#honestly revisiting this part of the expose in particular is wild

[taylortruther]

The way Blake promoted the movie, and (didn't) talk about DV WAS problematic.

I keep seeing it mentioned that in the documents it says Blake was under contract on how to promote the movie and one of them was not talking about the DV, I haven’t seen it myself yet but that would explain it

this is what you are thinking of, and it's a very good micro example of how intentionally public perception can be shifted:

During the film rollout, Ms. Lively was also accused of being insensitive about domestic violence. The official promotion plan instructed the cast to focus more on the uplifting aspects of the movie than on abuse, and to embrace a floral theme (her character has a flower shop). In several appearances, she never made reference to domestic violence at all. And she faced criticism when her Betty Booze beverage company was promoting the film, given the role alcohol can play in abusive relationships.

Seeing that blowback, the text messages show, Mr. Baldoni and his P.R. team decided instead to highlight survivors of domestic violence in his interviews and social media.

Source: The NYT expose that is very worth reading (free as of right now)

[teamhawkeye]

unfiltered and massively spoiler filled thoughts on RE8 below the cut [MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD]:

The Good

The first half of the game

The initial village segment and the castle portion and even “the house in the mist” sections were all pretty taut and well put together. i loved exploring the castle - was more than a little disappointed that you get locked out after Alcina’s boss fight, i didn’t explore it fully D: - and the unexpected terror of Donna’s section really pulled me out of the sense of comfort i had started to fall into, right as i was saying to myself “this hasn’t been scary at all”

The return of some series high notes

Revisiting things in previous Resident Evil games is not always a bad thing. I really enjoyed the return of weapon customization and treasures, those were aspects i enjoyed in RE4 and RE5. The return of the Merchant, in the form of the Duke, was welcome as well. The Duke is a G - he’s a good guy and i respected him most

Graphics, scenery, etc.

It’s a pretty game to look at, there’s no getting around that. I liked the set pieces, especially the Castle portion

Ammo crafting

Now this was something i greatly enjoyed. There are often times you get too much ammo for the gun you use least or you run out of ammo in harder difficulty levels. Being able to collect scrap material and make your own ammo was a very nice addition that i greatly appreciated

The Bad

(some of these are going to be personal opinions about the storytelling and narrative choices, so be prepared for that)

Pacing and direction

RE7 was a return to the series’ “roots”: so back to the footnotes of RE1 and RE2. If that was the case with 7, then RE8 did a speed run of RE3, Code Veronica, RE4, RE5, and RE6 all at once.

I know i said earlier revisiting hallmarks from previous games isn’t a bad thing, and it’s not - but while RE7 did it masterfully with sticking to mainly RE1 and RE2 and pulling in just a few old hallmarks, RE8 went absolutely buck wild in trying to cram in as many past enemy types and encounters as possible. A callback to one standout enemy is one thing, ala the Stalker type that is Mr. X, Nemesis, and Ustanak that Lady Dimitrescu also serves as...but then also the giant water monster from RE4, the Executioner of RE5, the “chainsaw” enemies (here, drills instead) of RE4, RE5, and RE6. hell, even the Lycans after a time started to feel very Las Plagas-esque in their ability to use weapons and track and coordinate. And you can’t tell me you didn’t see very similar designs/similarities between Miranda’s boss battle that you did with Alexia’s in Code Veronica...

The pacing started off solid with the initial few segments, but quickly seemed to lose its footing once it oscillated violently between wildly different styles of play and storytelling and didn’t regain its stride the rest of the game. One moment, it’s classic RE. The next, it’s P.T. + Outlast. The next, back to “a mash up of action and horror, leaning more on action” styles of RE4 + RE5. Then the finale straight up started to feel like an entirely different game before you reached that final boss fight - it felt like i was jerked in one direction one minute, and a completely different one the next

There is a lot of exposition and explaining that doesn’t happen until legit the last 45 or so minutes. Not new for the series to withhold information until the back half of the game, but there was legit almost no build up to the very sudden plot bombs that got dropped successively in the last throes of the story. Previous games rewarded you with fragments at a fairly even pace - i felt like all of RE8′s story gets dropped on you in a single monologue and a handful of notes just before the endgame

I’m not even gonna go that deep into how hard it was to keep up with all the different infection methods the mold managed to have - it was just A Lot and i’ve played a lot of Resident Evil in the past, so i know just how many different ways a single pathogen can have on humans and animals...and it still felt excessive

I honestly felt like the third segment with Moreau wasn’t even necessary. they really played up these “four lords” to not have them do a whole lot of anything. and i know there’s always been mini bosses before you actually reach the final Big Bad, but seriously, Moreau’s segment can be blitzed through in a span of 20 minutes or so first playthrough. the castle segment with Dimitrescu was solid, the house segment with Donna was nightmare fuel, lmfao, but still engaging and challenging. by the time you get to the third and sprint right through, you’re left wondering what the point of it even was. you can tell that was the least cared about narrative arc in the whole story

A giant point of note is that a huge chunk of RE8′s story could have been avoided or altered had Chris just actually fucking spoken to Ethan at the start about what the fuck was going on. And for him not to is completely unlike Chris past RE5 and RE6, that made no narrative sense whatsoever. Just another opportunity to pile on some more trauma and guilt onto Chris’ shoulders by making him “responsible” for Ethan being pushed to far and dying as a result

“Ethan actually ‘died’ when first meeting Jack Baker and was completely taken over by mold, it’s a big secret to everyone but Mia. also, he’s gone too far, there’s no saving him, he had to die”

You’re going to tell me that Ethan still being infected or impacted by the mold from RE7 is some big secret??? did the BSAA not run tests on him and Mia to make sure they were back to normal levels??? how do they not know?!? the government was able to figure out that Sherry’s exposure to the G Virus altered her permanently and study her healing capabilities, how the fuck was that not the same with Ethan???

Also, how is it that the mold’s impact on him is so much higher? he was at the Baker estate for like, 2 days max and while, yes, he did sustain some serious damage, he never fell prey to Eveline’s control and showed absolutely no signs of infection outside of being able to heal/use his hand after it was chopped off. and depending on how you played RE7, the only major injury he sustains aside from probable bruising or broken bones is that hand being cut off as mentioned before

You’re also going to tell me of the number of Resident Evil characters who have been infected with viruses and parasites and what have you and have been cured or had the negative effects negated, Ethan was the only one “too far gone” to be saved??? Jill got infected with T Virus, Claire has been infected by two separate viruses, Leon has survived a parasite infection, both Zoe and Mia were exposed to mold for years and seem to be okay...why is it that Ethan was the only one who couldn’t be saved? because he “died”? how in the world did he get infected so fast - he’d been there an hour, max! - that he was able to be revived in the first place and it wasn’t even noticeable that he had changed at all???

“the BSAA can’t be trusted anymore, they’re involved in shady shit, like deploying bioweapons into battle”

we already went through this a bit back in Revelations 1 with the blackmailed director and double agents. but to full on go “well, the entire organization is now dirty” after it was legit founded by Chris, Jill, and Barry to combat bioterrorism really sits wrong with me. all i can think is that they are running out of villains at this point and now are poising the BSAA to be a Big Bad in the future. which, again, doesn’t sit right with me

Retconning

Tying Ozwell E. Spencer back to Miranda wasn’t such a huge dealbreaker for me, but it is a bit obnoxious to now have to go back and amend “he came up with the idea for Umbrella and its pursuits with Marcus and Ashford, its other founding members” to “well, he didn’t actually come up with the idea for Umbrella and its research with Marcus and Ashford, he already had the idea from his time spent with Miranda uwu”

More so, the retconning around Eveline is a bit of a pain in the ass. So she only came about as a result of Miranda crossing paths with the Connections and giving them some of her mold to work with? And Eveline was only a failed experiment to Miranda in her attempt to be able to transfer her daughter’s essence/subconscious/whatever into a living child? And there are pictures of ‘10 year old” Eveline in Miranda’s possession - how come Evie didn’t have any memory of her at all (speaking of Evie, why the fuck did she appear in 8 briefly as a hallucination [?] to explain to Ethan his condition???)

How are you going to try and tell me that some village from prior to the 19th century was using the “Umbrella” symbol and Spencer just snatched it for himself? that was just stupid, honestly - even more stupid how Ethan didn’t recognize the symbol, despite flying off in a Blue UMBRELLA helicopter at the end of RE7

Mocap and cutscenes

Was it just me or did parts of this game look severely unpolished compared to RE7??? some parts looked good - like the Dimitresus all seemed to be rendered very well. It became very noticeable to me in the back half of the game, mainly with Chris and Mia, but a little with Heisenberg too, where their mouths didn’t match up with the dialogue a lot and they looked a lot less put together than previous scenes and characters. Mia in particular, i was struck by how much better her mocap seemed in RE7 compared to RE8. Maybe because there was a bigger ensemble cast in 8 that they spread themselves a little too thin in that regard?

[supersonicart]

The Supersonic Interview: Al Diaz of SAMO©.

If you’re looking to define the word “original,” you could easily use Al Diaz as an example: Al began a storied graffiti career in 1971 in New York City as BOMB-1, making him eponymous with the beginnings of the now flourishing art movement. It just so happens, also, that Al was half of the greatest graffiti collaboration to have ever taken place: SAMO©.

The SAMO© tag -- Pronounced Same-oh and meaning “Same Old Shit” -- was formed alongside his friend and artistic icon Jean-Michel Basquiat during their days in High School.  The now legendary moniker accompanied poetic, thought-invoking sayings scrawled on countless surfaces across downtown New York City and created a remarkable amount of confusion, buzz and excitement.  By the late 1970s the two had tagged so many locations that Jeffrey Deitch remarked “you couldn't go anywhere interesting in Lower Manhattan without noticing that someone named SAMO© had been there first.”

The two went their separate ways in 1980, tagging throughout New York City that “SAMO© IS DEAD” but, thanks to Donald Trump’s presidency, Diaz has resurrected the iconic tag, filling his Instagram with numerous incredible, never before seen photographs of him and Jean-Michel as well as brand new poetic sayings and collaborations, many of which he has released as limited edition prints with House of Roulx.

I was given the opportunity to send Al a few questions about his life, SAMO© and more which he kindly answered with wonderful tidbits of information and history, you can read them in full below:

What are your first memories of Jean-Michel?

I first met JMB at a mutual friend’s house in Brooklyn Heights.  I had seen him at City As a School but did not speak with him until this occasion.  He seemed perhaps a little shy, if only just soft spoken.  Maybe slightly uncomfortable in the presence of a bunch of Graffiti Artists and Skateboarder kids.  I would soon afterwards learn that he was quite a confident individual. 

What were your artistic aspirations growing up?

I was exposed to art early in life (grammar school).  I have pretty much always wanted to live my life creating.  Using my ability to “make stuff” from any available materials, write and draw.

Do you have a favorite memory of you and JMB?

Me and JMB once climbed up the side of a building in the West Village just to cut a huge banner down and remove it for no particular reason.  We had a few friends below who helped us roll it up and carry it away.  It was later abandoned at a girlfriend’s house.  The banner read: “Frank Langella As DRACULA at the CHERRY LANE THEATER.”  It must have been at least 12’ x 18’. Huge.

Could you explain a bit about how the United States' current administration made you decide to bring back SAMO©?

I revived SAMO©… a few hours after the election this past November.  It seemed appropriate.  I had been making my WET PAINT sign anagrams for a few years and I was ready to add to or change my repertoire. SAMO was the obvious vehicle.

Could you tell me a bit about your early graffiti works?

I began writing graffiti in 1971.  I wrote BOMB-1.  I was one of the very first writers to import Graf Culture to the Lower East Side.  I was influenced by SNAKE-1, STITCH-1, and other Writers Corner 188 (Washington Heights) writers as well as Cool Cliff 120 and the writers from Harlem.  I first noticed this phenomena during my visits to my cousins house in Washington Heights and art classes I took in Spanish Harlem.  I was totally impressed and wanted to be part of it.

Do you spend much time thinking of what you're going to write, or is it more spur of the moment?  Are the locations planned?

The locations for the WET PAINT signage and collaborative “outlaw” installations with Jilly Ballistic are definitely mapped out beforehand. Sometimes even “Site Appropriate.”  This does not generally apply to the SAMO graffiti, it’s more about the immediate opportunity.

Have you revisited areas you remember tagging as a teenager?  How was 1977 different art-wise to 2017?

Let me count the ways… The most significant differences (to sum this question up) are A, I was 18 in 1977 and I will be 58 on June 10th, 2017…. B, there were no cell phones, computers were the size of a Volkswagen and NYC was still an affordable city to live in, etc.

Do you have a favorite SAMO© phrase that you've come up with? 

I do not have a particular FAVORITE SAMO although I have always liked “SAMO©… AS AN END 2 MASS PRODUCED INDIVIDUALITY.”  I must say I do really enjoy coming up with the RHYMING SAMOs. 

You're an integral part of Art History, I'm curious if that's something you ponder on?

I have read my name in quite a few books and every now and then I think to myself: “What a ridiculous life I’ve lived.”  Honestly, though, I guess I do feel flattered and have a sense of pride about it. 

Tell me a bit about your years as a musician?  Wild stories?

Around 1979, when Basquiat and I took separate paths, I began making and playing PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS.  Brazilian, African and Caribbean type instruments.  It was a trend for many artists to experiment with different mediums.  Film and music included.  I eventually played live shows and recorded with a variety of notable folks such as: Liquid Liquid, Elliot Sharp (ISM), KONK and a mostly female “Naive Rhythm” band named DOG EAT DOG.  After a decade or so the late night lifestyle ultimately took its toll on me and many of my associates.

Any closing thoughts?  Advice?

As far as advice I can give:  Make your work the most important aspect of your life.  Love, money and opportunities will follow.  Also to reiterate what Patti smith so eloquently said: “Be happy, take care of your teeth.”

Al Diaz, NYC, 06/07/17 

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(Happy Belated Birthday Al!)

House of Roulx

Al Diaz