion rings, drinking, parties, spicy food, messing around on his guitar, getting gifts

Dislikes: Being wrong, Burt Hummel, vegetables, tea

Insecurities: Being given up at age 5

Quirks/Eccentricities: Aaron messes with his hair a lot

Strengths: Persistent, persuasive, clever, confident

Weaknesses: Stubborn, selfish, and rude

Speaking Style: Bored but casual

Temperament: He can go from 0-100 real quick, it’s pretty easy to set him off.

04. FAMILY & HOME

Immediate Family: Burt Hummel (Adoptive Father), Elizabeth Hummel (Adoptive Mother), Kurt Hummel (Adoptive Brother)

How do they feel about their family? Aaron loved Elizabeth and always will, Burt and him don’t get along though. Ever since he ran away, their conversations have only been between a gang member and the Sheriff of Riverdale. With Kurt, he always claimed to hate him along with any other Northsider, but he loves his older brother and always enjoys talking to him.

How does their family feel about them? Elizabeth and him were very close, Burt wishes his son would stop being a gang leader and come home, but he’s starting to be past that point. Kurt and him get along really well

Pets: None, he’s considered getting a cat but doesn’t really have the time to take care of one.

Where do they live? Southside apartment

Description of their home: One Bedroom apartment. Very, VERY, cluttered, Aaron has never seen a broom in his life. Dishes are seldom in the cupboards, usually just stacked in the sink and he’ll rinse them to use from there. 

Description of their bedroom: Messy. He has a guitar stand with a guitar near his bed, often there are empty liquor bottles around.

05. THIS OR THAT

Introvert or Extrovert?

Optimist or Pessimist?

Leader or Follower?

Confident or Self-Conscious?

Cautious or Careless?

Religious or Secular?

Passionate or Apathetic?

Book Smarts or Street Smarts?

Compliments or Insults?

Pajamas or Lingerie?

06. FAVORITES

Favorite Color: Blue

Favorite Clothing Style/Outfit: He wears his Ghoulie jacket most of the time. He dresses fairly casual, jeans, and old black boots.

Favorite Bands/Songs/Type of Music: A lot of classic rock, ACDC, Led Zepplin, Queen, that kind of thing

Favorite Movies: The Shining, The Sixth Sense, Get Out, Seven, Silence of the Lambs, Black Swan, really any horror movie. Documentaries, especially ones about serial killers, and secretly, he does like Mamma Mia

Favorite Books: Historical fiction, i.e, The Book Thief

Favorite Foods/Drinks: Pizza, wine, and onion rings

Favorite Sports/Sports Teams: N/A

Favorite Time of Day: Morning

Favorite Weather/Season: Winter

Favorite Animal: Elephant.

07. MISCELLANEOUS

Fears/Superstitions: He’s afraid that he’s holding onto resentment for parents that really did want him but circumstances got the best of everyone. Also ghosts

Political Views: Anarchist

Addictions: Alcohol, it’s better than it used to be but he’s still a mess

Best School Subject: History

Worst School Subject: Math

School Clubs/Sports: Being one of the school sluts

How does he get money? Working at the Ho Zone as a stripper

How is he with technology? Fairly decent

08. PAST & FUTURE

Fondest Memory: Getting adopted

Deepest, Darkest Secret: During a fight when he was 20, he beat some Southside asshole to a pulp and left him in some alley behind a bar. The next night he realized he had no idea if the guy ever made it or not. Aaron might have some unknown guys blood on his hands and he has no idea.

Dream Vacation: Bahamas

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: Meeting the Ghoulies after he ran away from the Hummels at 14.

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: Bio parents giving him up and Elizabeth dying

What do they want to be when they grow up? Secretly, a director in Hollywood

Perfect Date: A bed and wine, movies optional.

09. HEADCANONS

Aaron spent a year at the orphanage in Greendale after his mother and father dropped them off there. He only had one best friend the entire time he was there, Jason, but he got adopted a few months before Aaron did.

It was love at first sight with Elizabeth and Aaron. He immediately hung off of every word she spoke, and he couldn’t have asked for a better mother. He liked Kurt and Burt too, was excited to have an older brother to look up to.

Elizabeth’s death a year after hit Aaron hard. He felt as though he was losing another family, scared Burt would bring him back to the orphanage. Of course that didn’t happen and Burt did his best for the boys, picking up more shifts at the station, leaving Kurt, though still young, in a leadership role around home. 

When Burt was promoted to Sheriff, Aaron was 14 and things were already tough between them at home, constantly butting heads and fighting, so Aaron decided to grab his belongings and leave in the middle of the night, not knowing where he’d end up. This was the last night he would have spoken to his father without the uniform.

Despite that Aaron claimed to all the Ghoulies and any other Southsiders who’d listen that he hated the Northside, he kept in contact with his brother in secret. Sure, he hated Burt, but Kurt was his brother and he probably needed him. He was the closest thing to his mom he’d ever have.

Aaron was a school slut during high school, he had no interest in trying when it came to doing his classwork and he barely graduated, not that he really cared.

[doomonfilm]

Ranking : Top Films of 2018

Here we are... that moment that every critic simultaneously loves and dreads : the Year-End Top 10 List.  At worst, we are forced to scrape the creative dredges and cobble together something that resembles a best of list that will bring glory and honor to the year.  At best (like this year), we are forced to leave personal favorites in the dust and judge the larger quantity of offerings on a much tougher scale in order to truly represent the top quality work of the year.

As I’ve said in many pieces this year, 2018 was a joy in terms of being a film-lover.  This list was not an easy undertaking, and it more so resembles a snapshot of how I’ve felt over a judging period than it does a concrete group of selections in a fixed order.  Take this list as more of a jumping off point for discovery than you do the gospel of DOOMonFILM. 

Note : I am not sure when I will get a chance to see Vice or The Favourite, which I am sure will skew my results once I do see them... I will address those films in their respective reviews, however.  Forgive me in advance.

Honorable Mentions

Damsel Even if the Zellner Brothers weren’t representing Austin beautifully with this gem of a film, it’d still be on my radar simply for the fact that it is a unique twist on a genre that most figured had seen every presentation imaginable.  Add to that a strong female lead character, and you’ve got a winner on your hands.

The Endless A science-fiction modern day classic, and apparently part of a possibly bigger line of stories (with some of the best integration of aspects from another film I’ve ever seen).  This film is chilling in its approach to the concept of cults, as well as its use of the concept of ‘the danger that lurks just off-screen’.

Isle of Dogs Had this year not been full of stellar animated films, this one probably would have made the main list.  More groundbreaking animated films, combined with personal feelings about the films of Wes Anderson, however, regulated this one to Honorable Mention status.

Mid90s I was all set for Eighth Grade to be my bit of nostalgia, or my reflection on what it’s like to be a kid again, and for what it’s worth, it was a great film.  The thing is, Mid90s directly spoke to me in a way that Eighth Grade unfortunately could not, simply because Mid90s was like looking in a time-traveling mirror. 

Thoroughbreds I really wanted this to be on my top 10, but ultimately, it was too ‘quiet’ of a film to make it in a year full of big noise.  Thoroughbreds will certainly be a future favorite for public screenings and friend viewings, but a couple of films this year hit the same notes on a higher frequency.

Black Panther The cultural impact of this film is one that cannot be ignored.  It took February, a month that is generally a box office bust, and it put up unparalleled numbers that not only lasted throughout the year, but were topped from within rather than by another Hollywood studio.  The respect given to the characters and their African heritage did not go unnoticed, either, as several think-pieces and a number of curriculum were spawned from those researching elements of the production design.  The narrative is strong, and it righted the Marvel villain boat prior to the big MCU bombshell that was lying in wait. 

The Favourite I really wanted this to make the top 10 of the year... I thought long and hard about what film I should remove or replace.  What I came to realize, however, is that despite The Favourite being a world-class comedy and production, it simply falls short in the realm of the spectacular : it does not contain visual innovations, it is not a reflection of the times, and it didn’t completely break my brain.  That being said, on any given day, I’d happily name this one of the top 10 films of 2018... it’s essentially like having 11 cakes on the table and having to pick the 10 best.

Avengers : Infinity War This movie was the true film event of the year.  Marvel has been building up to this singular event for nearly two decades, and in my opinion, the payoff more than succeeded.  Thanos tiptoed the line between anti-hero and villain with purpose perfectly, and the rapport between characters worked both in terms of advancing narratives and being mined for humor.  I am definitely looking forward to Avengers : Endgame this April, and I know the masses are right there with me.

10. BlacKkKlansman

Not that I ever doubted Spike Lee had it, but after a few abstract offerings and documentaries, one wonders if their style can translate into an ever-expanding world of film language.  Luckily for Lee, it seems the world has grown into his cinematic vision, with an older true story serving as the perfect backbone for many of Lee’s trademark tricks to be implemented for maximum effect.  The ending will put you in tears if you have anything closely resembling a soul.

9. Blindspotting

This film really deserved a bigger run than it got, as it hit race relations of today on the nose without coming off as preachy or heavy-handed.  Daveed Diggs proved that his charisma translated on both stage and screen, and his integration of hip-hop into both realms will hopefully have positive long-lasting effects.  The chemistry between all members of this cast is kinetic, the story is told with perfect pacing, and the movie rides visual highs that match the narrative ones.  I would love to see this movie receive some high-degree nominations.

8. Annihilation

I came into 2018 with high expectations for this film, as I’d spent the previous 16 months or so completing the Southern Reach trilogy in its book form.  Then I started hearing things about the production and the release that gave me a bad feeling : a Netflix distribution deal that seemed to all but kill a true theatrical run, trepidation from the studio in regards to the director’s vision, and other whispers that attempt to sink a film.  Then I saw this movie, and was taken away to a completely different world.  We may not be getting a faithful, trilogy-length adaptation of the series anymore based on what happens in Annihilation, but if these are the moments I’m left with, I’d consider myself happy in the long run. 

7. First Reformed

It took me longer than I intended to get around to this one, but knowing that Paul Schrader wrote and directed it made it a must-see.  The film was drawing comparisons to Taxi Driver (not a surprise, based on the aforementioned Schrader involvement), and surprisingly, it more than lived up to that hype.  The tension is equal, but updated to reflect the times in a way that could impact any of us.

6. Suspiria   

This movie will make it extremely hard for me to blanket-debate against remakes simply because it does all of the right things in regards to updating a classic.  The film does not rely on existence as a new millenium version of an old film... rather, it boldly takes concepts only touched upon in the original and fully embraces them, presenting a true psychological horror gem in a year full of them.  The film also looks amazing on top of everything, which was a high bar to meet considering the original movie is basically driven by its visual style.  A 2018 must-see, film buff or not.

5. Spiderman : Into the Spider-Verse

Easily the most fun I’ve had in a theater all year.  I was blown away by the animation, and can’t wait to see further installments of the Spider-verse specifically to see how that enhances over the years.  There was such a high volume of homage and Easter Egg placement in this film that it warrants repeat viewings, and it was one of a handful of films that I wanted to instantly own as I was walking out of the theater.

4. Mandy

Like Spider-Man : Into the Spider-verse, I wanted to own this movie the second I walked out of the theater as well.  The trailers intrigued me, a recommendation of Beyond the Black Rainbow fully sold me, and the final product did not disappoint.  This film certainly is not for everyone, and funny enough, the two biggest aspects that would place it on that ‘not for everyone’ list sit in opposition of one another : the film is a bit indulgent on the style at the sake of what would be considered normal pacing, and it has some extremely violent moments.  That being said, Mandy is easily one of, if not THE, most beautiful films of the year.

3. Roma

This seems like the closest thing to a Fellini film that us modern day film lovers will ever get.  The story itself is intriguing, as it juxtaposes class issues, political issues and the barrier of trying to raise a family in a crazy world all in an intriguing tapestry.  The cinematography is calculated, observational, and the choice to film the movie in black and white adds an instant timeless quality to it.  Director Alfonso Cuaron even manages to get in a little cinematic and visual humor, albeit mostly subtly, but it definitely pays off if you’re in tune to what he’s doing.  Easily one of the best pictures of the year, worldwide, and a party that I was certainly late to.

2. You Were Never Really Here

If Mandy is a bit too over the top for your tastes, then You Were Never Really Here may be the jarring experience you need in 2018.  This film is almost as visually stunning, but the narrative is far more calculating, deceptive and intriguing, both on the surface and as you dig deeper.  The hectic camera setups, editing and score put you in such a disjointed state of mind that Joaquin Phoenix becomes the only thing you can hang on to, and your involvement in his journey is completely immersive.  In a year of performances that focus on the anti-hero, this film found a way to scrape to the top of the pile.

1. Hereditary

Something strange is happening here... who would have thought that a horror film would be my favorite film of the year?  Hereditary is no run of the mill horror film, however... it treats its audience as intelligent, and there is so much texture in the film that it’s impossible to see it all without multiple viewings.  The close of the first third of the film is horribly unsettling, but it propels the narrative forward so abruptly and intensely that you’re locked in from there out.  A genius film, and an instant classic.

(Editor’s notes)

- Original post date : 12/27/18 - Revision date : 1/8/19 (Roma added to position 3, Black Panther moved to Honorable Mentions) - Revision date : 1/10/19 (The Favourite added to Honorable Mentions) - Revision date : 1/22/19 (Suspiria added to position 6,Avengers : Infinity War moved to Honorable Mentions)

[lookinghbo]

'Looking' Made Raúl Castillo A Sex Symbol. Sheer Force Made Him A Star.

In New York, in the middle of July, if the fickle subway system allows it, you’d be wise to arrive at a destination 10 minutes early. You’ll need that time to let the sweat evaporate, to stamp out the damp spots that have betrayed your outfit.

Raúl Castillo forfeited his chance to cool down before shaking my hand at a Manhattan hotel restaurant on a sweltering Thursday morning. I didn’t mind. It was an honest mistake.

The “Looking” star was running slightly late and looking slightly frazzled when he bounded toward our table. He’d confused this hotel for another within walking distance where, the previous night, Castillo had attended a screening of the new Alexander McQueen documentary with his girlfriend, the costume designer Alexis Forte, who has the late fashion maverick’s biography at their Brooklyn apartment.

It’s cute to see celebrities frayed, even ones who are still building their marquee value. Castillo is the type who hasn’t yet abandoned public transportation when navigating the city, even though it’s becoming harder to do so without attracting strangers’ gazes. While trekking home from the “McQueen” event, a Latina teenager tapped him to say she loved “Atypical,” the Netflix series in which Castillo played a charismatic bartender sleeping with Jennifer Jason Leigh’s married character. The teenager’s mother loved “Seven Seconds,” the Netflix series in which Castillo played a narcotics detective tending to a racially charged investigation.

Raúl Castillo: a guy you can bring home to Mom, punctual or otherwise.

It’s his voice that people recognize, the 40-year-old actor said, a modest notion considering his breakthrough role as the sensitive barber Richie on “Looking” made Castillo a veritable heartthrob, despite the HBO show’s modest ratings. But it’s true that his warm baritone gravel is a distinguishing trait. Earlier this year, when I saw “Unsane,” Steven Soderbergh’s scrappy iPhone thriller set inside a mental institution, I recognized Castillo’s intonation before his face appeared onscreen.

That’s a significant feat. Castillo mumbled so much as an adolescent that a teacher recommended he see a speech therapist. He refused, instead reminding himself to enunciate or else using the impediment as a defense mechanism. “I have all these things wrong with my voice,” Castillo said, though few today would agree.

Castillo’s cadence may be growing familiar, but fame hardly seems like his long game. This is, after all, a guy who studied playwriting ― hardly the creative pursuit that commands the brightest spotlight ― at Boston University, after which he paid about $300 a month to live in a garage in Austin and perform local Chicano theater. “We the Animals,” a Sundance indie opening this weekend, marks the first time Castillo is the one generating a project’s star power. He portrays the father of three tight-knit boys storming through a wooded town in upstate New York. The movie, adapted from Justin Torres’ autobiographical novel of the same name, combines elements of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Moonlight” to capture a domestic home life that’s equal parts tender and volatile, where abuse and affection are equally common.

Castillo’s enthusiasm about “We the Animals,” and about the possibly of again working with its director, Jeremiah Zagar (“Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart”), speaks to his ambivalence toward the celebrity ecosystem.

“He could be like Tom Cruise without the child slavery,” Zagar said, roasting the “Mission: Impossible” moneymaker’s Scientology association (and its alleged history of forced manual labor). “Raúl’s that kind of a dude. He’s a perfect-looking dude, and yet he’s incredibly real and honest and true. There’s never a false note. He’s also incredibly collaborative. As a director, that’s a wonderful thing. I didn’t know what I was doing, really, because I had never directed a narrative before, and Raúl had a way of making me feel comfortable and confident in my own beliefs and my own material. He’s so seasoned and so clear about what he needs to do to make a scene work and a character work and to elevate other people around him.”

It’s a small movie with grainy aesthetics and an impressionistic lyricism ― in no way the kind of thing that will make a killing at the box office. For someone who first fell in love with theater by discovering the plays of Puerto Rican and Mexican writers like Miguel Piñero and Luis Valdez in his high school library, playing the complicated patriarch of a mixed-race family feels like a destiny fulfilled. (Sheila Vand, star of the Iranian horror gem “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” plays Castillo’s wife.) At this point, opportunities to extend his commercial footprint ― guest spots as a cannibal on “Gotham” and a music teacher on “Riverdale,” for example ― will find Castillo one way or another.

“I’ve always felt that I was never cookie-cutter,” he said. “For as much as I tried to fit my square peg into round holes, constantly, my whole career, I could never do it. Whenever I read ‘We the Animals,’ I didn’t think I would be cast in that film. [...] I felt viewed more as a Richie. People think I tend to find those roles easier than I do a role like this, ’cause it’s harsh. I knew that I could do it. I’m so grateful for both Jeremiah and Justin, who did see that in me.”

Born in McAllen, Texas, a midsize agricultural town that sits on the Mexican border, Castillo’s triumphs were born out of people believing in him at the exact right moments. He belongs to a first-generation immigrant family, even if home was a mere 10 miles down the road. Castillo didn’t feel othered, but his dual identity instilled a sort of anti-establishment fluster.

“I just saw a lot of bullshit in the structures that were established for me,” he said. “I found a lot of hypocrisies. People valued money, and I think when I was very young, I valued money and I didn’t have it. I think I hated myself for it.”

Slowly shedding the Catholic mysticism that once awed him, he took up bass and played in punk bands. When his friend Tanya Saracho, who would go on to write for “Looking” and “How to Get Away with Murder,” likened his GPA to a lifeline out of McAllen, Castillo decided to care about school. But in Boston, he was suddenly the minority. His “bad attitude” kept him out of second-year acting courses, until mentorship from a professor of color let Castillo understand that he shouldn’t punish himself for being subjected to an overwhelmingly white institution. And when he moved to New York in 2002, his pal Mando Alvarado, now a writer for “Greenleaf” and “Vida” (on which Castillo will soon appear), posited presentation as a mark of self-worth; if he didn’t put care into his résumé and headshot, why should anyone put care into hiring him?

Of course, when success takes years to manifest, it’s easy to forget the lessons you’ve learned. Living with four or five roommates at once, Castillo worked his way into the Labyrinth Theater Company, an experimental off-Broadway troupe founded by Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz. He still wanted to be a writer ― in high school, Castillo only ever acted to impress girls anyway ― but in 2006 he found himself starring in a Labyrinth production of “School of the Americas,” a play by “Motorcycle Diaries” scribe José Rivera. The acting bug stuck. In 2009, his play “Knives and Other Sharp Objects,” a multigenerational drama about class in Texas, opened off-Broadway, earning a mixed review from The New York Times.

Still, nothing quite lasted. The business side of things was grueling, and his coffee-shop gigs were getting old, even if he did count Lili Taylor and RuPaul as customers. An agent sent him on auditions for “huge” Hollywood movies ― which ones, Castillo wouldn’t say ― but dropped him after none proved fruitful. He was ready to give up altogether when “Looking” came around. Castillo had starred in the short film that became a prototype for the series. Its director, Michael Lannan, called him to audition for Richie (the character he’d initially played) and Augustin (a more prominent Latino character who worked as an artist’s assistant). He didn’t land either role, even though he’d originated one of them.

But by the time “Looking” was a week away from shooting, a Richie still hadn’t been cast. The producers called Castillo to read for Andrew Haigh, the gifted English director who shepherded the half-hour dramedy. Haigh had seen Castillo in an indie mystery called “Cold Weather” that gave him “street cred.” Crashing on John Ortiz’s couch in Hell’s Kitchen, wondering what else he could do with his life, Castillo was at a bar one night when he received an email with a contract attached. He had no representation to negotiate his salary, but it didn’t matter: After living check to check, he was on HBO.

“I was like, ‘Yes. Take my soul. I don’t care. Pay me. I need money,’” Castillo recalled. “I needed not just a paycheck but the affirmation. I needed something artistically that I could sink my teeth into that had value to it. Something that was substantial. Something that had a real point of view. I needed a character that gave me a platform to do what I do in a really great scale in the best way possible. And it ended up being that. That show was such a great gift to me.”

All of Castillo’s ensuing fortune can be linked to “Looking.” It made him a sex symbol, a love interest, a fan favorite, a rising star whose claim to fame meant a great deal to anyone hungry for frank depictions of queer intimacy. Richie was the good-natured, self-righteous ideal ― a perfect counterpoint for Patrick (Jonathan Groff), the series’ unsettled protagonist. It became gay viewers’ great disappointment when they learned that Castillo, their anointed hunk, was in fact straight.

“His inability to be fake as a person translates directly into his acting,” Groff said. “There is nothing extraneous or false about Raúl, and he brought a grounded, honest integrity to the character that absolutely no one else could have. He’s also just innately magic on screen and has that ‘it’ factor.”

Perhaps it was Castillo’s dual identity as a Mexican-American that helped him shine as a gay, blue-collar Californian who was sure of himself despite being rejected by his family. It’s certainly what lets him shine as the cash-strapped paterfamilias, caught between unremitting love for his kin and an inescapable pattern of violence, in “We the Animals.” This dyad comes at time when Castillo sees his identity splashed across the evening news.

McAllen houses the U.S. Border Patrol’s busiest hub for detaining immigrants suspected of entering the country illegally. While Castillo was vacationing in Europe and playing make-believe on sets, children were being ripped from their parents’ arms in his hometown.

“I would always have to explain where McAllen was, and now it’s this name you’re seeing constantly in the news for all these reasons that represent, for me, everything that’s wrong with this country,” Castillo said. “It was paralyzing. I was sitting in a beach in Europe, wondering why I deserved to be there. My parents had access to this country in ways that people who are coming from longer distances don’t. We had the great gift of citizenship, which is an incredible privilege. But my parents were immigrants, and they navigated that dynamic our entire lives. I saw my mom and my dad deal with all the insecurities and all the precarious nature of what being an immigrant in this country is. [...] Having grown up going back and forth across the border throughout my whole life, it’s disheartening and upsetting to see what’s happening. And then to think about this particular movie that deals with children, who are especially in that age when their minds are being formed and their view of the world is taking shape, to think about [the ones] locked in cages is enraging.”

Castillo may be miles from that crisis now, but he’s done more to better the world for brown people than he can know. His goal hasn’t been to diversity Hollywood roles written for white ensembles; it’s been to find work that naturally accentuates the grooves of his Latino heritage. He saw almost no Chicano role models in popular culture growing up, and now he is writing and starring in artistic endeavors that paint all shades of the human experience ― gay, poor, brown, cannibalistic, whatever ― with a dynamic brush.

Which isn’t to say everything’s gotten easy. He was slated to play the lead in “Mix Tape” (a musical drama set in Los Angeles) and appear on “One Day at a Time” (the Norman Lear reboot), but has since exited both series and would rather not disclose why. I got the sense, during our two-hour breakfast, that Castillo is still protective of how he is perceived. Maybe he always will be. He’s comfortable reflecting on his upbringing and his relationship with race ― concepts he’s spent his whole life processing ― but being candid about recent setbacks, as routinely asked of celebrities in interviews, does not yet come easy.

It’s the “ego business bullshit” that still eats at him. It’s what eats at most of us. But when someone makes a name for himself, that burden slowly fades to the periphery, replaced by a newfound comfort, even power. The man who once served RuPaul coffee now shares an agent with the drag dignitary.

“For so long, it was all feast or famine,” Castillo said. “I just took work when I could take it. And at this point, I’m in a new place where I want to be more thoughtful about the roles that I take on from here on out. The projects, the roles, the people. I’ve learned so much in the journey that now I want to apply all that and also honor my experience, because at this point I want to work with people who challenge me in all the right ways and push me to become a better actor and a better artist.”

[gelata-pisces]

SOS: Save Our Sharks

Here’s a final draft of my shark awareness essay I wrote a year or so ago for my english portfolio

Enjoy reading below the cut and support your local shark charities :3 

Have some useful links about sharks too; Save our seas, sharks.org, shark trust, wild aid, and Peter Benchley

SOS: Save Our Sharks

When I say the word shark, what is the first thing to come to mind? The rows upon rows of jagged teeth? Horror stories of near death experiences from surfers? The dramatic chords of the famous Spielberg movie? All in all the topic of sharks doesn’t bring anything pleasant to the table. And why? Because sharks are the terrors of the deep, lurking and biding their time for their next meal in a ferocious attack, right?

People have the general impression that sharks are bloodthirsty murderers yet they kill less than staircases (with almost 1,600 falling to their deaths) and lightning strikes (claiming 24,000 lives globally) the real threats to human mortality are clearly gravity and weather, not sharks. It’s a 1 in 63 chance of dying from the flu compared to the 1 in 3,700,000 of being killed by a shark during your lifetime. While sharks are known to injure humans, the fatalities caused by sharks are little to nothing compared to the number of deaths of sharks we cause. Over 100 million- and counting- sharks of all species are slaughtered every year, pushing the shark population to decline rapidly.

Chemical pollutants pose a serious threat to shark populations. Chemicals similar to DDT and oil spills are incredibly toxic for marine wildlife triggering severe illnesses and even death, creating dents in major populations. As well as chemicals, waste is an immense issue to sharks. Around 14 billion pounds of waste is dumped in the ocean every year. This waste presents a huge threat to sharks that mistake it for food and consume it. Once ingested, the waste wreaks havoc on the internal organs of sharks, causing numerous health problems and eventually leading to a painful death.

While global warming, pollution and slow reproduction are definitely major factors in shark population decline, one of the biggest threats to sharks are fishing, specifically shark finning. This is where the fins (primary and secondary dorsal, pectoral, pelvic, anal and caudal) of sharks are removed to be used for the Asian delicacy, shark fin soup. Shark finning is a vicious act of cruelty, as mutilated sharks are carelessly thrown back into the water with no thought of their pain and trauma. These sharks are left to either be eaten by predators or to sink and suffocate. Common sharks used in finning are Blacktip, Hammerhead, Mako, Tiger, and Great White sharks. Tens of millions of sharks are murdered every year to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup; at least 8,000 tonnes of shark fins are shipped to restaurants around the world (with one in five restaurants in the UK serving the dish illegally).

Demand for shark fin soup has rocketed in recent years due to the increased affluence of China. Shark fin soup, which can be priced around £100 a bowl, is often served so hosts can show off their wealth. Shark fin itself is tasteless. It merely offers a gelatinous bulk for the soup, which is flavoured with stock. Because of shark meat’s low economic value and large body mass, taking up too much space in the hold, fishermen interests are the fins. The meat also contains urea, which will turn to ammonia once the shark has died, contaminating other fish stored.

Fishermen report that sharks in general are becoming smaller in size as they are not being given enough time to mature. Shark populations take a long time to recover, taking over seven years to reach maturity and only raising one/two pups a year. Twenty species of sharks are listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union. In a few years many species of shark could become extinct if immediate action isn’t taken. Populations of many shark species have fallen by over 90%. Since 1972, the amount of Blacktips has fallen by 93%, Tigers by 97% and Bulls, Duskies and Hammerheads by 99%.

Sharks are a vital part of the ocean’s ecosystem; their absence would be detrimental to the planet. As an apex predator, sharks keep the marine food chain in complete balance, being ecological stabilisers. Without sharks, certain species will prosper, which will diminish the amount of plant eaters in the oceans. Without these herbivores, algae will flourish causing reefs to disappear and making the water toxic for any life. Additionally, sharks are essential to the carbon cycle. If they disappear, the carbon loading of the atmosphere will rise, causing indescribable damage from global warming. Getting rid of apex predators, such as sharks, is like removing the foundations of a building; a total collapse of the food chain leading to utter chaos and a decline in overall life.

There are many charities based around defending sharks (as well as species of skates and rays) such as Wildaid, Sharktrust, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Save Our Seas foundation. Gathering mass numbers of supporters, including Peter Benchley, ‘Jaws’ author and ocean advocate. Despite creating the famous story of the killer shark ‘Jaws’, Benchley wasn’t as anti-shark as one would have thought. In fact, he was completely against any harm to them. There became an increase in negative attitude towards sharks since the release of the movie ‘Jaws’. Small attacks made into worldwide news, damaging their reputation and causing fear amongst the population. Ironically, the genuine story in the book ‘Jaws’ was strikingly different from the movie made by Spielberg. It has been widely stated Benchley would not have written the book if he had known the negative consequences it had on sharks. However, in his defence, there is doubt that anyone could have foreseen prior to the movie’s release just what impact it would have on society. Nevertheless, despite the bad press towards them because of ‘Jaws’, prior to the movie’s release sharks were still caught in target and non-target fisheries, but these activities was mostly occurring in the dark, with little to no attention being paid. The movie had blown a lot of these activities into the open for all to see. Over the decades, following the movie’s release, Benchley turned into one of the greatest defenders of sharks out of guilt. Seeing how his fictional work had created the image of the shark as an 'enemy' of the people that must be killed horrified him. Benchley even went as far as to say: "The shark in an updated ‘Jaws’ could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim; for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."

Ultimately, sharks are not the coldblooded killers they’re made out to be with the majority of species being very docile. Species such as Nurse, Leopard, Whale and even Basking sharks are known to be completely harmless to humans. To the point of being petted and hand fed by divers. Not posing as a threat unless provoked into attacking. And shockingly, even Great Whites are known to be docile. While filming a documentary for the Discovery Channel, Chris Fallows paddled right up to one off Cape Town to prove his point of the creatures being tame. "It's very easy to tell people, but it's a different thing to show people and there's no better way than to lead by example. Obviously they're something you don't treat light-heartedly, but it's a common myth that these animals are going to come rush at you and attack at any time," he said.

Sharks (and skates and rays) are not threats to our society, and should definitely not be put through such torture of shark finning and culling. We take sharks for granted, not realising their true potential and purpose in our seas. Calling it ‘shark infested’ waters when in reality, it is their home. Sharks need to be protected, with many, many species critically endangered. And once they’re gone, they’re gone.

#saveoursharks

*clap clap jazzhands* thank you for reading my mess

Sources:

[x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

[csnews]

Lolita may never go free. And that could be what’s best for her, scientists say

Chabeli Herrera - Nov. 20, 2017

For nearly 25 years, the Miami Seaquarium’s killer whale, Lolita, has been the star of a sequel that has never been made.

In 1995, inspired by the original tale of Keiko, the whale in the 1993 film “Free Willy,” a Washington state governor sought to make Lolita the next captive killer whale returned to the ocean. A fundraising campaign ensued, and soon it seemed that Free Lolita could be the next real-life Free Willy. Former Gov. Mike Lowry’s vision has since spawned thousands of dollars in donations, several lawsuits and annual protests at the Miami Seaquarium on Aug. 8 — the anniversary of Lolita’s 1970 capture off Puget Sound. Moms with their kids, college students in whale costumes and out-of-state advocates turn up on Virginia Key each year to support the Free Lolita movement.

But often lost in the well-meaning attempts to return Lolita home is one central question: Is freedom really what’s best for her? The orca, now about 50 years old, remains the last known survivor of the group of more than 50 whales captured 47 years ago. Since her mate died of a brain aneurysm in 1980, she has become the only solitary orca in captivity, where she lives in the smallest killer whale tank in the nation. As the years have passed, the likelihood of her return to the sea — and her ability to adjust to that change — has become less likely, said Russ Rector, a long-time marine mammal advocate. Lolita’s identity as a living being has been usurped, he said.

“She is just a casualty of captivity and the activists. She has become an icon that quite frankly, nothing has been done for her except a slogan: ‘Free Lolita, Free Lolita,’ ” Rector said. “I’m sure Lolita appreciates that.”

In recent years, Lolita’s story has been awash in a tidal wave of public opinion that has crashed against marine parks that house captive animals. Kick-started by the release of “Blackfish,” a 2013 documentary detailing the plight of orcas in captivity, the change in public perception has caused shares of marine theme park company SeaWorld to sink by about 40 percent this year alone. Key to that shift was the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, who was killed by an orca following a performance at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010. SeaWorld has since announced it would end its breeding program for captive orcas.

The “Free Lolita” movement has outlived even its creator, Lowry, who died in March. But the donations keep piling up, the protests go on, and plans for her release continue to resurface.

Just last month, former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine and the Miami Beach City Commission unanimously passed a resolution urging the Seaquarium to retire Lolita based on the recommendations of a long-standing retirement plan originally created in 1996 by the nonprofit Tokitae Foundation (Tokitae was given the stage name “Lolita” by the Seaquarium) which later became Orca Conservancy. It involves transferring Lolita to a seaside sanctuary in the Pacific Northwest, in her native home, teaching her to fend for herself, and eventually releasing her back into the wild.

But at this point in her life, Lolita may never get to test her retirement plan. She may never be the sequel.

And that’s probably in her best interest, some experts say.

It was late one night in 1989 when Craig Pelton, then a young whale trainer, snuck into the whale stadium at Miami Seaquarium after it closed and waded into the 50 degree water.

After-hours whale swims were categorically prohibited, so, naturally, the trainers did it from time to time, Pelton said. It was a time before “Blackfish,” before a trainer had been killed by a captive whale, before the “Free Lolita” movement started making waves.

In the water, Pelton watched as Lolita swam over. The orca was in her mid-20s by then, about 20 feet long and 7,000 pounds. A full moon illuminated the stadium below.

Lolita paused and put her pectoral fin under his body — then she snuggled to his side. On Pelton’s other side, Lolita’s tank mate Makani, a Pacific white-sided dolphin, did the same.

“I laid there for about five, 10 minutes, all three [of us] at the surface,” Pelton said. “She was just a sweet animal that was just amazing to work with.”

By the time he left the park in 1991, Pelton said he learned how limited Lolita’s ability to adjust to new surroundings already had become. Pelton, now an assistant clinical professor at the University of Florida’s veterinary college, recalls the day he started at the Seaquarium, when the park installed a slide-out platform to her tank for performances. Lolita struggled to adjust to the change, Pelton said.

“The running joke was that if you were going to build her a new whale stadium, you have to build it next to the old one and put a gate between them to come home at night,” he said. “Even then, her ability to change to new things wasn’t that great.”

Change and assimilation are at the heart of the argument against Lolita’s release.

The Miami Herald spoke to a dozen experts on killer whales around the nation. They included experts without a stake in Lolita’s case, some who worked on the Keiko release project, scientists currently working on seaside sanctuary projects for aquatic mammals and her caretakers at the Seaquarium.

The vast majority said they would advise against moving Lolita to the Pacific Ocean or a seaside sanctuary.

“You have to face the fact that this is not a theoretical animal. This is one real animal that I think people on both sides of the conversation have to step back and say, ‘What’s best for this particular animal at this particular stage of her life?’ ” said Douglas Wartzok, professor emeritus and professor of biology at Florida International University, who has a Ph.D. in biophysics. “It’s not an easy answer, [but] my opinion is it’s probably better to leave the animal where she has lived for the past 47 years.”

Wartzok and others argue that the stress of moving Lolita could be catastrophic. Together, the costs involved in building her a new facility, the kind of veterinary care necessary for her at this stage in her life, the risks she could pose to the wild population and the negative impact a new environment could have on her health are, they say, insurmountable.

They point to a test pilot for this kind of release: Keiko.

Known as “Willy” to film buffs, the real life Keiko was captured when he was about 3 years old and lived in a small tank in a Mexican amusement park until the time pictured in “Free Willy,” a film about a boy who trains the whale to jump to freedom at a marine park. Following the film, scientists worked for years to ween Keiko off his dependency on human interaction, preparing him for his eventual release to the wild.

A study of his case released in 2009 in Marine Mammal Science, a peer-reviewed journal, found that Keiko repeatedly swam back to his caretakers’ boat, even though his caretakers tried to ignore him to encourage him to swim off on his own. Alone in a Norwegian fjord, Keiko eventually died of pneumonia about a year after his full release. The study concluded his release was “not successful.”

“The release of Keiko demonstrated that release of long-term captive animals is especially challenging and while we as humans might find it appealing to free a long-term captive animal, the survival and well being of the animal may be severely impacted in doing so,” the study found.

Keiko, who died at about 26, struggled to adjust without human contact and was unable to assimilate to the wild population, said Mark Simmons, who was the director of husbandry on the Keiko project before leaving it after disagreements over wildlife practices. Lolita has been in captivity nearly twice as long, he said, making it far less likely she will be able to adjust to a new environment.

“You would have to be just so incredibly careful about how you approximate that change. You can’t control the heavy metal toxicity in the water that is prevalent in our coastal regions. You can’t control the pathogens, the bacteria; her immune system is not adept,” said Simmons, who also authored a book on Keiko’s death called “Killing Keiko.”

“If you gave me a blank check and said, ‘You can do whatever you want to Lolita,’ personally I wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.”

Seaside Sanctuary?

But some believe Lolita could thrive in a controlled, more natural environment — even if that means she may never be released to the ocean.

Maddalena Bearzi, president and co-founder of the California-based Ocean Conservation Society, said a seaside sanctuary could be an option. Bearzi has a Ph.D. in biology.

“It’s true that the psychological damage of Lolita’s sensory and physical isolation and deprivation of social bonding due to captivity is probably somehow already permanent in her,” Bearzi said via email. “Nevertheless, I have no doubt that Lolita would highly benefit from being released to a more appropriate environment such as a sea pen in her native waters.”

Some scientists working on seaside sanctuary projects agree. They’re working on the world’s first permanent sea pen projects.

Washington-based nonprofit Orca Network, for instance, has been updating Lolita’s retirement plan in recent years. The detailed, $3.6 million plan would first have Lolita swim into a sling at the Seaquarium that is then lifted by a crane and lowered into a large container half-filled with ice water. The container would be transported to Miami International Airport and loaded onto a military transport aircraft approved for animal transport, which would make the seven-hour flight to Bellingham International Airport in Washington state. Her container would then be transported via truck to a sea-pen site at Eastsound, Orcas Island.

There, she would be cared for by her current staff of trainers and veterinarians, and be given the same medications and the same cuts of fish she eats at the Seaquarium, Orca Network suggests. The cost of the plan, without her release into the wild, is about $2.9 million and an additional $1.4 million annually for upkeep.

“Lolita’s close kin will be nearby and she’ll be offered ample human care and companionship indefinitely if she so chooses,” said Howard Garrett, co-founder, director and president of the board at Orca Network. Garrett, who has a degree in sociology and has been working on whale research since 1980, believes Lolita could be safely transitioned to the new site.

A more recent plan seeks to build a sea pen in the Pacific Northwest or Nova Scotia to house six to eight orcas in the coming years.

The site, in development from not-for-profit organization The Whale Sanctuary Project, is seeking a netted-off cove or bay about 100 acres in size, with good water flushing, said Lori Marino, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project. Once the location is chosen, the organization plans to build a full-service marine mammal veterinary clinic and an education center where visitors can see the whales from afar. No breeding would be allowed.

The project would be an enormous undertaking, with a cost of $15 million to $20 million to build and another $2 million a year in operating costs, Marino predicts. Whether Lolita would be a good candidate for the sanctuary is still unknown.

“There is absolutely no doubt that if she were to be successfully transferred to a seaside sanctuary, the circumstances of her life would just be enormously changed,” Marino said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t a risk and before any kind of decision like that we would have to really see what her health was, what kind of pathogen load she was carrying. You can’t just take the whale and transfer her into a new environment and say, ‘Well, she is going to thrive.’ ”

There is also critical concern that Lolita may harm an already overstressed Southern Resident killer whale population, an endangered community in the Northwestern Pacific whose numbers have been declining rapidly in recent years because of pollution, vessel noise and food shortages.

“The last thing we would want to do is introduce a whale into that environment where it could have a negative impact on the Southern Resident orca,” Marino said.

And, the same issues that pose a threat to the orca population may also pose a threat to Lolita were she to be retired to that region, said Shari Tarantino, president of the board of directors at Orca Conservancy, the Washington-based nonprofit organization involved in developing Lolita’s retirement plan.

“The Salish Sea is a primary shipping route for fossil fuels, and a sanctuary facility could trap her in an oil spill. It is an area used for military exercises that may have resulted in fatalities of wild killer whales. There have been disease outbreaks that have resulted in unusual mortality events of other cetaceans at a time when killer whale mortality was also high. Smoke and ash from fires currently pose risks to respiratory health,” Tarantino said via email.

While the organization advocates for Lolita’s release, she said, it also is concerned about Lolita’s ability to survive in a new environment.

“Killer whales and other cetaceans that have been in a facility for more than about two years have exhibited increased mortality rates when moved to a new setting,” she said. That holds true whether the orca was captured from the wild, transferred between aquariums, or released to the wild.

“Thus she would be a bad candidate for moving out of her current facility.”

Closed Window

Lolita may have had a window of opportunity for release 25 years ago, when the “Free Lolita” movement began, said Rector, the activist who has been working for decades to shut down the Seaquarium and similar facilities.

“Lolita has missed her window because of activists that have blown it. They have used her for a funding source.”

As for unfulfilled plans to build sanctuaries, he said, “If you haven’t done something in 20 years, you are probably not going to do it.”

Garrett of the Orca Network said the nearly $13,000 in annual donations the organization has received in the past five years, plus about $4,000 annually from 2002 to 2013, has gone to raising awareness for Lolita’s plight. Any donations for her sea pen reportedly have gone to a fund in her name created by the Lummi Tribal Nonprofit Foundation, not Orca Network, Garrett said. Figures were not available.

But the window for Lolita’s release was officially shuttered in 2015, Rector said.

Until then, Lolita was not covered under the endangered species listing for the Southern Resident Killer Whale because she was captured in 1970, before the Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed in 1972. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other advocacy groups fought to include her in the listing, a move they hoped would bring her new protections from alleged harm and harassment.

Instead, the designation made it more difficult for Lolita to be moved from the Seaquarium.

Prior to the designation, a group could have retired Lolita by acquiring her from the Seaquarium, Rector said. Now that she is included, any move would require a permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, which would have to ensure that releasing Lolita would not pose a serious risk to her livelihood.

“Any future plans to move or release Lolita would … undergo rigorous scientific review,” said the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency that overseas Lolita, in its ruling. “Releasing a whale that has spent most of its life in captivity raises many concerns. Previous attempts to release captive killer whales and dolphins have often been unsuccessful and some have ended tragically with the death of the released animal.”

The Tank

All arguments about Lolita end up dwelling on the size of her tank. The 80 by 60 foot concrete pool, bisected by a work island, is part of what fueled the Free Lolita campaign to begin with. It remains a source of consternation for activists and sympathizers.

Pelton, the former whale trainer, said he hopes to see her in a bigger pool one day. Wartzok, the FIU professor, called her tank “not a very good environment for a whale to live in.” Bearzi said Lolita’s current environment has “deprived [her] from expressing all aspects of her social and ecological complexity.”

While the legality of the size of Lolita’s tank has been questioned numerous times, including by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Inspector General earlier this year, a 1999 ruling by the USDA stands. The tank meets the necessary requirements.

“I don’t think space is relative to the overall health of her,” said Robert Rose, curator emeritus at the Miami Seaquarium, who has been working with Lolita for more than 22 years. “Having that bigger pool or that large ocean isn’t going to help her in any way shape or form. … Sometimes change is very hard, especially when you get older.”

The Seaquarium strongly refutes that the tank is too small or that Lolita is unhappy, though it did try to build her a larger enclosure in the 1990s.

Then, the park battled the village of Key Biscayne to begin a $70 million expansion, which called for a new $9 million to $10 million whale stadium. The fight lasted nearly a decade.

“[We spent] millions of dollars in legal battle with Key Biscayne and we want to Tallahassee twice before the master plan was ultimately denied, and a new killer whale stadium was a part of this plan,” said Eric Eimstad, assistant general manager and chief marketing officer of the Seaquarium. “But today we have an animal that is [more than 50 years old] and what is really in her best interest? Changing her environment I don’t think in any way would be to her benefit.”

But former village attorney Stephen Helfman claimed that the Seaquarium hid behind its expansion legal battle to avoid building the tank, which was permitted without village approval because it is a marine exhibit.

“That’s the old red herring they love to throw out there, that the village of Key Biscayne won’t let them build a new tank for Lolita,” Helfman told the Herald, as reported in a 1998 article. “We have no problem with them building any size tank they like. They can build away at their whim with regard to a new tank for Lolita.”

But the Seaquarium said it obtained financing and building permits for a new tank groundbreaking scheduled for Sept. 24, 2001. After 9/11, tourism took a nose dive around the country, making it “impossible” to move forward with the plan, the park said in a statement.

While the Seaquarium, a private entity, won’t say how much of its profit is tied to Lolita’s popularity, she is something of a rarity. Only three other parks in the country feature a headline killer whale act: SeaWorld Orlando, SeaWorld San Diego and SeaWorld San Antonio.

In SeaWorld Orlando, the orca tanks are about twice as deep as Lolita’s, according to SeaWorld, which would only discuss the depth of its tanks.

“You could take Lolita’s tank and grandstand and put it in the pool in Orlando and still have pool left over,” Rector said. “That should tell you something.”

After decades following Lolita’s case, he is now convinced she is out of options.

“Lolita is going to die in that tank and there is nothing anybody can do about it,” he said.