#honestly it's a great movie and an incredible adaptation

[desperatelychaotic]

So I just finished reading American Psycho and all I can say is:

[tossawary]

Honestly, I don't think the Ents were scary enough in the LOTR Jackson films when they attacked Isengard. Like, it's great! It is great! It was amazing to see the first time; the effects are incredible for their time and they still hold up pretty well! I don't need to be told that they had various animation limitations. (More size variation in the Ents could have been nice. They could have been even bigger. But animation limitations and time constraints and such, I know!)

It's just that a lot of the camera shots were looking down on the battle (they're using bigatures and such, I know), so the Ents looked tiny, stomping on tinier orcs, or the camera is sitting with Merry and Pippin on Treebeard's shoulders, and that angle doesn't really get across how HUGE and NON-HUMAN trees are. I think the best shots in this battle sequence are the ones from the perspective of the orcs, where it's just utter chaos, and then some walking tree appears out of nowhere and it's ANGRY WITH YOU. Ideally, I think it would have been great if the storyboarding had leaned more into that bewildered and terrified human perspective more, getting more into the dirt of things, before then zooming out for the overview of the Ents overtaking Isengard for the end of the sequence. The boarding in the film does a lot of jumping in and out in regards to size and what's happening.

Like, have you ever been next to a massive tree in a windstorm? The sort that looms over the roofs of houses? When the whole tree starts swaying in the wind, hundreds of branches twisting like some kind of tentacled beast? And the rustling starts to sound like a dull roar? And you think to yourself, "Oh, if that tall tree ever goes down, it is taking that entire house down with it, cracking open the roof and bashing down the walls. It would smash that car flat. It would crush me easily and I don't even know how I would begin to get out of its way as it falls, because its branches and leaves would just swallow me."

And if you're ever in a heavily wooded area during a windstorm, it's even worse, because the old trees all around you are bending and shaking like they're about to pull up their roots and start walking. Like, you didn't forget that they're alive, did you? And it's beautiful, of course, but it's also dangerous. It looks like they're dancing in their own way, but the amount of wood being thrown around means that one good branch breaking could seriously hurt someone. And it's just a branch to the tree, the tree might be fine, it might just grow another, but that branch could easily be longer and heavier than a person.

It is cool to see all of the other Ents coming out of the woods to back Treebeard up and then go marching forward. But it does raise the question of "Wait, how did the other Ents get there so fast? Aren't they kind of slow?" (If there is lore explaining this, general movie audiences will not know it.) So, it would be fun if Treebeard made his call and the dramatic speech, all alone, and then we could cut away, so we have the plausible deniability of a time skip. There's also the tension of: "Oh, no, is Treebeard going to attack Isengard alone?"

And THEN we could pick back up with orcs on the walls of Isengard, boredly watching the industry below, before the ground starts shaking and the stone beneath their feet cracks. And a huge shadow looms over the wall as a MASSIVE TREE climbs over, basically falling over, and letting its sheer weight take down everything in its path. Followed by dozens more of these creatures. Making the machinery of Isengard look and all the orcs within feel very, VERY small.

If Ents are ever depicted again in any visual adaptation, even an illustrated version of the novel or a graphic novel, I feel like it should be a goal to really capture that feeling of being small and mortal by comparison. Some of the earlier interactions with Merry and Pippin and Treebeard get this feeling well enough. The LOTR films are over and done, obviously, and they did pretty well. But it could be better! I want to LEAN into those moments of smallness just a little more in future adaptations of Middle Earth. I would love to keep the camera LOW as much as possible and utilize advancements like more detailed models and better leaf animation. (Like hair, leaves are hard!)

We are not the Ents here. We are just witnessing them. You have to go out into a forest and ask yourself, "What WOULD it be like if trees walked around me?"

[fruitybookworm]

the 1987 adaptation of ‘maurice’ was great in most aspects honestly. changing clive from suddenly just falling out of love with maurice (and men overall) to instead showing his spiral after risley was convicted and adding that scene at the end (as much as it hurt) were honestly good additions.

i will however NEVER forgive them for adding that ominous music over the scene where alec climbed up the ladder and came into maurice’s room. it deadass made it look like he forced himself on maurice. WHY ?? in the books maurice calls “come !” into the dark and alec genuinely thought he was calling for him. he didn’t just come up the ladder like a creep and jump on him..

was it perfect? no. but it still means so much to me. the book is very special to me and the fact it got an adaptation in the 80s is incredible. i’m very glad i watched the movie after reading the book as i could fill in some of the odd jumps in time with missing scenes from the book, i fear many won’t enjoy it as much as i did without it.

basically what i wanna say is i highly recommend reading the book and then rewatching the movie if you’ve already watched it and felt like something was missing !

[bestanimatedmovie]

Choose your favorite!

Vote in the other polls!

What fans say:

Kung Fu Panda:

Honestly iconic. The progression of story, the message, the acting.

The way this movie balances tone is nothing less than astonishing to me. It's funny and lighthearted but also intense and dramatic and neither ever take away from the other. Every joke and emotional beat lands excellently. Not to mention. The fight scenes SLAP. And so does the score!!

It's just GOOD. I love how all of them were insanely genuine. Po genuinely wanted to be a Kung Fu master. The Furious Five genuinely wanted to be the very best like no one ever was. And Tai Lung genuinely wanted to kick the shit out of anyone that even looked at that dragon scroll. But seriously one of the best movies.

Treasure Planet:

The setting and focal relationship!

WHALES IN SPACE. Second best treasure island adaptation (#1 is muppets). The song The Song!!

Where do I begin with this movie? It blends CG and hand drawn animation beautifully. All of the backgrounds are gorgeous. There are so many cool alien designs. The score is absolutely perfect. The amount of detail put into the design and worldbuilding shines through. All of the characters are so much fun to watch, especially Long John Silver and Captain Amelia. This movie takes at least partial responsibility for my love of space/sky pirates. Also it was actively sabotaged by Disney so I need to vouch for it at every chance.

Space pirates in a classic novel. It's gorgeously animated with a blend of 2d and 3d. Also, LONG JOHN SILVER HAS A 3D HAND thats hecking impressive for a main character to be a blend of the two in 2002. Did I mention the twink protagonist and malewife for the rich halfwit son? The aliens are beautifully unique, and a mantis guy floats off into space. from a pirate ship. because they aren't just space pirates, they're aliens and cyborgs on pirate ships going through space. Which fucking rocks.

It's a genuinely creative adaptation of Treasure Island that has so much heart and incredible animation. It helped pioneer 3D animationa nd it was the first feature animated film to utilize both 2 and 3 D animation

The animation is so good, and the way that the antogonist isn't black and white, he genuinely cares for the protagonist <3

Pirate ships in space!

Watched this on loop as a kid, gave me solace for not growing up with a dad

It fucks

The ☆A n i m a t i o n☆!! And captain Amelia

It's so fun looking, cool character design. It's funny, it's emotional. I love it so very much please aaaaaaa

How this movie looks is absolutely amazing. A space-steampunk pirate story with fantastic visuals and (mostly) great characters. The vibes this movie has are off the charts. Jim is the bad-boy-good-heart kid, the doctor is a silly-goofy-but-oddly-competent support and Silver is a complex father-figure-who's-made-mistakes. Also MORT the cute little jelly that won me over in 0.5 seconds flat. I am also a slut for a good soundtrack and this one SLAPS. I will stand by my opinion that the Russian version of the song I'm Still Here did a better job of fitting the montage and the mood. That's a hill I will die on.

[eyeballmarshmallowtea]

BBC Sherlock

Hi, I'm Sophie. This post will be a rant. You have been warned.

BBC Sherlock last aired in 2017, with Series 4 Episode 3, The Final Problem. I am still waiting for Series 5. I first discovered this show when my amazing English teacher showed us A Study In Pink before the christmas holidays. I went home, watched the next epsiode, and promptly forgot that Sherlock existed. Until a couple of days before the summer holidays, when we were shown The Hounds of Baskerville. We only got to watch half the episode, and me and a friend finished it and watched half of the Great Game in Science and French class. (It was the end of the year, there was practically no work). And then I left for music tour. We spent 30+ hours on a coach over 5 days. 28 hours of that (I checked) was spent on BBC iPlayer. That's the whole of Sherlock twice. I finished it and then rewatched with a friend, and from then I became obsessed. I got a group together of 4 people, old and new fans, and we chat about Sherlock the entire time and it is amazing. My parents used to watch it so I convinced them that my sister was old enough to watch A Study In Pink. (She was only allowed to watch that one, she is now on Series 4. I regret nothing). My dad found the DVDs in the free book pickup at our local station, so I watched the original pilot episode and it was amazing. I also read and write fanfiction, which leads me onto the next point. And it is a long point.

Johnlock.

Although the series ended 7 years ago, I still hold out hope. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson belong together and always have, and before I finished the show I truly believed it would become canon. I was heartbroken and I genuinely felt let down. As so many of fans were at the time of the show's release, I am an LGBTQ+ teenager, and representation in my favourite show would be more than just a stupid headcannon coming true, it would have meant the world to me and so many others. This show has made me laugh and cry but sometimes I think about what could have happened and I wonder what could have been different.

However, regardless of this, I truly believe that this show is an incredible feat of acting, writing, filming, production and it will come back. Even yesterday (I say yesterday, it's 00:16 currently), the producer said there might be a movie or a new series. There is always hope, and Sherlock will return, because it has to. The 'ending' cannot be the ending, because it is not the ending. It is the temporary ending, and the true one will be here someday, even if it takes another 7 years.

And even if not, then there will be more adaptions, and someday someone will tell the true story of Sherlock.

And whether you ship Johnlock, or are a fan of Sherlock, this show is incredible. And honestly, if there is another series, I don't even care what it is about as long as it just happens.

In conclusion, this show has genuinely been life changing. It has changed my perception of things, given me friendships, made me less bored, given me something to do and something to talk about, and I am endlessly grateful for the show.

So when it does return, I will be waiting for it, and when the first announcement comes, I know my reaction will be pure joy, and probably make me look very stupid in public.

I'm now crying. I need to sleep.

Thank you for reading

-Sophie

[canmom]

the adventure of canmom at weird weekend (part 1)

is this 'adventure of' joke getting old? like I've already done the 'translate into scots gaelic' variant. it's not exactly an adventure if it's a half hour bike ride is it? ah fuckit

This weekend was the Weird Weekend film festival in Glasgow! it's the tiny kind of film festival with one screen and folding chairs - they did get their hands on a real beast of a projector mind you...

Look at that concentrated beam of pure film. Kind of awesome to actually see a lightfield intense enough to scatter off random bits of dust in the air honestly.

This is apparently the fourth time this festival has run - though as is often the case I'm terribly out of the loop and only heard about it when @birdfriender told me it was on lol. It's also only my third time going to a film festival (the previous times both being Annecy, a very different kind of festival). It was a great time: the organisers have excellent taste and there's a lot of deep cuts, and made some good friends among the attendees.

On Friday night I showed up for the opening evening of interactive film - this included a short film/video essay commissioned for the festival based on of all things the Goncharov meme (seriously...), followed by a brief history of interactive film including the amusingly ill-fated venture of a certain former Microsoft guy called Bob something (I really should have written this down), and then someone called Puke ("everyone’s favourite genderfluid body fluid") came out dressed like this to oversee the actual event...

...and we watched of all things Final Destination 3 with the DVD feature that lets you switch in alternate scenes at various points (mostly death scenes). This was actually a pretty good time since it was my first time seeing a Final Destination film, and there was a good energy in the audience (although it seemed like the film always picked the opposite of what we voted for - not sure if that's a thematic point or programming error lol), but I'm glad the rest of the festival was more obscure stuff.

On Saturday, the festival proper began! I am reminded of a certain line in Exordia, in which the alien Ssrin gives her assessment of humanity, opening with "You’re a species of gangly distance runners, adapted to sweat and throw stuff. You like watching each other fuck." And indeed, there were few films this weekend that did not offer an opportunity to watch someone fuck. That's art for ya babey.

Looking back the clear highlight was Louise Weard's film Castration Movie I: Traps, but more on that anon - let's start at the beginning. I ended up catching all but one of the films over the course of the weekend and there was maybe only one I'd call an outright miss, so great going in all.

On Saturday we opened with a pair of Hungarian films directed by György Révész, about an incredibly up himself intellectual-in-exile named Dr. János Bátky - the self insert of author Antal Szerb. the first film, The Loves of a Dilettante, sees Bátky going through a series of affairs with women around him - in each case abruptly ending the relationship because it doesn't conform to his specific fantasy. The reasons become increasingly absurd: at first Bátky wishes instead that his partner is a certain Countess, but when he chances to meet the lady herself, he refuses to believe she is who she says she is; at last another woman at the library turns out to be the secret admirer who has been sending Bátky gifts in the post, and he cannot stand to be pursued instead of the manipulative pursuer he fancied himself to be, and spurns her as well.

Bátky is very much the butt of the joke in this film, and the ending sees everyone pretty much done with his bullshit; at the same time, he is an entertaining character, with a nonstop patter full of literary allusions, bizarre tangents and dubious observations. Not so charming that I can quite see why all these women are throwing themselves at him, but that's the conceit of the film I suppose! The actor playing him, Iván Darvas does a splendid job of making this sideburned wanker come across as interesting enough to carry a film.

The second Bátky film, The Pendragon Legend was a major tonal departure from the first - and also featured a different cast, despite including a number of the same characters. (Funnily enough Iván Darvas returns, but as a different character.) This time, rather than a study of Bátky's foibles, we have a complicated conspiracy at a stately home in wales, tying in with biological experiments, immortal sorcerors and the Rosicrucians, assassination plots, affairs; the works. It ends up a lot of fun, although the sheer number of characters made it a little hard to keep track of everything. Here, Bátky is pulled in as almost an observer of all the shit going down, and comes across a lot more sympathetic as a result.

All in all, a pretty fascinating pair of films and window into Hungarian cinema. With both these films set in London and Wales but voiced entirely in Hungarian, it seems to present an amusing alternate universe in which Hungary is the language of the UK, but nobody knows where Hungary is. It's a very old-school 'from outside' view of the UK, full of tea-sipping aristocrats and walks in the park and intellectual conversations in a library - it's quite funny to me. I haven't seen a ton of Hungarian film (mostly animation), but everything I've seen has been fascinating, and terribly literary.

A whole lot of the films in this festival were restorations of various out of print films, and that includes to the next one, Treasure Island directed by Scott King. This film has absolutely nothing to do with Stephenson's book, instead referring to the island near San Francisco where mail was processed during the second world war.

The basis of the story is the historical Operation Mincemeat, in which the British constructed a false identity for a corpse and planted it to mislead the Nazis; here the story is transplanted to the American invasion of Japan, but the focus is hardly wartime intrigue, instead the psychosexual inner lives of the two Americans who are involved in constructing the fake identity for the corpse. One of them secretly has two wives, one a white civilian woman and the other a Japanese woman who works in translation for the military; the other habitually invites other men for group sex with him and his wife and has a whole lot of hangups about how he is not gay, and that corpse is not at all sexy thank you.

As the film progresses, both of them are increasingly struck by visions of the dead man talking to them and the line between 'reality' and fantasy gets blurrier. It's a very well crafted and engaging film; shot in black and white in 1999, it aimed to challenge the rather sanitised and straightforwardly heroic picture of the 'Greatest Generation' who fought the war, presenting a more 'warts and all' look with the sexuality and racism and so forth in full view. I found it very effective! And it was cool to have the director there, a bearded American guy who spoke very confidently about his intentions for the film - I got to ask a question about how he kept all the fantasy and more literal elements straight while scripting the film.

(Do you find that when you get a Q&A session like this, you really want to ask a good question? Because I do. It's very silly. But like if I am going to hold the mic and get the spotlight on me... sure I don't want to waste peoples' time, but also I kinda want to come off well lmao. If I can get people to go 'ooh that's a good question' I feel like I've won audience Q&A, a real thing that is reasonable to want.)

In the afternoon we got a massive block of trans films old and new. We opened with Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucubers featuring Holly Woodlawn; Jaye Hudson of the TGirlsOnFilm Instagram account (which I was not previously familiar with) gave an introduction, telling the story of how Woodlawn came into the orbit of Warhol's 'Factory', and reading out some funny anecdotes about her experience on set. As Jaye talked about it, at that point in the 70s, trans girls were kind of the flavour of the month and we appeared in a bunch of films at the time, of which this was one.

The film sees a girl called Eve Harrington moving to New York in pursuit of the dream of becoming an actress; there she meets a series of weirdos from taxi-driving nuns to 'Mary Poppins', the drag empress of a kind of roommate finding service who's always trailed by worshipful boys. Most of the film sees Eve trying to find an apartment and a boyfriend, and running into various 70s archetypes along the way: a werewolf (also played by Woodlawn in boy mode), political lesbians, a plant-obsessed hippy, and finally a taciturn amnesiac Russian woman and her brother, a little person in a cowboy outfit who does pro wrestling. It's an intriguing slice of the 70s and of New York in particular.

Apparently this film has long been out of print and only narrowly evaded being lost media, so it's pretty sick to see. (And honestly despite the long cultural shadow they cast, I don't actually know that much about the girls around Warhol's 'Factory', so I was glad to get a look in.)

Next up we had 'An Untitled and Perfectly-Legal Coming-of-Age Clown Parody Film' - not hard to figure out what film this is (The People's Joker), especially with the still and trailer right there, but while the courts in the US seem to have come down on recognising it as a valid Fair Use defence, the legal status is still a bit up in the air in the UK.

This one got a lot of buzz for thumbing its nose at Warner Bros.' copyright empire - and of course being part of a recent wave of trans girl directed independent films such as I Saw The TV Glow. It's a trans girl coming of age story built around the Batman milieu, and clearly by people with a pretty thorough knowledge of Batman's cinematic history and DC universe deep cuts (the final act involves a musical number with Mx. Mxyzptlk, played as a puppet, which I'm sure means something if you read the comics).

It's largely shot on greenscreen, with all kinds of mixed media and animation segments - deliberately going for a grungy, chaotic look where it doesn't try to match lighting and animation styles (there's a whole bunch of indepedent animators contributing brief segments here, much as in Barber Westchester). The story concerns Joker the Harlequin, a trans girl who finally moves away from her controlling mother after being drugged with 'Smylex' for most of her life; now in Gotham she can transition, have a dodgy relationship with a trans guy (who is also a version of the Joker, and - spoilers - a former Robin), and build an 'anti-comedy' club with most of the usual Batman villains before going to confront the cultish institution which controls all legal comedy in post-'cyber war' America.

The film's strongest aspect is, fittingly, jokes - throwaway lines about the casually dystopian setting ('drag was outlawed after the explosion at RuPaul's fracking ranch' got a big laugh); a running joke of namedropping cancelled comedians with 'before the unpleasantness, of course' 'of course'; the playful riffs on past Batman films. The core story, though, is a fairly by-the-numbers queer/trans coming of age about self-acceptance, parental mistreatment and finding community, and a bit of a satire on SNL which is perhaps more specific to the director's history - I get the purpose of this kind of narrative and I certainly needed it at a time, and wrote similar stories myself, but it's a kind of story I'm kind of increasingly tired of hearing. I don't mean to say it's bad for that - just it doesn't resonate the way it might have ten years ago.

Honestly, I think trying to make a 'trans movie' kind of paints you into a formulaic corner. A corner very deftly avoided by the next movie, Louise Weard's Castration Movie Part I: Traps. This was the theatrical debut of this movie, though it's been available to download on Weard's gumroad for some time.

Louise Weard made herself kind of notorious for her previous movie, ten years ago, Computer Hearts, but even more so for her castration scene supercut at the Fantastic Fest '100 Best Kills' event a couple of years ago - something that has left her feeling a bit pigeonholed into castration scenes. Part of the joke about Castration Movie is then that it's eight hours (only half of that presently available) of trans girls being sad (emotional drama) without any castration until the very end of the movie. It doesn't even come up in the first half.

Technically, this is a four hour long movie - the first part of an eight hour long movie! - consisting largely of very long takes of naturalistic conversations shot on an incredibly grainy camera, now and then mixing that with musical montage and sex scenes. Something I'd raise an eyebrow at on description, and I want to kind of lead with that because like, no joke, this is legit one of the best movies I've seen; those four hours absolutely fly by. Incredibly sharp character writing, incredibly strong naturalistic acting - and unreasonably funny, just way too much.

The first hour or so focuses on Turner, an aspiring film director who spends his time working odd jobs at a film crew and increasingly torpedoing his relationship with his furry-artist girlfriend - someone he clearly isn't very compatible with and views with little actual interest, and his efforts to try and salvage the relationship ring false in ways he's clearly unable to see. But at every turn he doubles down and builds on his resentment and sense of emasculation, until he's picking fights with a living statue in the street and busting into his ex's room late at night.

Along the way we get all sorts of darkly funny conversations - Weard has an incredible eye for subtext and awkwardness, and can lend an ultimately very unsympathetic character like Turner enough sympathetic motivation to make his downward spiral completely human and convincing. It's both sad and terribly funny, perfectly pitched.

The punchline sees him posting to /r9k/ - and at this point we cut to a new story about 'Traps', the film's actual main character, a sex worker in Vancouver played by Weard herself, who is caught up with the drama of various partners and her own completely unresolved shit around transition to make her an entirely unsuitable would-be mentor figure to her friend Adeleine, who's kind of the deuteragonist of this act, cracking under the pressure of being the only one in the house with a shit but paying office job while her boyfriend gets top surgery.

The first act sets us up a frame to look at the second - Traps is a pretty messed up person, but in a deeply understandable way, and it serves in ways to show that the shit she's going through is not some unique trans girl thing but very much the torment of being a human. Desperate for connection and fucking it up, digging ourselves deeper while convinced it's the right thing to do. Along the way, we see her having various kinds of nasty sex, injecting DIY HRT, taking a bunch of cocaine, a trans guy getting top surgery, and various other fun things that I could never stream on twitch (or you bet I'd be planning a screening right away) - but it's also in many ways incredibly matter of fact about all this shit we get up to in a way that feels incredibly real.

It's a film that benefitted a lot from viewing with a largely transfem audience who would laugh at certain lines in the right spirit - I have no idea how this whole thing would come across if you aren't trans and don't know what 'agp' means (about the person saying it as much as anything) lmao. But if you are, it's like the film I never even knew I needed. It's way too real: from amusing setups like the polycule who has the access to DIY HRT trying to drag you into an argument about Dune before one of them wakes up and has a panic attack or daft conversations about boobs, to the pinpoint depiction of the kinds of neuroses we end up carrying from our shitty tenuous work, and of course the friction and fireworks of trying to care for each other when we're all burned out from carrying our own shit. Weard is fearless, and does seem to rather revel in being transgressive, but this is not edge for edge's sake.

And honestly this is 100% what 'trans film', if we can't help but have such a category, needs to be I think - a story heavily informed by the specific fucked up experiences of being trans but not like, About Being Trans(TM) in the way People's Joker was. Uncompromisingly honest (but with plenty of humour) about how we are, which is to say painfully human, rather than cheerfully painting the sort of freeing subculture we'd like to think we have.

I got to talk to Weard quite a bit on Sunday (ending up in a pub with her and a number of other mostly trans festivalgoers), and it turns out the slightly ludicrous length of the film wasn't even planned, with the original idea to edit it down to something like a standard 90 minutes - but when it became evident after shooting the first forty minutes or so that these long scenes were kind of absolute gold, someone (I forget who now) made the case that they shouldn't be cut down at all and to just go for the full behemoth. And honestly? They were fucking right. This did not feel like a four hour film, somehow. There were definitely other films this festival where my mind wandered and I kind of checked out a bit, but not this one.

As a chaser (ha ha) to that, we had Louise Weard's 'Unsee' segment, screened just once in the hour before the clocks change (which is in a certain sense lost to time, or at least that's the joke of this segment). An elaboration on the experience of presenting the castration scene supercut at the '100 Best Deaths' event, it dives into a reprise of that supercut before increasingly alternating with scenes of a kind of introspective monologue on how people reacted to that event and how far Louise herself started to end up feeling like the butt of the joke (even as random cis women accused her of being transphobic lmao).

As the video progresses it segues into an increasingly ridiculous sequence where two of Weard's friends step in (as substitute Louise Weards) reading out her essay of Lacanian film analysis on castration scenes in movies, while Weard (behind the camera) gives them directions to frame the shot to better show her cis ex's boobs. In between, more castration scenes! So many, most of them unfamiliar to me (funny moment when I finally recognised one and my brain was like hey! that's Sálo! and I found myself turning to face Violet with an excited grin before my brain caught up with that)

Among other things, the narration talks about the whole arc being a transgressive tgirl filmmaker who frequently faced some rather ridiculous accusations of being a transphobe or nazi troll (by TV Glow's Jane Schoenbrun, although it seems they have since made up), all in a time when it seems like a lot of her contemporaries in the transgressive film scene actually do seem to end up going nazi; the trouble of getting pigeonholed as the castration person, and so on - but also kind of playing with like oh, fifteen more castration scenes, that's what you want right? So many swerves, and the supercut was in fact very funny (I wonder if I find it easy to laugh instead of wincing since I actually have been castrated lmao), ending in a scene which is constructed to suggest Louise actually cut her balls off for the bit - though since she showed the prop penis earlier it was pretty clear that she didn't. (Yet..?)

It's a really clever bit and superbly entertaining bit of filmmaking, all told. I'm a full Louise Weard convert at this point, can't wait for castration movie part ii.

This post has gotten pretty long now, so I'll write up Sunday tomorrow. Do go watch Castration Movie tho, it's worth your time.

[blakeswritingimagines]

Cuddling them out of nowhere

Izuku Midoriya: He'd be shocked at first. He wouldn't know what to do. But he'd start to relax and enjoy the cuddle if you did that too him. Well if you cuddled him out of nowhere, he'd probably first be shocked and then look to see who was cuddling him, then he'd probably realize that you were cuddling him and just wanted to, and then he'd reciprocate and cuddle back, but he'd probably first just stand there shocked for a few seconds.

Katsuki Bakugo: "Huh? What do you want from me!? Do you think you're going to cuddle with the great Katsuki Bakugo? Forget it! I have many better things to do with my time! I dont need your useless cuddles, I dont need anything from a worthless extra like you, I have many better things to do! So forget your lame idea of hugging or cuddling with me!" He spoke angrily as he still wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close, knowing no matter what he said, you would still get your way on the matter.

Shoto Todoroki: Would let it happen. He doesn't mind being cuddled out of nowhere. It's just that he is used to being used to be left on my own. He would probably blush as well and be very surprised and flustered. He'd probably blush a lot and get really bashful. He might even try and push you away, but in his heart, he'd enjoy it.

Tenya Ida: Very surprised. After he gets those emotions/sensations out of the way, he'd relax and feel a bit more content with life, you know? a bit more warm and less cold, more loved and less stressed out he'd turn bright red and smile like an idiot, and not let go of you. He'd ask them questions like your day or what else you got going on.

Fumikage Tokoyami: It's not something that has happened to him very much. He thinks it’s really sweet that you’d do something like that. He’d probably start thinking about you a lot more than he would have otherwise. It would make him really happy.

Hitoshi Shinso: He would probably question your intentions and would be shocked but would soon adapt, his instincts quickly kicking in... he'd become all red and flustered. "Why did you hug me!?" he'd say, his mind running a mile a minute, wondering if he was supposed to get into character or something, as he's definitely not a touchy-feely person.

Denki Kaminari: Probably be a little shocked, then he'd feel incredibly warm and safe. That would probably be one of his most memorable moments in life. He thinks cuddling is so intimate and honestly loves when you surprise cuddle him, and that kind of genuine love and affection would stick with him forever.

Eijiro Kirishima: Would be like woah this is amazing, he'll hug you back and tell you how amazing you are and that you deserve the world while holding you close and giving you other soft affection like kisses or more gentle touches, he'd ask you if you wanna watch a movie together or something just so he can keep hugging you close to his frame.

Mashirao Ojiro: His immediate reaction to cuddling him out of nowhere would be one of surprise and delight. Cuddling is a very intimate form of physical affection, and having you initiate a cuddle without warning would make him feel special and loved. It would also be a great way to start or end the day, as cuddles can be very relaxing and soothing.

Mirio Togata: Would be surprised, but be flattered and would quickly accept your nice hold around him, as he's a very touchy person and likes having friends. He'd probably hug you back and maybe snuggle with you as well. "Oh! Well, I'm not used to being cuddled, but... I guess you could," he says, smiling.

Tamaki Amajiki: He would enjoy being held nice and close next to you. He feels safe in your arms and has even explained that only his close friends would hug him close to try and help him get used to it. He'd enjoy being held by the person that's cuddling him, feeling the warmth of your body pressed against his own.

[randomlonelymusician]

Queer manga I'd like to see adapted

So there's definitely a lack of queer anime out there, so I wanted to talk about three that I think would make good anime. (Note: I realized all these are mainly centered around mlm relationships, so... take that as you will!)

Blue Flag

Blue Flag is one of my favorite romance manga that hasn't been adapted into an anime, and I think it seriously deserves one. It's honestly a love triangle, but one of the only series I've seen that actually does a triangle instead of an angle and does it well. It follows Taichi, a high school third year who is growing apart from his childhood best friend, Touma. Things sort of change when Futaba approaches Taichi due to her crush on Touma. The two become closer, and unbeknownst to them, Touma is gay and in love with Taichi. And as a bonus, Futaba's (female) best friend Masumi is in love with her, too!

Blue Flag is ultimately about navigating those confusing feelings of love in that weird transition between childhood and adulthood. While it's not a complicated premise, it's a beautiful, full tale of romance and friendship that would make an incredible anime if adapted fully. This is one I truly hope will get an adaptation someday.

Go For It, Nakamura!

I know this is kind of a weird one to think would fare well as an anime, but with the success of Komi Can't Communicate and anime with similar structure, I think this one would do well! Go For It, Nakamura! follows Nakamura, a shy high school boy who is completely in love with his classmate, Hirose. It's an episodic comedy with many elements that parody BL, all while celebrating other elements of it.

Nakamura is such a lighthearted read, and if it were a bit longer (another volume, maybe?) it would make a great episodic comedy anime. I honestly think it may even open up the BL genre to people who would've never considered it before. (Such as my brother. He would like this one!)

I Hear the Sunspot

Okay, I know this one got a live-action movie adaptation, but when I read it I just kept thinking of how pretty it could be animated. It follows Taichi (I know), a cheerful college student, and Kohei, who struggles with hearing loss. Taichi is able to break through Kohei's shell, and the two of them start this more than friends less than lovers relationship.

Besides the fact that it's a great manga and it's always nice to have more disability representation in anime, I think it would just look so pretty as an anime. I kept imagining a softer color palate with lighter animation, similar to something like Sweet Blue Flowers. I just think it would be so pretty.

Bonus: They should adapt Harukaze no Etranger (continuation of Umibe no Etranger), especially since the best character doesn't get introduced in what was in the movie, and I want to see him.

So that's all I had on the top of my head. Please give any titles that come to mind that would make great anime! (I will use these as recommendations...)

[mistywitcher]

percy jackson and the olympians has done it. disney, has done it. rick riordan has DONE IT!

the show is so good. i honestly so far can’t fault it, there is nothing i didn’t enjoy. it’s almost perfectly book accurate, the vibe is just right and i absolutely love all the casting. i know there will be people who disagree with me, but i do not give a monkeys. i actually love it.

percy jackson is extremely special to me. it was the first proper full blown autistic special interest i have ever had. i picked up the books when i was 11 (i am now 22) and they have got me through some rough times (including rn with chronic illness) i have a literal trident tattoo on my arm ffs i’m a die hard fan forever.

so to have something i am so incredibly fond of, redeemed from the awful movies, and made into a visually stunning , well thought out, book accurate adaptation, is literally one of the highlights of my life.

so here are some of my more specific thoughts on the first two episodes:

•PERCY! let’s start here. my gods, walker is PERFECT! he has absolutely made this show for me. you can tell how much work he put into understanding percy and making him EVEN BETTER in my opinion than book percy (no shade to book percy, still love him) it’s the moments of vulnerability that he’s worked into it, the genuine anguish, the grief. but also he’s got the humour DOWN! the little comments and one liners were so well delivered, along with his expressions and the way we can see how percy is going to develop. i will never get over his little dancing, and stroking the gecko. that was top tier for me. absolute perfection.

•ANNABETH MY BABE MY LOVE MY WISE GIRL. oh my, leah absolutely EMBODIES her. it’s the little eyebrow quirks, the slightly harsh but kind intonation, it’s so so annabeth. there was so much unnecessary backlash over this casting (cough cough, you can guess why) and it’s total bull, because it doesn’t matter and leah knows that character inside out and it shows. we didn’t get lots of annabeth yet, but i am BEYOND excited to see more and see how percy and annabeths relationship develops!

•GROVER GROVER GROVER what an absolute cutie! absolutely loved his delivery, especially the “i’m 24” line like that ENDED ME. aryan has this in the bag, and i love how he’s kinda sheepish, but still brave, and brings a softness to the character. his comedic timing is everything.

•casting in general i love. Mr D was great, especially with the whole “son” thing. that was illegally funny. love chiron, love luke, and love clarisse. the vibes are all there.

•the writing felt good too! nothing felt too scripted to me, it felt like it flowed and they included a lot of book lines which i loved!

•the visuals were awesome! i loved the CGi, especially for the minotaur and chiron! it wasn’t jarring and you can tell they put the work in to not make it look tacky! i loved how the camp was designed, ESPECIALLY THE CABINS! i always struggled to picture the cabins, so i was actually so impressed with them!

you can tell rick and becky had such a big part in this, it’s really really beautiful and my heart is so full rn. i cannot wait for the rest of this season, i am overjoyed and i hope so much that we get more seasons because this deserves it.

[torpedopickle]

Transformers One review. Warning: long

(Mild spoilers, detailed analysis of characters tho)

I've been waiting for this movie for years. Transformers is one of my all time-favorite franchises, but honestly it has rarely treated me right, especially in regards to movies. I've enjoyed some of them, even loved a couple, but this really is the first time where I feel like I can genuinely say that we've had a capital G Great Transformers movie. So much so that I've had to knock some points off my older reviews simply because I can't pretend like they're worthy of the same score as this movie.

Where to even begin honestly. The beautiful score by Brian Tyler, the rather great animation and excellent technical work with rigging and detailing the machines and characters, the stellar set pieces and imaginative action choreography, the jokes (which don't always land but land more often than not), and the captivating performances from namely Henry and Hemsworth. The world-building is effortless and expansive, with so many little details that work so neatly together, like trains and roads being able to adjust their path to adapt to the ever-changing environment of Cybertron's surface. This is absolutely one of the most well realized depictions of Cybertron, especially when it comes to the societal hierarchies that the characters find themselves in and how this sets up the eventual falling out between the two amazing leads.

Some might find D-16/Megatron's heel-turn to be on the sudden side, but I'd say that's more a matter of the film not always helping you notice that he's changing, rather than the change not being natural, because in my opinion it is expertly done.

It's extremely high praise for me to say that I was invested in the falling out between D and Orion, because this is a prequel, not to mention a retelling that utilizes several little bits of prior transformers stories. So the fact that they were able to make their development feel gripping, tragic, enticing, and unavoidable all at once is genuinely incredible, given I knew going in how things would turn out. Of course we know Megatron is gonna become evil in the end, but the road he takes there is so fascinating and serves as a good example of how sometimes, a predictable plot is actually a positive trait, showing that the writers effectively communicated their ideas to you as you piece together how the paths characters are set on will lead them to an inevitable clash that you can't wait to see unfold.

Megatron's radicalization worked so well to me because they make it clear early on that the foundations for his mental stability are rather shaky from the start. He's built his entire identity on this idea that if he stays in his lane, follows the rules, works hard, and trusts in his superiors, he'll be rewarded and allowed to continue living comfortably, even if his circumstances allow for limited options. He's naively grateful to the people on top of the hierarchy, blindly trusting that they want the best for him. Because naturally the system has to be fair. Because if it's not fair, and those above him have been lying to him, then he'll have nothing, because carving out an existence *inside* the system they built was his everything. His entire identity is founded on the idea that this is the best life accessible to him, and that's just the way of things, and that it's no one's fault.

So of course when it turns out to actually be someone's fault, things crumble very quickly. The system failed him, he's learned that there's no way for him to earn what he's owed within the system. And if he can't earn it within the system, then the only thing he has left is his strength and ability to take it by force. And as we know, he idolizes Megatronus Prime, known for being the strongest of his siblings. Which serves as a nice hint to what D values early on as he later needs something to cling to as his reality unravels.

While Megatron was by far the most fascinating character to me, Optimus was also captivating. Orion immediately contrasts D-16 in some big ways. Namely that he isn't quite satisfied with his place in the hierarchy. What forms the foundation for D-16's subsequent fall into despair and rage is the fact that he tried to build his entire identity on the rather rickety foundation of the system, convincing himself that this is the only place where he'd be happy. But Orion from the get-go very clearly believes there's more to life than what the system has outlined for them. So when the system is revealed to have failed both Orion and D, Orion handles it a lot better, because it doesn't shatter his identity like it does with D, it just solidifies and further encourages his existing desires.

The contrast with D also flips in a really thrilling way, with Orion initially being the risk-taker, causing D a lot of grief as he fears Orion might jeopardize the progress D has made in scaling the societal ranks by following the rules. Although once all that falls apart for D, he now becomes the risk-taker, as he's nothing left to lose, and everything to gain, while Orion is left to watch in horror as his best friend is radicalized bit by bit (not helped at all by encountering a raving gang of might-makes-right hooligans who provide extremely negative affirmation).

Their ultimate falling-out feels gut-wrenching when it finally comes to pass, and I'm just so happy that it wasn't an accident, a misunderstanding, or the tampering of a corrupting influence or higher power. These two brothers simply do not have compatible worldviews by the end of the film. The ways they respond to the same traumas in different ways is remarkable, and is a gold standard for character writing.

The other characters were quite fun too, while shallow, Sentinel Prime "Hamms" it up (hehe) and makes for a very fun character to hate. Elita-1 serves to nicely compliment the broader themes of classism and exploitation, and rounds out the cast very well, although doesn't have as much meat as the leads. Bumblebee's addition is in my opinion for the better, although I know many who would disagree, and to each their own. I just can't help but find it adorable how he excitedly imprints on the first people he meets after most likely going insane in what's essentially solitary confinement.

The only real point of criticism I'd be able to muster would be that Sentinel Prime is mostly just the linchpin for the other characters' arcs rather than being a truly rounded character in his own right. And I didn't find all the jokes funny, but honestly, that's a me-thing. Most of the jokes in the film were in my opinion well written even if I didn't chuckle. Many of them are jokes you can also only do in a transformers story such as the transformation mishaps, or are otherwise complimented by the setting, such as Bumblebee's imaginary friend Steve, who's name would ordinarily be a joke about it being a basic name, but in this alien setting is actually rather exotic, which does elevate the joke from being lazy, to at the very least being inspired.

Overall this really is a fantastic movie. After the first trailer I was honestly prepared for the standard Transformers experience. At best I was hoping for it to be like the solo Bumblebee film where it has some strong highs and character writing but overall flawed. But no, this is just an all-round great film, dripping with passion and talent in near every aspect. I can't recommend it more, and I'll likely make this movie an integral part of my personality forever, as if I wasn't insufferable enough about Transformers already.

[rwrbmovie]

RE: intimacy & the intimate scenes

Quotes from interviews on #RWRBMovie about the intimate scenes and the intimacy between Alex and Henry

This post will be updated as content is released

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Last updated: August 9

From Glamour

Red, White & Royal Blue, the book, is—I'm not sure how to put this any other way—famously horny. For the movie adaptation, intimacy coordinator Robbie Taylor Hunt was enlisted to ensure that physical intimacy between Henry and Alex was told in the best and safest way possible. “He was incredible,” Zakhar Perez says of working with Taylor Hunt. “In London there are these brand of mints called Smints, and we called him the Smint Lord because we would always come up to him and ask for a mint or Listerine strip. I didn't want my breath to be offensive to Nick as soon as we get on set and have to be intimate with each other…” He continues, "A great thing about having rehearsals is that we'd have an hour a day set aside to be with Robbie. It was just like a dance. I grew up in theatre, and Nick's done musicals. We're both very musical people. So Robbie found it easiest to talk to us in musical terms—there's a musicality to intimacy. There'd be lots of counting. Like, ‘1, 2, 3, 4, grab. 2, 3, 4, squeeze.’ That's what was going through my mind as we did it, to get it in your body. Once your body remembers it, you can let it go. The muscle memory is so strong. Then it's just about getting your mind in the game.” Adds Galitzine, “It's a very vulnerable and trusting space. Taylor and I had to rely on each other because we really wanted to tell that story honestly and feel that we weren't hindered by any of our own boundaries that we were setting up. It becomes a sort of wonderful choreography that all serves to facilitate these two young men who fell in love with each other. Robbie was really helpful in educating me in the physical language of the character.”

From GQ

As our tea gets cold and our time draws to a close, we quickly touch on what it was like to film Red, White & Royal Blue’s more intimate scenes. To fight the awkwardness of being surrounded by the film crew, Zakhar Perez and Galitzine would whisper jokes and try to make the other one crack up. “There’s a playful teasing that never veered into anything nasty, which was a lovely dynamic to be a part of,” says Robbie Taylor Hunt, the film’s intimacy coordinator. “But also they just treated each other like colleagues and co-creatives in a really nice, collaborative way.” “There’s so much choreography to sex…ual scenes,” Zakhar Perez says, laughing, recounting the sheer amount of time and energy (and the occasional blow-up mattress) that went into rehearsals. “It’s a crazy thing to be intimate in that way with your friend,” says Galitzine. “And we want people to fall in love with these characters, because their love has to be real.” “Our guards were down during the rehearsals,” Zakhar Perez adds. But as soon as someone would yell “Cut”? “One of us would say something stupid, like, Get off me!” 

From People

When Red, White & Royal Blue got labeled with an R rating from the Motion Picture Association, López admits he was surprised by the stamp. The MPA cited "some sexual content, partial nudity and language" in its rating. "I think I was a little surprised at the R rating just because, while I never was encouraged to limit what we were showing or limit what I was depicting, the scene is what I intended to show. It plays exactly how I wanted it to play," López says of a sex scene between the two leads. The Tony winner explains that he had free rein to include whatever he felt necessary onscreen while depicting the love story: "It's the movie I set out to make." He adds, "I essentially decided to hedge my bets, in that I wouldn't step a toe over the line of PG-13 into R when it came to language, when it came to— there's no violence in the story, of course. But I would just do what I felt was right for the story when it came to the sexuality of the film and let the chips fall where they may."

From Out Smart Magazine

The director explains that giving the film’s sex scenes the royal treatment was an important factor for him. “One of the things in the novel that I knew needed to be in the film was the fundamental truth that these two people have really good sex with each other, they are very attracted to each other, and they find ways of expressing it physically. I inherently knew that there were a multitude of ways that we were going to express intimacy in this movie and that we were tracking the progression of their closeness. They sort of meet-cute and not only go from being enemies to lovers, but one of them is not fully aware of the extent to which he’s into guys before they meet. I thought a lot about the intimacy themes in the movie as a way of bringing them incrementally closer and closer together. “By the time we got to the real lovemaking scene in the movie, I knew that I wanted to create something that was beautiful, loving, and tender. It’s not about maximizing an opportunity to get as much sex in the movie as possible. It’s about maximizing what I’ve got in order to tell the story effectively and honestly, in a way that the people for whom the movie is being made understand that it is being made for them.”

From Hindustan Times

Red White And Royal Blue also features a sex scene that was so empowering in terms of how it chooses to focus not on the body but on the gradual understanding between what two people in love want from each other. Did you always have a specific direction in how you wanted the scene to be shot? My answer to your question is your question! That is precisely how I wanted to shoot it. It is undeniable that these are two beautiful men but what was more important to me was this be a scene of true intimacy between these two characters. I always knew I wanted to shoot those scenes primarily on their faces. I knew that what we would read in their eyes and their faces was much more powerful a storytelling tool than what I could have shown in a wider shot using their bodies, and it allowed them to thoroughly act that scene rather than simply perform that scene. I love that question because the way you phrased that question is exactly the way we talked about the scene- as we planned it with my intimacy coordinator, and as Taylor, Nick and I rehearsed it. Yeah, so you could just your question and turn it into my answer, because that's precisely it.

From TV & Satellite Week

The two leads were equally keen to make their characters’ relationship evolve believably. ‘Nick and I felt a responsibility to bring to life these sexual moments that are in the book in a real, grounded way,’ says Zakhar Perez. ‘The intimate scenes were choreographed and specific when it came to whether it was a moment of passion, or a tender experience. In a relationship you go through different stages, and we got to explore those throughout the film.’

From PinkNews

“I don’t think you can tell the story of Alex and Henry without talking about their very enjoyable sex life,” he says. However, the sex isn't just thrown in for the sake of it, each has a purpose and nuance. López likes to think of the scenes as songs in a musical. "It needs to progress the story, it needs to progress your understanding of the character. If it doesn't, then it doesn't belong," he explains. The two lead stars worked with an intimacy co-ordinator to ensure the scenes were done carefully and safely, but were also realistic. “We need to actually believe that Alex and Henry have really great, connected sex,” López says. “That, as a queer man, was really important to me to convey.”

From Observer

Hollywood has a tendency to shy away from gay sex onscreen. But this movie goes all in. Did you get any pushback about that?  ML: When I was pitching myself for the job, this was part of my pitch. Basically, “If you hire me, you’re getting this.” I let it be known from the get-go that this was going to be in the film. And, of course, there were negotiations throughout the process of what exactly it would be. But I was adamant from the start that this film honor what’s in the book, which is that these two characters have a very healthy sex life. They are very, very into each other, they have great sex, and a lot of it. So that was important to me.  It was really important to me as well in a mainstream love story. We talked about this as a rom-com and there other times we talked about it as a love story. As a love story, it was really important to me that the audience understand that these two young men are deeply connected—emotionally, intellectually and physically. Their physical connection is a huge part of what binds them. It would have been absolutely the decision I would make if it was a man and a woman. So I was going apply the same storytelling and requirements on my queer film that I think anybody would on a on a heterosexual film. I will say Amazon didn’t give me a hard time on these scenes. I got support. I got notes, of course. But that’s what happens when you don’t have final cut. There was a lot of support for this story being told as we all knew it needed to be told.

From MetroSource

Our sex is beautiful. The way we have sex is beautiful. Our intimacy is beautiful. Consensual sex between two humans is a beautiful thing, and it’s one of the wonderful things about being alive. The book is very steamy, very sexual, and I really love that about the book. I knew that I’d be committing heresy if I didn’t bring that into the film. A sex scene in a movie is like a song in a musical. It really does need to either charm you or teach you something about the characters and move the plot along. The other thing, too, is that you’re asking two performers to do something that is really vulnerable, and you don’t ever want to ask too much of them, and you don’t ever want to make anybody feel uncomfortable or forced into doing something. We were conscientious about how we approached each one of these scenes. I spent a lot of time with my intimacy coordinator mapping them out. We really paid particular attention to what story are we telling with each and every one of these intimacy scenes so that we could turn around and speak to Taylor and Nick and explain to them exactly why we were asking them to do what we were asking them to do. Beyond just sort of the mechanics of the filmmaking, to tell the story of Alex and Henry and not include the fact that they are very passionately, physically attracted to one another, is to not tell the full story of Alex and Henry.

From Windy City Times

Robbie Taylor Hunt was the intimacy coordinator on the film. How important was that for this film? ML: It was essential. I think that if someone doesn't like working with intimacy coordinators, then they are missing the point. Robbie was an important partner in creating this. In essence, it was a way of protecting the actors and making them not just feel, but be, safe. It is no different than working with my director of photography or my costume designer. We use stunt coordinators with stunts, so in the same way, I wanted to use an intimacy coordinator. Robbie helped me articulate what I wanted to show and execute it. He was invaluable to me.

[litcityblues]

I'll Never Forgive Netflix For This

They canceled Kaos after one season.

Now, to be fair, we had been evaluating the number of streaming services we paid for and were planning on canceling Netflix already, so I can't honestly tell you, dear reader, that our decision to cancel Netflix was solely based on the fact that they canceled Kaos after one season, but it sure as shit didn't convince me to stay.

I get that people have feelings about Joss Whedon these days, but not since Fox canceled Firefly have I been this outraged at a decision to cancel a show. I don't know- as it seems like streaming services cancel shows left and right these days, but man when Hollywood is struggling and the firehouse of streaming content is delivering way more quantity than quality, I don't get how you dump a show this damn good!

It doesn't help that I am a mythology nerd. I devoured old Penguin classics on 'Heroes and Legends of Greek Mythology', and I read The Illiad and The Odyssey (multiple versions, but the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey is gorgeous-- her translation of The Illiad is on my shelf now) at an absurdly young age. This shit is my jam. I love this. If you are making a movie or a television show about mythology, I'm going to judge the fuck out of it.

(Parenthetical Time: Disney's Hercules is an abomination and I loathe it. Hades was never the bad guy. Troy with Brad Pitt was god-awful, but Troy: Fall of A City on Netflix was an incredibly good adaptation of The Illiad. I know everyone just loves Hercules The Legendary Journeys and Kevin Sorbo these days, but that show also did a really great job with the mythology of it all. Also, shout out to Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles and Circe, both incredible, amazing books.)

All of that being said: Kaos was the best modern adaptation of Greek mythology that I have ever seen and unforgivably, they ended this show on one hell of a cliffhanger.

The story opens with Zeus (Jeff Goldblum in a bit of serendipitously perfect casting) ruling over a modern Greek world, where mortals are expected to pay frequent homage to him. An Olympia Day monument is vandalized in Krete and he becomes convinced that people are not paying him sufficient respect. He notices a small wrinkle and suspects that's aging (something that shouldn't happen to an immortal) and worries that it represents a line from a prophecy he was given by the Fates.

Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan) visits, hoping for more divine responsibilities, and when Zeus rebuffs him and Hera (Janet McTeer) sneers at him, he leaves, but not before stealing Zeus' watch. Zeus goes so far as to summon Prometheus (Stephen Dillane) to seek assurance that his prophecy will not come to pass.

Meanwhile, the mortal Eurydice (Aurora Perrineau) meets Cassandra (Billie Piper) who tells her that today is the day she will leave her husband Orpheus (Killian Scott) because she has fallen out of love with him. She goes to visit her mother, a Tacita Priestess of Hera's (Michelle Greenidge) who reminds her of her prophecy. It's the same as Zeus', which shouldn't be possible, but on her way home, she's hit by a semi and killed. A heartbroken Orpheus tries to commit suicide to follow her to the underworld, but Dionysus tells him there's a way for the two of them to be reunited again.

And from there, this show takes off! We find out about Ari and King Minos, and what happened to her brother Glaucus. The Trojans are here too-- refugees from the fall of their city. Riddy thinks she can pass through The Frame in the underworld, only to find that she can't, because Orpheus stole her coin and she's got to work 200 years before she can pass through and be Renewed. She meets Caeneus who, as it turns out, has the same prophecy as her and Zeus, and little by little, we find out that Prometheus has waited patiently for a chance to take down Zeus and he's not the only one then just when we're setting up for one hell of a cliff hanger with Zeus bleeding, the Meander fountain, the source of the Gods' immortality stops flowing and Hera leaves for an unknown destination, telling one of her children to 'gather the troops' and Ari strikes a deal with the Trojans against the Gods themselves.

And then, Netflix canceled the show.

I cannot tell you how awesome this show turned out to be. Joe McGann shows up as a one-eyed bartender named Polyphemus-- the name of his bar? The Cave. Suzy Eddie Izzard shows up as one of the Fates, Lachesis. Debi Mazar is an excellent Medusa. David Thewlis is Hardes, Cliff Curtis is Poseidon this cast is awesome! From Jeff Goldblum on down it's all just so goddamn amazing. The storylines, adapted from the original myths are updated so intelligently for a modern setting. But it's really the bickering, back-biting, scheming Deities themselves that this show absolutely nails. Hera is mean. Zeus is a tyrant. It's just all so perfect!

Overall: This show deserves at least one more season to finish the story and the internet was rightfully outraged that it was cancelled. As am I. My Grade: **** out of ****

[pwippy]

the monkey king havoc in heaven is literally so iconic i dont get why people discuss it more 😭 over the past few years i've noticed an influx of media retelling/remixing chinese myths

(a few familiar examples: lego monkie kid (2020) over the moon (2020) and the adaptation of the graphic novel 'american born chinese' into a show on disney plus (2023)) (more obscure(??) example: ne zha (2019). im sorry i cannot get behind the design they look like the kid from the robinsons but i digress!)

but honestly if you enjoy chinese mythology and specifically the monkey king pissing off the entirety of heaven this movies great. unlike disney's adaptation of folktales, i think chinese mythology created a lot of crossovers(??) so this movie is literally a huge crossover of major figures in myths. its a delight. and even if you dont know that much about mythology this movie is really entertaining in general!! (also it was made in the 1960s so if youre into the yellow submarine or classic disney films it has the same vibe) it's mainly based off of journey to the west and the animation style is reminiscent of peking opera.

characters + character design? especially the antagonists (at least for this movie lmao)?? actually top tier. theres straight up a rollerskating child that can grow 3 heads. (thats ne zha btw. very different from 2019)

the landscapes and worldbuilding have really surreal and gorgeous art. when it come to epithets/titles these types of myths go to the MAX with them and it translates really well to an animated medium.

i cant really demonstrate this well in a post but the score is also amazing!! as i mentioned earlier the animation is strongly influenced by peking opera and they incorporate the music into the film too. the percussion is insanely dramatic and the more melodic based segments are high energy. if you havent heard a full chinese orchestra (in western films its usually only individual instruments + western accompaniment- erhu was used in spocks theme from star trek!) you should- it diverges a ton from a 'classic' orchestra and the older compositions are incredibly unique

not going into the specifics of the plot to keep this post somewhat short but heres the movie if anyone wants to watch it 💃 its originally chinese so you'll have to watch with captions. overall very entertaining

[silversoul713]

F*ck it.

Someone has to say it.

The Avatar remake is good. Honestly.

For each thing that it did wrong, it did two things right and one thing better. The casting was solid, characters felt overall believable, it explored more of the world and was dark and funny, just like they promised.

No, it isn't perfect, and as much as we all like to say that the original was flawless, it really wasn't. The truth is that the animated series was as close to perfection as it could be given the medium, budget, time etc. It was above what anyone at the time expected. It blew minds! And it is unfair to expect the same level of greatness from the live action adaptation.

You cannot compare something so beloved and incredible to something that is completely fine on its own and say it is terrible just because the new doesn't live up to the original.

It isn't one to one and if it had been then it would've sucked because we all would've seen it before but better! Obviously they had to change things because of it. But they wouldn't want to take away from the journey or spend precious minutes on certain areas, so they mixed and matched, put other things in between the lines and it works!

They made it different, they gave it more. It isn't the same Avatar we grew up with and that is fine. It's a remake, an adaptation, you knew what was coming.

If you go to see a new Robin Hood movie, or Cinderella or any other famous story retold, you wouldn't want it to be perfect and precise to the version you like the most, because you've seen it a hundred times already! You see it most likely because you like the overall story, and want something new to absorb into your obsession!

Yeah, it messed up, yeah it was wonky here and there, but the things it did right and the things it did even better more than makes up for that and people need to stop expecting things to be perfect because it's not gonna happen!

It is still Avatar.

If you want the original then watch the original. If you don't want remakes to happen then grow up and accept that you don't have a say in it.

To claim that they shouldn't attempt remakes because they can't be better is a slippery slope of thinking that could wind up extremely toxic. It insinuates that if they don't know it can be just as good or better than before then they shouldn't even try. It inspires toxic perfectionism. It inspires giving up before trying.

So either close your eyes and don't focus on the things you don't enjoy like an adult, or open them properly so you can enjoy good content without being judgemental.

[room-surprise]

Dungeon Meshi Anime Review, Season 2, Episode 17 review

OH GOD OKAY here we go...

Once again, I am a broken record: good episode!

My two major complaints: The bit where Laios and Kabru stand around talking next to an off-screen, roaring, screaming monster seemed kind of silly in animation. In a comic it works, but they really should have animated them walking or stumbling away while delivering those lines, having them just stand there until the monster attacks them again is really goofy.

ALSO, something Trigger keeps doing that I am NOT a fan of, is throwing animated speed-line backgrounds behind characters when they're reacting to something. Sometimes these were in the original manga, other times they are NOT... and they break the immersion of the anime completely IMO.

The coloring in DM is so moody and wonderful, the aesthetic is generally grounded, so when suddenly the background is bright blue or lime green or pink and strobing, it's VERY jarring... and the joke DOES NOT NEED these effects in order to be funny! In fact I think it leeches some of the humor out of the jokes. Imagine if every time someone had a strong emotion in a classic Disney movie you'd get this:

This type of sudden background color change, strobing and speed lines are artifacts of older, cheaper anime, tricks that used to be done to hide the lack of budget, as a way to make a quick joke. It's now used as a shorthand to tell people a joke is happening.

But Trigger doesn't NEED to use these tricks, they're using them because "that's how you make sure the audience knows a joke is happening", but the jokes in Dungeon Meshi are so well written, you don't need to cue us with a visual laugh-track, Trigger!!!! ESPECIALLY when Kui didn't do it in the manga!!!

They've done it in other episodes, but I felt like they were particularly noticeable and bad in this one. Makes me sad because I feel it's dragging the anime down from the genuine peak of artistry that it's otherwise achieving.

As always, animation is fantastic. The stuff with chimera falin is obviously top notch, brutal and fast and amazing... But I also have to say that the Toshiro and Laios argument was animated INCREDIBLY well, with a lot of loving detail given to what is, ostensibly, just talking, something Trigger normally hates to animate.... But they put movie-quality work into that argument and it really paid off.

Honestly can't think of much to complain about. It's a solid adaptation of this part of the story, one of the biggest, coolest action sequences that we've all been waiting for.

Vocal performances were all great in both English and Japanese. Kabru's English voice actor did a great job, despite my misgivings about him in previous episodes. I hope he continues to improve.

A dub script change had Kabru think "He's excited" about Laios instead of "his pupils are dilated"... This isn't a terrible change, but a bit baffling. Saying his pupils are dilated tells viewers HOW Kabru knows Laios is excited, and indicates that he is using some kind of scientific criteria to measure it, it makes him sound smarter and more detached from what he's doing. Just saying "he's excited" doesn't tell us how Kabru knows... and it's a thought, not dialog, so it's weird for them to change it in the script, since there's no need to match mouth-flaps.

The sequence where Kabru strips off all his armor and does a surprise attack on Falin is still fantastic in this, though I am a little bit sad that they didn't find any ways to add any extra emphasis for it - in the manga it's drawn out a bit, to the point where you might miss what was happening on your first read... I think the amount of shots we got in the anime was the same as in the manga, but somehow it felt less impactful to me. Maybe pacing?

At any rate, it was an incredibly solid episode.

I already liked Toshiro, but seeing this part of the manga animated really made me like him more, I hadn't realized in the past just how damn romantic the twin bells thing was, but damn. Toshiro really has forgiven Laios by the time they part ways here, it's easy to forget that since Toshiro very much takes a back seat after this.

[pinktwingirl]

So Nate Moore, an executive producer for Marvel Studios said that they consider it a “red flag” when potential writers say that they’re fans of the comics because they want people who bring “original ideas” to the table, and… I’m sorry, I just cannot agree with this take at all. Just because a writer is a fan of the comics does not mean that they’re going to be afraid to put their own spin on them. And secondly, while it’s always great when writers bring in new ideas, having no regard for the characters and plot lines of the comics you’re adapting can easily lead to ooc characterization and can sometimes be even insulting and disrespectful to the source material. Frankly, I think we’ve already seen that when writers have no regard and/or active disdain for the characters they’re adapting, it’s had disastrous results *cough* *cough* Michael Waldron *cough* *cough* the Loki series… I mean, good god, isn’t that the whole appeal of comic book movies? For people to see their favorite comics coming to life? You already have an audience that cares about these characters and stories from the comics; why would you throw that away just so you can brag about your “originality”? “New” does not always necessarily equal “good”. There are already plenty of incredible characters and stories that fans love; what’s wrong with just adapting a comic as is from time to time? This is honestly so insulting to both comic writers, who you already pay pennies to use their characters and then twist them beyond recognition, and the fans, who go to these movies expecting to see good adaptations of the characters they love. With Marvel executives having a mindset like this, no wonder phase 4 turned out to be such a dud.