#i'm missing a few more parts of the unit and then i can start reviewing. come on.

[sondersil]

cheers to the only song keeping me sane today.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

[ Find me on Insta or Goodreads ]

🦇 Fledgling Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD Describe the book you're currently reading only using emojis (reveal the book's identity with a follow-up comment). 🦇 Raisa of Upper Earth has only lived a life of privilege & acquiescence. Ever dutiful, she accepts her father’s arrangement of her marriage to Lein, Crown Prince of the corrupt, volatile lands of Lower Earth. Though Lein is a stranger, Raisa knows the wedding will unite their vastly different worlds in a pact of peace: an infusion of Upper Earth technology will usher in the final age of enlightenment, ending war between humans forever. Newly released from imprisonment, Nada of Lower Earth has found her own calling: disrupting the royal wedding. Convinced her cousin Lein’s alliance with Upper Earth will launch an invasive, terrifying form of tyranny, Nada sets out undercover to light the spark of revolution. When Raisa goes missing a week before the wedding, all eyes turn to the rebels, including Nayf, Nada’s twin brother, a fugitive on the run. Can the revolutionaries take action before this new age of enlightenment steals free thought & will from all?

💜 S. K. Ali has single-handedly revived the YA dystopian genre with this fantastical fantasy novel. The author's first step into the genre is layered with subtext, making it a revolutionary, relevant story for our time.

💜 Since there's SO much going on in this story, I've decided to change my review format (let me know if you prefer this breakdown or my usually lengthy paragraphs!): ✨ Characters - 4: There are almost too many POVs, but each character has a distinct voice, purpose, & drive. I would have preferred more time with Nada & Raisa together; their friendship, while short-lived, had the strongest potential for sparking change between the factions & character growth between both women. ✨ Plot & Pacing - 4: The beginning is a bit slow, namely due to flashbacks, but once it gains momentum, it's a rush. I know some people would have preferred chronological order (focused on the twins & Musaid), but I think the flashbacks revealed pieces of information as needed, which better builds suspense & intrigue. ✨ World-Building - 4: More detailed explanations would have been helpful, especially in defining certain terms & tech. Context clues only help so much in a sci-fi/fantasy novel. ✨ Romance - 4: One primary romance drives the story, with the possibility for others. The romance between Nada & Musaid is beautifully heartfelt, the flashbacks demonstrating the build from the moment they first met. Some small part of me hoped for a Nada/Raisa romance instead (sorry not sorry!), but I do think they found their friendship when it was needed most. I'm a bit confused by Lein's sudden focus on Raisa as his fiancee at the end, when his previous intent was to use her as a puppet. ✨ Mystery/Suspense - 4: There are a few mysterious left for the second book, & while there's suspense, it's not as heavy as I'd hoped. It seems like everyone's parents are holding onto secrets yet to be revealed...that, & Lein's hint at a fire he potentially caused. ✨ Tone/Prose - 4: There are a few awkward sentences, namely at the story's start, that nearly threw me out of the story. That, combined with a few awkward switches to passive voice, seemed out of place for this writer.

Can we talk about, "The marvel of being unprogrammed. The marvel of tracking your own thoughts, arriving at your own beliefs, seeing for your own self what the truth really is." Also “Of course everyone is programmed; of course we are shaped by what exists around us. But at some point, when we fledge, when we seek freedom, we should decide on our programming. We should choose who writes our code.” This is a book that needs to be discussed in schools. Do you realize how much we've already been 'programmed?'

🦇 Recommended for fans of The Lunar Chronicles, An Ember in the Ashes, & Uglies.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🐦 Sci-Fi/Futuristic Dystopian 🐦‍⬛ Duology 🧣 Muslim Coded ❤ Multi POV / Found Family 🧣Colonization & Repression 🐦‍⬛ Resistance & Revolution 🐦 Political Intrigue

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #Fledgling

💬 Quotes ❝ By our records, shall we resist. ❞ ❝ A bird flies to us in the midst of war & desolation, bringing a seed of peace. For, while it is true that within every civilization are seeds of its destruction, there are also seeds of its upliftment scattered in the chaos— but only some can find & carry those seeds. ❞ ❝ She knew he’d learned the song for her. She knew the performance had been for her. It spoke words he couldn’t say clearly. That’s what love poems are for. ❞ ❝ None of us asked to be born into the circumstances of our lives. ❞ ❝ “Of course everyone is programmed; of course we are shaped by what exists around us. But at some point, when we fledge, when we seek freedom, we should decide on our programming. We should choose who writes our code.” ❞ ❝ The marvel of being unprogrammed. The marvel of tracking your own thoughts, arriving at your own beliefs, seeing for your own self what the truth really is. ❞

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 5/7/21: WRATH OF MAN, HERE TODAY, THE UNTHINKABLE, MONSTER, THE WATER MAN and More

It’s a new month, and I guess going by previous years pre-COVID, this weekend would normally be the start of summer. This year, we’re instead getting a summer with a lot of movies that would normally be dumped into April or February or some other uneventful month. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t or won’t be any good movies, but really, there’s nothing that feels like a summer movie until A Quiet Place Part II and Disney’s Cruella open on Memorial Day weekend.

There’s been lots of great developments, though, including the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn reopening this Friday and then in a few short weeks, theaters may be allowed to be open with no capacity rules although social distancing and masks will probably still be in place. Believe me, it’s been a confusing week as the city that got used to being on the backburner when it comes to reopenings, especially with movie theaters, is now dealing with arguing politicians competing to see who could throw open the then most doors fastest. It’s actually pretty embarrassing.

That aside, this week’s The Weekend Warrior column is brought to you by the new album “Coral Island” from Liverpool band The Coral, which I’ve decided to listen to on loop until I finish this column, because it’s taking me so long to get through it. (Eventually, I switched to Teenage Fanclub’s “Endless Arcade,” since I hadn’t had a chance to listen to it yet…. And to an old standby, Royal Blood, with their own excellent new album, “Typhoons.” At least the record business seems to know it’s the summer!)

Before we get to this week’s new movies, a couple tidbits. First of all, I’m thrilled that my friends Larissa Lam and Baldwin Chiu’s documentary FAR EAST DEEP SOUTH can finally be seen by the entire world, or at least the United States. It debuted on PBS World Channel on Tuesday night as part of the “America ReFramed” series, but for the entire month of May until June 3, you can watch it On Demand HERE, and that is huge! (There will be other ways to see it that you can read about here.)

This is an amazing MUST-SEE doc that looks into the little-known Chinese communities that took root in Mississippi in the early 20th Century and how they became such a huge part of that area with their markets, also bonding with the African-American communities that were similarly dealing with racism from the typically white post-Civil War South. It’s not just a history lesson, and it’s an incredibly moving story about a family trying to find its roots in the most unexpected places. There was a good reason why the couple’s short “Finding Cleveland” won the Oxford Film Festival while I was on the jury that year, and Far East Deep South similarly won an award there last year after its World Premiere at Cinequest was almost scuppered by COVID. It’s amazing how much more relevant and important this film has become since I first saw it last year, since both Asians and African-Americans are dealing with serious racial issues, and this movie shows that more than anything, they should be working to boost each other rather than fighting. Do check it out On Demand this month if you get a chance!

Another musician making movies is Mr. Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. I mentioned his documentary WHAT DRIVES US last week, but I actually only got to watch it on Thursday, and like his previous film Studio City and HBO mini-series, Sonic Highways, it’s a fantastic look at the music biz, this time through a variety of artists who began their careers by piling into vans and driving around the country. That is, except Lars Ulrich from Metallica, who mentions that the band was never so small or indie that they didn’t have a bus. But Grohl has used his vast connections to bring in a lot of great musicians including The Edge from U2, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more, making this a very entertaining movie both for fans of the various bands but also live music fans in general. I gotta admit that as much as I loved What Drives Us, it did bring me down a bit since it’s been almost 14 months since I’ve seen any live music, and I really miss it. This is now streaming on The Coda Collection, which you can subscribe to through Amazon Prime Video.

Guy Ritchie is back with his latest movie, WRATH OF MAN (Miramax/MGM), which reunites him with Jason Statham for the first time since 2007’s Revolver, I believe. Statham plays the enigmatic Paul “H” Hill who works at cash truck company Fortico, responsible for moving hundreds of million dollars around Los Angeles each week. Fortico has recently been hit by a lethal robbery, and H’s team soon learn that there’s a lot more to their new coworker, who happens to be looking for revenge against the man who murdered his son.

(Unfortunately, reviews for the movie are embargoed until Thursday at 6pm, so I can’t tell you whether it’s any good or not. Until Thursday night. Sorry!)

But I will talk about the movie’s box office prospects, because why not? Ritchie’s last movie, The Gentlemen, opened in January 2020, during the “before times,” with $10.6 million, but that was more of a classic Ritchie ensemble crime-comedy. Wrath of Man is more of the type of movie Statham has been making over the past few years, a cross between a revenge thriller and a heist flick. In fact, Statham has done a pretty good job creating his own brand through a variety of action-thrillers as well as a number of franchises including “The Transporter” movies, “The Expendables,” and eventually joining the “Fast and the Furious” franchise as Deckard Shaw with Furious 7 in 2017. Statham then went off to make Hobbs and Shaw with Dwayne Johnson, which didn’t do bad with $174 million. Before that, Statham starred in The Meg, a summer shark attack movie that grossed $145 million. Statham going back to help his old mate i.e. the director that gave Statham his start is pretty huge.

But as I said earlier, those were all in the “before times” and with the box office the way it is, it’s hard to imagine that the exciting reunion of Statham and Ritchie can open with more than $10 million but maybe closer to $8 million, because MGM/UA just doesn’t have the marketing clout of a Warner Bros. or Universal. Even so, that should be enough to be #1 this weekend as both Mortal Kombat and Demon Slayer continue to fall away. Unfortunately, if the movie *is* any good -- and I can’t tell you one way or another -- then by the time reviews hit, people will already have other plans for the weekend than to go see the movie. So yeah, that’s pretty dumb on the part of MGM, huh?

UPDATE: MGM is putting the movie into 2,876 theaters and maybe I'm being overly optimistic, because, as you'll read below, the movie IS pretty good and reviews have remained positive with the American reviews rolling in last night, still at 70% Fresh at this writing. Maybe that'll help the movie do a little better, maybe as much as $9 million, although I'll probably owe MGM an apology if it cracks $10 million, and I don't think it will.

Mini-Review: If you’ve seen the trailer for Wrath of Man, you might go into Guy Ritchie’s latest thinking you know what to expect, because it’s sure being sold as another typical Jason Statham revenge thriller. Don’t be fooled by the marketing, the movie really is Ritchie’s chance to make his own version of Heat, an L.A. heist movie that owes as much to Rashomon as another movie being released this week.

Wrath of Man begins with the heist of an armored truck that turns deadly with the wanton murder of a couple guards. From there, you might think we know where things are going when Statham’s “H” company whose truck was hit, and on his first day, he stops a similar heist by killing the truck’s attackers. H is immediately the hero of the company, although he still has quite a few suspicious coworkers and the feeling is quite mutual. Ritchie’s film then slips into the second episodic chapter which goes back five months to that initial heist where we learn that Statham’s son was killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I don’t want to go too much deeper into how the movie and story play out, because like The Gentlemen and some of Ritchie’s more intricate films, there’s a lot that purposefully isn’t made very apparent at the beginning. To many, this movie will be seen as even more macho than most of Ritchie's films, to the point where even the only woman guard, Dana, being just as macho as the men. As the movie begins, there’s a lot of joke-cracking and crotch-grabbing, all while Statham’s character silently observes and only acts when necessary.

The film’s shift to more of a classic Ritchie ensemble does slowly take place, but by the third chapter, it shifts to the group perpetrating the cash truck heists with an “inside person,” taking the movie to yet another place that makes it more obvious that this is Ritchie’s attempt at delving into the L.A. heist genre that other filmmakers have done so well.

Oddly, Statham doesn’t have too many lines, acting almost like a Terminator in his determination to right wrongs, but as always, Ritchie puts together a fantastic ensemble cast including a number of great American character actors who we rarely get to see in such great roles. I was particularly impressed with Jeffrey Donovan, who has appeared in a number of otherwise forgettable crime films this past year. The same can be said for Holt McCallany as H’s truck driver “Bullet,” but Ritchie also cast the likes of Josh Hartnett and Scott Eastwood in smaller yet still significant supporting roles, all of whom become more interesting as you start figuring out who all the players are.

Like I said, the movie is fairly macho and the few women play very small roles, but it’s how things are set-up in the first few acts to then change course and build to an absolutely amazing third act that will undoubtedly bear comparisons to Heat. And yet Wrath of Man (which is actually based on a little-seen French crime-thriller) does branch away from some of Ritchie’s standards, first of all by being far darker and even more violent with any of the wisecracking humor that pervades a lot of Ritchie’s work to counterbalance such violence disappearing once the flashbacks begin. It’s all punctuated by a fantastically tense score by Christopher Benstead, which seems a bit much at first but eventually settles into the perfect pace and tone for the action.

Despite disappearing for a good chunk of the movie, Statham is still great, basically killing everyone as his characters are wont to do, but watching how all of the different ideas come together leads to such a satisfying conclusion that one hopes those who might be put off, thinking they know where it's going due to the somewhat pathetic and obvious marketing will give it a chance to see how Ritchie has changed gears as effortlessly as he did with Aladdin a few years back.

Rating: 7.5/10

After even a longer time since he directed a movie, Billy Crystal once again takes the helm for HERE TODAY (Sony/Stage6), a movie in which he plays comedy writer Charlie Burns, whose chance encounter with Tiffany Haddish’s lounge singer, Emma Payge, leads to an unlikely friendship, as he struggles with early stage dementia.

I’ve known about this movie for over a year now, and I was pretty excited to finally get to see it, since I was such a fan of the other movies Crystal has directed, 1992’s Mr. Saturday Night and 1995’s Forget Paris, and it’s just amazing to me that he hasn’t directed a movie since.

At first, it seems like it’s the type of meet-cute we’ve seen so much in Crystal’s past filmography, but his pairing with Haddish isn’t something that might work on paper, but in fact, their comic styles mesh so perfectly together that it’s amazing that no one thought of putting them together before.

Crystal wrote the film with comic Alan Zweibel, who adapted it from his own short story “The Prize,” which refers to Haddish’s character winning Charlie in an auction for a lunch. Actually, her ex won the lunch, and she decided to use it because… free lunch! It’s a pretty simple set-up but one that allows the filmmakers to explore some of the odder things that happen in life.

Much of the movie’s humor plays upon the differences between the two characters, and how unexpected their friendship is. I can totally relate, because I have a lot of good long-time friends who most people might never expect us to be friends, but Crystal, Zweibel and Haddish pick up on that and create a movie that’s very funny but has enough other characters around the duo toa allow their characters to show how they’re just really nice people. We see that with how Charlie takes a young writer at his late night show under his wing or how Emma livens up the bat mitzvah of Charlie’s granddaughter. Oh yeah, and Haddish sings. She actually has a number of great performances in the movie, and seriously, anyone who watches this movie is gonna wanna see a smart filmmaker put Haddish in a musical immediately.

The film also acts as a truly touching tribute to Crystal’s friend, the late Robin WIlliams, who was diagnosed with the exact same type of dementia after his suicide death, and knowing that fact, makes the film even more poignant. More importantly, it doesn’t use Charlie’s condition for laughs, and for that alone, I feel like this is ten times better than that overrated Oscar winner The Father.

Here Today’s biggest problems come in the third act when it feels like the movie is starting to over-extend its welcome, even going into somewhat expected places, but it recovers from that rough third act to land a really nice ending. Crystal has always proven himself to be a really strong mainstream filmmaker (ala Rob Reiner and others) who makes crowd-pleasing movies, and it’s so nice seeing him going behind the camera for a movie that’s obviously very personal but also highly relatable.

As far as box office, I certainly have high hopes that Crystal still has an older audience of fans who might want to see him on the big screen again. I’m just not sure if this will be in more than 1,000 theaters, and though I’ve seen quite a bit of marketing, I just haven’t seen Crystal or Haddish do nearly as much in terms of getting out there that would be necessary to reach an audience that might want to venture out into movie theaters to see the movie vs. waiting until it’s on cable/streaming. There’s also Tiffany Haddish’ fanbase, and there could be some benefit for the movie coming out the same week as her new CBS show “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

I’d love to be optimistic with this making $4 to 5 million but it’s probably more likely to be closer to $3 million especially with capacity limits still in place for most theaters and the audience generally being older.

UPDATE: Maybe I was a little too optimistic, because I enjoyed the movie so much and it will probably be closer to $1 or 1.5 million since other reviews aren't as great.

Next, we have two movies finally being released many years after their festival premieres…

The Swedish apocalyptic thriller THE UNTHINKABLE (Magnet), directed by Victor Danell, is finally being released after playing genre fests in 2018 and 2019. It stars Christoffer Nordenrot as Alex, a young piano virtuoso who ran away from home due to his abusive father Bjorn (Jesper Barkselius). Years later, he returns home for his mother’s funeral after she’s killed in a terrorist attack on Sweden. At the same, there’s a virus that’s erasing people’s memories, but Alex is still in love with Anna (Lisa Henni), the girl he had a crush on when he left, and the three of them will have to help each other face all the horrible things hitting their home at the same time.

As I was watching this movie, a lot of it felt eerily familiar to me, but I couldn’t figure out why. The more I watched it, the more I realized that I actually HAD seen the movie before. Sure enough, I saw this movie over two years ago at the “What the Fest?!” in New York two years ago, and I honestly don’t remember loving it. Still, I decided to give it a fresh look, hoping to get more out of it on second viewing.

Some of the same things bothered me on this second viewing, because it’s really hard to figure out exactly what is going on and whether the horrific events are natural, man-made or a combination of both. For some time, we get so mired into Alex’s lame relationship with Anna, and when he returns home, his conspiracy theory-driven father is busy protecting a bunker that’s being invaded by foreign military troops he thinks are Russians. We cut between these two disparate scenarios while sometimes returning to the capital of Sweden and throwing in a few big set pieces. It’s so disjointed that you feel like you’re watching a lot of random unrelated events, maybe a bit like last week’s About Endlessness -- maybe it’s a Swedish thing?

There are aspects of The Unthinkable that are quite commendable, particularly those action moments and how the mystery about what is happening develops as the film goes along. Eventually, the film does find a more consistent pace, and things start becoming a little clearer, which makes the final act better than much of what we’ve watched earlier. Even so, it’s still quite annoying how long it takes to figure out what’s going on, even on a second viewing, and for most people, that may already be far too frustrating to get through it.

Hitting Netflix on Friday over THREE years after it premiered at Sundance is music video director Anthony Mandler’s directorial debut, MONSTER (Netflix), based on the novel by Walter Dean Myers. It stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Waves) as Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old film student put in jail, accused of murder in a bodega robbery. His defense lawyer (Jennifer Ehle) is trying to help him be released, but he’s fighting against the odds of a judicial system that sees him as a “monster” because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I have to be honest that I did go to see this at Sundance the week it premiered, and for whatever reason, I just wasn’t feeling it, so I only really caught about twenty minutes of it. Watching it now with more time and a little less weary than I usually am towards the end of Sundance, I was able to appreciate Monster more for what it is. On the surface, it’s just about Steve’s case and how what really happened unfolds before our eyes and we learn more about those around Steve and how their influence may have pulled a smart and studious young man into the criminal world that now has him in prison with much more violent life-long criminals.

We already knew that Harrison was a great actor, but Monster shows us that he was already on his way to greatness with this movie that for whatever reason got buried even as it dealt with issues that have been in the headlines almost every day since this debuted.

Mandler takes an interesting approach, both non-linear and also with blatant nods to Kurosawa’s Rashomon, which is even cited by Steve’s teacher, played by Tim Blake Nelson. Jeffrey Wright and Jennifer Hudson are decent as Steve’s parents, but they’re generally smaller and non-showy roles compared to the moments between Harrison and Ehle. Much of the film takes place in the courtroom with flashbacks showing what happened through the viewpoint of whomever is on the stand, which eventually includes Steve himself.

The way Mandler handles the material may lean more on the artiness rather than something more mainstream -- Michael B. Jordan’s Just Mercy comes to mind -- but it’s just as powerful in showing how someone like Steve can be othered by society into being a criminal. Sure, there have been other handlings of this sort of material that I thought were better films, but if you know anyone who has ever had dealings with the “justice” system and know how unfair and horrible it can be even to the innocent, then Monster will certainly strike a chord.

Also hitting Netflix this week is the new series based on Mark Millar and Frank Quitely‘s comic books, JUPITER’S LEGACY (Netflix), another kind of twist on the superhero genre ala Amazon Prime Video’s series based on Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys. I love the comics, and I can’t wait to finally get around to seeing Netflix’s first adaptation of a Millarworld property.

David Oyelowo makes his directorial debut with THE WATER MAN (RLJEfilms), a movie about a young boy named Gunner Boon (Lonnie Chavis), whose mother (Rosario Dawson) is battling leukemia. In an effort to cure her, Guner goes off on a journey along with a teenage girl named Jo (Amiah Miller) to find the mythical Water Man, who can provide them with a magic token that might save Gunner’s mother’s life.

I’ve interviewed Oyelowo a few times before, and I really like him a lot, so I had really high hopes for him as a director since I feel he’s just a terrific actor. Unfortunately, the material here is just not strong enough that I think even a far more experienced filmmaker could make something out of it.

Set in PIne Hills, we meet Gunner, a bright kid who loves drawing comic books, but he has trouble connecting with his father (Oyelowo), so when he has an idea that might help his sick mother, he goes off with a head-strong teen named Jo, in search of the Water Man, a summertime adventure permeated by a lot of very bad low-budget visual effects.

Honestly, I’m not even sure where to begin with where The Water Man falters, because Oyelowo has such a great cast, including Alfred Molina and Maria Bello in tiny parts. The story is a problem, as is the writing, which is just so bland and dull, that there’s really nothing in Oyelowo’s direction or any of the performances that really can salvage it. Neither of the child actors have much charisma or personality, and even Dawson’s performance, which would normally be a showstopper is repeatedly lessened by the constant cutting back to the kids. (And as someone who beat leukemia myself, I’m never a fan when cancer is depicted in movies as a death sentence rather than just another hurdle in life that needs to be overcome.)

Oyelowo himself may be one of his generation’s best actors, but he brings so little to the role of Gunner’s father, maybe to not take away from his younger star, but it hurts that he doesn’t do more to create a stronger conflict by making the character more horrible to drive Gunner away. The actual Water Man doesn’t improve things when he finally shows up, essentially talking like a pirate but not even remotely paying off.

Honestly, The Water Man seems like such a misguided venture -- Exec. Produced by Oprah, no less -- and it might have been totally forgettable if the characters didn’t keep saying the title of the movie every five minutes.

Hitting theaters Friday after a festival run is Tran Quoc Bao’s action-comedy THE PAPER TIGERS (WELL GO USA), starring ALain Uy, Ron Yuan and Mikel Shannon Jenkins as martial artists once known as “the three tigers but now middle-aged men must set aside old grudges and dad duties to avenge the murder of their teacher. I’ve had a screener of this since last summer when it played at Fantasia Festival in Montreal, and I just never got around to watching it, but if I’m able to squeeze it in before the weekend, check back here for my review.

Streaming on Shudder this Friday is Ryan Kruger's South African comedy-thriller FRIED BARRY (Shudder), starring Gary Green as Barry, a violent street junkie who is abducted by aliens who take over his body in order to… well, actually… they do a lot of drugs, have a lot of sex and other craziness. It’s a pretty strange and bizarre movie that reminds me a little of movies like a lower-fi Under the Skin or Beyond the Black Rainbow, and much of it is driven by the insane and unique performance by Green and the odd characters he encounters that I think will find its fans for sure, but it will definitely be for a very select audience of genre festival fans, as this is by no means a mainstream genre film.

Speaking of which, another movie out this week which I wasn’t allowed to see in advance is Gia Coppola’s MAINSTREAM (IFC Films), starring Maya Hawke as a young woman seeking internet stardom by making YouTube videos with a charismatic stranger, played by Andrew Garfield, until “the dark side of viral celebrity threatens to ruin them both.” Yup, it’s one of THOSE movies. It also stars Nat Wolff, Jason Schwartzman and Johnny Knoxville, but I haven’t heard anything good about it, and I’m not sure my curiosity is piqued enough to spend any of my own personal money to check it out.

Hitting Amazon on Friday is the doc THE BOY FROM MEDELLIN (Amazon) from Matthew Heineman (City of Ghosts, Cartel Land), a portrait of musical superstar J. Balvin, as he prepares for a massive sold-out stadium show in his hometown of Medellin, Colombia, which is hindered by the growing civil unrest in the area.

Lots of other movies this week, but a few that i just wasn’t able to get to this week, including:

ABOVE SUSPICION (Lionsgate) INITIATION (Saban Films) ENFANT TERRIBLE (Dark Star Pictures) QUEEN MARIE (Samuel Goldwyn Films) SILO (Oscilloscope) CITIZEN PENN (Discovery+)

That’s it for this week. Next week, Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson star in SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (Lionsgate) and Angelina Jolie returns for the thriller THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD (New Line) and Timur Bekmambetov’s thriller, PROFILE (Focus Features). That’s right. This will be the first weekend in over a year where we’ll have three or maybe even four new wide releases.

[chaosstar290]

Reasons try out Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore.

Nintendo's been pretty casual with porting Wii U games over to the Switch, and for good reasons. Normally, I'm not all into porting games that I've already played, but my personal favorite games on the system that lack good marketing and advertising are now getting the attention and love they deserve.

Take Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for example, one of my favorite 2D platfomers. The game originally sold 1.72 million copies worldwide on the Wii U. Not very good numbers, huh? However, the Switch port managed to beat those sales numbers with 2.25 million units sold worldwide by the end of March 2019.

So while this could be seen as a way for Big N to earn more $$$, this is also a way for those who never owned a Wii U and missed out on some of the system's best titles to give these games a shot. Now we just need a port of Xenoblade Chronicles X and The Wonderful 101...and Star Fox Zero, I guess.

But that's a topic for another time. This post is specifically for my favorite JRPG on the Wii U only to be tied with Xenoblade Chronicles X....Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

This'll be a long one, so here's hoping you'll stick with it until the end.

Development

Before I get into the reasons, lemme educate you guys a bit. Back in January 2013, both Atlus and Intelligent Systems made a teaser trailer for a potential Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem crossover for the Wii U.

The trailer was mostly just a slideshow with various character artwork. Despite this, there was a decent amount of hype surrounding it. But development around the game was pretty silent. That is, until we fast forward to the Nintendo Direct in April 1, 2015. We got a trailer of the ambitious SMT x FE crossover that fans were waiting for...but this was the final product.

Needless to say...neither SMT nor FE fans were happy about this. The fandoms were incredibly salty and foaming at the mouths, basically calling it a Person 4 Lite with a hint of FE. Heck, they're probably still posts on this site from 5 years ago that'll show that.

Fast forward to the games initial release, and you'll see quite a few positive reviews and thoughts about TMS. Unfortunately, the sale numbers were not all that great for the game. Obvious reasons being that it was a Wii U game, and many fans of both SMT x FE were not happy with how it turned out.

And to be honest, I wasn't feeling the game myself at first. It seemed too lighthearted and upbeat, and the J-Pop, anime-ish aesthetics were very off-putting. However, the more I saw about the game, the more I was drawn into it. Somehow all that disappointment I had about TMS originally just washed away. And considering it was a new IP, I decided to give it a chance. And hoo boy...I was generally pleased.

With that outta the way, let's get into why I'm excited for the Switch port of game, and hoping people will give it a fairer chance.

The Setting

The plot of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is mostly simple. You start out as high schooler Itsuki Aoi, the main character of the game encountering his childhood friend Tsubasa Oribe at an audition event to become a idol. It isn't until moments later in the game that the area gets overruned by shadowy creatures known as Mirages that suck out the creative energy known as Perso-- ah I mean Performa from the other idols and audience.

Poor girl doesn't know what's gonna happen next.

Despite our main characters seeming unharmed by the effect, the Mirages drag Tsubasa into their world known as the Idolsphere. And of course, courageous Itsuki takes action to follow and rescue her.

After trying to make a daring rescue, Itsuki gets bombarded by a Mirage, but somehow manages to awaken it. Taking the form of Fire Emblem Awakening's protagonist Chrom. Itsuki does the same with the Mirage that captured Tsubasa that takes the form of Cedea from Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. The two awakaned Mirages, however, suffer from a bit of amnesia and can't quite remember who and what they are.

From there on, Itsuki and Tsubasa form a partnership with Chrom and Cedea, encountering various characters trying to reach their way to stardom while trying to draw back the opposing forces from taking over Tokyo and the world. Typical RPG stuff, am I right?

It's a fairly standard and slightly cliche plot with some common anime tropes, but for this game...it works. It's a plot that's incredibly silly, upbeat, and over-the-top, but again...it works for this game. And I love it. It may not be original, deep, or complex, but the story does its best to not take itself too seriously, and it doesn't fail to keep a smile in my face.

Aside from the vanilla cookie-cutter MC Itsuki, the various casts that you meet are incredibly charming, and go through their own personal growth as celebrities. Though you mileage may vary on this.

The Gameplay

The combat is the real star of Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Basically, it's your standard turn-based combat system...but with a few twists. If you've ever played a SMT or Persona game, then don't be surprised that elemental weaknesses make an appearance here. Along with that, the Triangle Weapon system from Fire Emblem also makes an appearance in the game.

But if you're not familiar with either franchise then give you a basic example how this works. Say that you've encountered an armored Mirage wielding an axe. The weaknesses on that enemy are both lightning and swords, and Itsuki just so happens to have both the necessary element and weapon equipped.

In case you're wondering...how the Triangle Weapon mechanic works in FE is that Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, and Lances beat Swords.

The interesting thing about this is that once you exploit an enemy's weakness, other characters will jump in and combo extra attacks. These are called Sessions, and their not only powerful...but also flashy as all hell and it's glorious. Not only that, but there's also Duo Arts where two certain characters will sometimes perform a song that unleashes a powerful attack...which also strings up more Sessions. As broken as this sounds, it actually is pretty strategic for taking down harder enemies, and they can also form Sessions...so be careful.

There's more to the gameplay like roaming Tokyo, exploring dungeons, and upgrading your characters and Mirages by Tiki from Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon as well.

There's mixed opinions on the dungeon aspects of Tokyo Mirage Sessions, but...I personally enjoyed them. Aside from the first one. Once you get past the first dungeon, they get better as the game progresses. From exploring a darker version of Shibuya where you have to avoid giant cameras from sending you back to the entrance of the of the room you currently entered, to venturing through a maze-like TV studio.

There's also side-missions that you can do with your main cast that'll help them grow and develop even further. You'll be rewarded with either a special cutscene or a special attack. Or maybe both.

The Visuals

Go go...Persona Rangers?

If it wasn't obvious from the amount of images I'm posting, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a very colorful game. Fitting with it's lighthearted theme, the amount of colors the game throws at you makes visuals aesthetically pleasing. Heck, you could make these your personal wallpaper on your phone or something.

Sure, Tokyo Mirage Sessions isn't nearly as strong as Persona 5 graphically or even artistically, but like most Nintendo games...what their games lack in terms of detailed ultra-hyper graphics, they make up for it with giving their games gorgeous artstyles.

Also, this game has some reeeeeally good artwork.

The Music

J-Pop plays a pretty big role in Tokyo Mirage Sessions, so expect a lot of vocal tracks. If you're not into this kind of genre of music, then you might wanna stray away from this game. If you are (or if it doesn't bother you), then you're in for a treat. As someone who really isn't into J-Pop myself, the songs in this game are incredible and catchy followed by some beautiful cutscenes. Reincarnation from Kiria Kurono and Feel from Tsubasa Oribe are some of my personal favorites.

The music from outside the vocal tracks are pretty good too. The normal battle theme and the Illusion Shibuya dungeon theme are just to name a couple.

What's New?

Like I said before, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore is a port of the Wii U version, but with added content. Any DLC that was added in the original game will part of the base game in the Switch version. But let's talk about the new stuff.

EX Story and Songs

The EX Story is basically a dungeon that you explore in short bursts. Here you'll find new costumes such as a Joker outfit from Persona 5 for Itsuki, or an Annette outfit from Fire Emblem Three Houses for Mamori Minamoto. Or you can have a much easier time grinding for EXP. Also, much like the side-stories, this dungeon will also explore the main casts' issues and help them grow.

New songs will also be added in this port. A duo song called "She is..." sung by Tsubasa and Kiria is one of them.

Sessions

By making Sessions even more powerful and ridiculous, unplayable characters like Tiki, Maiko Shimazaki, and Barry Goodman will also join in Sessions.

In addition, a Quick Session option will be added. Which is a major upgrade in my book. One of the big issues the Wii U version had was while the Sessions were fun to watch, they took forever to get through with the more characters that joined your party. There are also smaller improvements like the Switch version having faster loading times.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this long as hell post will spark some interest into those who'll give the game a shot. I know there's small nitpicks like the lack of English voice acting and censorship, but the latter is a topic I'd rather not delve deep into.

Regardless, these small cons are greatly outweighed by the large pros this charming game has. If you're an Atlus fan, a lover of JRPGs, or wanting to play something that'll ease the wait for Persona 5 Royal, I highly recommend you give Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE encore a shot.

If you're also waiting for Persona 5 to actually come to the Switch like me, this game is next best thing we've got for the time being.

This is one of the most stylish menu screens ever.

[rndyounghowze]

Helvetica Sails On At Elm Street Cultural Arts Village

By Ricky and Dana Young-Howze

Woodstock, Georgia

On May Thirteenth around three o'clock the play Helvetica by one of our dear friends Will Coleman was dead on arrival. It was yet another theatrical casualty of this global pandemic that has shuttered the doors of theaters everywhere from the Elm Street Cultural Arts Village in Woodstock, Georgia all the way to Broadway. The notice was one of the millions just like it that Dana and I had seen in our feed and our hearts had gone out to them. As reviewers we have felt helpless sitting on the sidelines for this whole thing. Then we saw a post by director Nicole Adkins that the show was not only not dead but going live on Thursday as a digitally streamed experience. So one message later and Dana and I were sitting on our bed with our cats doing our first theatre review from our homes!

Saying that Helvetica is the story of a writer of the same name isn't doing it justice. A "deconstructed" or "exploded" life is more fitting. Narrated by her favorite stuffed bear Myron this play takes you on a journey through Helvetica's younger years with her Mom and Dad to her adult life in a marriage gone wrong, to her final months battling cancer. But we never stay in one place too long as Myron deftly moves us from one time to another weaving the story together as if it's a tapestry. This is a play about stories and how they're born.

I've mainly known Nicole as a talented children's playwright and teacher. This is my first real encounter with her directing and I want to point out two strengths she has. When you watch this the first thing you'll notice in many scenes is that you don't notice her. When you sample the wares of a baker you're not tasting the individual ingredients you're tasting the confection and this is the case with her. Like with my South Jersey cohort I love the directors that put in the time and labor over their shows but like up North she's one of the few where you don't see her metaphorical hands on actors' shoulders gently nudging them or see their handiwork everywhere. You just see the amazing work as a whole! Nicole's second strength was grand stage pictures that reminded us of the depth of this story and its journey through time. There were a couple times like in Helvetica's funeral and the ballerina scene where I felt pacing suffered for that depth but that is being completely nitpicky.

One thing I envy about K. Willow Coleman are their characters. But in this play there are some characters that offer challenges to actors which rival the feats of Hercules.

Take Myron (played by Sean Haley) in which you have to be a stuffed bear that's not just a stuffed bear. If you stepped into this role thinking, "I'm just Helvetica's teddy bear" you've failed from the beginning. Haley seems to know that Myron is also Helvetica's avatar, the only person that she has loved one hundred percent, and the only person qualified to tell her story. But he still had to also be a bear and through Haley's performance I never forgot that even though he's not wearing a bear costume.

Now there's the impossible task of playing Helvetica. Helvetica is played by three actresses: Past Helvetica (Evie Sickbert), Present Helvetica (Molly Gilmartin), and Future Helvetica (Mary Wolfson). It would be very hard to play one of these people but then you have the added hardship of making your performance work in such a way that I don't see a "seam" in the actresses portrayal and they all blend into one character. I don't know how much (if at all) they planned for this but whatever they they did it worked. If they did this purely by accident they should take that secret to their graves.

First of all Miss Sickbert was my absolute favorite performer! The scene she has with Helvetica's father needs a maturity way beyond her years and it touched me to the core. At such a young age to be emoting with her eyes and face like that is so amazing. Gilmartin's performance played the perfect balance of reserved and passionate. I totally felt her character's feeling of being stuck and she drew this emotion out of me that just wanted to yell "just punch the dumb husband and sail away with Myron!" Wolfson's performance is what grounded me and I found myself calmed by her. Playing a writer is hard already because all of the conflict is inside the head yet Wolfson allowed that inner conflict to come outside and I could see her working through it. All three of these women came together to give us only one Helvetica and they deserve a riotous applause.

Then there are the characters that form a sort of a spine to the play because even when we don't see them we feel them. Father (played by Daniel Sickbert) and Mother (played by Riley Rawson) were two such characters. These were both people who needed to be powerful performers because we had to feel their effect on Helvetica's life long after they were gone. I think Sickbert's delivery rang with me more but he may have been "cheating" because he was talking to his real life daughter Evie most of the time (although from people I know who have done it acting with real life family can sometimes be harder). At first I thought Rawson's performance left something to be desired but then I saw her start to settle in and own it. Her last monologue in the play is one of my favorites of all time and she killed it. I just wished we could have had that energy the whole performance.

Big shout out to James Cogswell for giving me a Husband that I want to punch in the face. It's very hard to play a jackass and my hat is off to him for it.

Okay I was looking in the program for the almost five other talented actresses that were in this play but it turns out that they were all Amanda Lynn Simmons. This performer is not only a talented actress and ballet dancer but also a composer! I can't believe that I'm using the word "polymath" in a review but here I am giving it to her. There you go Miss Simmons making me pull out my SAT words.

Okay I want to talk to both set designer Brian Gamel and lighting designer Megan Johnson. Because of the very monochromatic gray color palette of the stage all I could think about was that we were inside Helvetica's brain (her "graymatter") and watching her story unfold in her mind. If that was your intention you're geniuses. If it wasn't let that be your biggest secret. The grays gave a great background for Johnson's vibrant purples and the muted blues and greens and browns of Cindy Flanders' costume design. Also Flanders deserves high praise for uniting all three Helveticas with the same color scheme but giving them all different styles and tastes. Whereas the trio of actresses played a unified character the clothing clued us into their different personalities.

Also a shout-out to sound designer Zach Roe and projection designer Beth Tate. These roles hardly ever get any love and they are the unsung heroes of the theatre.

A special shout-out to videography by David Thompson Technologies without whom this production would have stayed cancelled.

Don't tell Katie Coleman this but this play has stuck with Dana and me throughout the seven or so years since we first saw the staged reading at the Hollins Playwright's Lab. We have stayed up at night in bed talking (and arguing) about this play because we love it so much. It was very special for it to be our first review from quarantine. Also even in this digital age we still feel that need to be somewhere in person. We've had eyes and ears as a species way before we got phones and cameras so there is still a drive to get around the campfire as a tribe and let our hearts sync up as one to hear a good story. However in these times it's good to be reminded that technology can help us feel present with our loved ones even in times of uncertainty like this. Hence why I was able to do a review of play done in Georgia from my home in New Jersey written by a colleague from Chicago and directed by a professor I met in Virginia. This is what reminds me that Theatre is really about community and as long as the community still thrives theatre lives on. You now have a limited time to be a part of that global community. Follow the link below and watch this play yourself. After you watch it share it with a friend. Hurry fast because after May 10th it disappears!

[scripttorture]

In your review of Captain America: TWS, you pointed out that you can't use torture to make a person do something they'd be morally opposed to, and I'm concerned that I might be doing something similar here. I have a character who was raised in an institution under the constant threat of execution until he was drafted into the military, where he was terrorized into killing people the same way before ultimately escaping. How would this play out so I don't repeat what TWS did wrong?

Firstly thank you for reaching out. I know that this is a reallydifficult subject to research.

 I think the first question you need to ask is how opposed is yourcharacter to killing?

 Don't go with the instinctive 'well of course he's opposed to killingeveryone is!'. Unless your character is a pacifist and would consistently arguethat it's preferable to die than kill chances are they're not strongly opposedto killing per-say they're opposed to killing particular people underparticular circumstances in particular ways.

 There is a difference between someone being absolutely andwhole-heartedly opposed to something and someone who... can be coerced orconvinced into going 'against' their beliefs because they're not reallystrongly held beliefs.

 I think I'd probably best illustrate that with an example. In 'Nonviolence: The History of a DangerousIdea' Kurlansky describes multiple occasions of pacifists approaching armedsoldiers and using their bodies as human shields.

 In one example he describes a Pashtun boy who followed Bacha Khan’steachings walking up to a British soldier and asking to be shot. The Britishsoldier shot him dead.

 In another example he describes a Roman man, conscripted into the army,telling his superior officer that as a Christian he refused to kill anotherhuman being. The officer ordered him to walk unarmed in front of the othertroops as they went into battle. He did and was killed.

 Is your character this opposed to killing? Or even this opposed tokilling in the manner the army in your setting wants him to?

 If he really is utterly and wholeheartedly opposed to it then nothing canforce him to change his mind.

 But usually, for most characters and things we write about, that isn’tthe case. That gives you some room to play with and some options.

 I think part of this also comes down to how you’re using torture in yourstory: if it’s just a short cut to getting a character to change their mind then…wellthat might not be torture apologia but it is a bit of a sloppy handling of a sensitivetopic.

 Torturehas long term effects on victims, the majority of victims will be livingwith symptoms for the rest of their lives. That’s doesn’t mean that they can’t go on to lead full and happy livesbut torture- well O’Mara argues that the structural changes to the brain itcauses amount to brain damage.

 I think that portraying torture as if it’s ‘just’ the physical pain avictim experiences in that moment downplays the damage it causes.

 So if you decide torture isright for your story then I’d strong recommend you look at the link above andpick out some symptoms for your character. We can’t predict which symptoms anindividual survivor will experience, so I suggest picking them based on whatyou feel fits the story and character.

 Given that this takes place over a much longer time period then mostattacks I’d suggest slightly more symptoms in this case, 4-6.

 Memory problems are incredibly common in torture survivors, but rarelyshown in fiction so I tend to encourage people to use them. The most commontypes are general forgetfulness (difficulty keeping appointments, findingthings etc), false memories (often of torture or events chronologically closeto it), missing memories (usually notof torture itself but of events shortly before or after) and intrusive memories(constantly being reminded of and going over details of the traumatic event).

 Addiction problems and PTSD are probably among the more common symptomsgiven to fictional male soldiers. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them if you feel they fit but if you want to dosomething a little different you might want to avoid them.

 And torture doesn't just affect the victims. Torturers tend to developexactly the same sorts of symptoms as victims do over time. Torture also has apronounced negative effect on organisations in general. It causes organisationsto fracture into sub-factions and can actually get bad enough that in onemilitary organisation (in Brazil) people who were nominally on the same sidestarted kliling each other. Having torture as part and parcel of amilitary-like organisation means a much less effective organisation: one with alot of people suffering from serious mental and physical health issues, a poorchain of command (torturers tend to ignore orders), factionalism that can leadto brutal violence and incredibly bad moral.

 Showing all the long term effects of torture (if you want it to be partof your story) is a good start.

 I keep stressing that you don't have to use torture because I want toemphasise that it's not your only option. There are quite a few realisticoptions open to you and (I know it's taken a while but-) I think I've finallygot through the background information so I'll try to cover as many of them asI can think of now.

 What I’m trying to do here is give you as muchchoice as possible so you can find something that fits your story.

 I think if you want to make this primarily about the character’smoral/ethical development then taking torture (at least the torture of the MC)out of the story might improve it. In this scenario don’t include any form of overt ‘force’ or threat to make the characterkill or otherwise act immorally. Instead show the kind of pressure he’d beunder to act that way: how it gets soldiers praise from their superiors and(possibly) material rewards. Show how speaking against it leads to socialisolation and how trying to actagainst it risks severe military punishments. Show an organisation that’s builtaround encouraging this character to act in ways he’s uncomfortable with.

 And show how he steps away from that. Show how difficult that is, how itcuts him off from any friends he has in the military and how his superiorsattempt to punish him for it.

 If you wished to you could then include some form of torture as a ‘punishment’which would then strengthen the character’s resolve and his opposition to themilitary.

 Another possible realistic option is to show a military organisationthat’s starting to fracture because of torture. Your character, as a ‘good guy’,as someone who’s uncomfortable with killing and (presumably) against torture-well if he got transferred into a unit that contained torturers he’d be atarget.

 Most of the time in the early stages they use bullying tactics, they tryto use social pressure to make the person quit or transfer. I’ve also heard ofsoldiers being ordered on suicide missions.

 If the character persists and if he tries to reform things, if hecomplains and refuses to participate- he might end up getting tortured. Againthis would probably strengthen his opposition to the entire military and hisdrive to escape.

 Another option would be writing the character going into this situationbelieving that the military is always right. If he was raised in the sort ofinstitution that usually feeds into the military then he may well have beenraised to believe that the military does these things for good reason and they’regood people and all of this brutality ‘works’.

 Then of course he actually does it. And it’s terrible and it affects himdeeply.

 He’d struggle with guilt and doubt and self loathing. He’d probably feelthat he was as guilty as everyone else (indeed he is) but the difference wouldbe that torture ends up driving him away from the military.

 Going back to the fracturing effects torturers have on organisations-One of the things torturers sometimes do with new recruits is…essentiallyexpose them to torture in ways that are potentially incriminating. They makethe recruit feel that if they tried to report the incident they’d be seen asjust as guilty as the torturers.

 I’m going to use waterboarding as an example- Say one of the othercharacters passes by and says ‘oh by the way the Sargent wants you to bring abucket of water down to room 2B’. Your character probably assumes he’s supposedto clean the room. He arrives, opens the door, and sees a victim tied to a board,feet raised in the air, hood over their head. He’d probably freeze, that wouldbe a normal response. One of the torturers takes the bucket and pours it overthe victim’s head. They make an awful sound. Your character might run away, ortry to have it out with the torturers, but sooner or later when he thinks aboutprotesting someone will say ‘but you brought the bucket!’

 Torturers use these sorts of tactics to prevent people reporting thembut they also use them to try and pressure new recruits into joining them.

 This approach actually avoids torture per-say. It’s mostly about socialpressure and again, only works if your character isn’t extremely opposed to the idea.

 They bully. They harass. They keep the character isolated. Theybasically make his life as miserable as possible until he gives in to theirdemands.

 These sorts of tactics can and have driven people to suicide.

 Another option is the ‘ICURE’ pattern of psychological manipulation:Isolate the person, Control their access to information, plant Uncertaintyabout prior beliefs, use Repetition to reinforce the beliefs and values theorganisation wants to instil, and manipulate Emotions in order to furtherreinforce those values. In something like a military organisation it’s veryeasy to….use these sorts of manipulation techniques to try and change thebeliefs of recruits into something deemed more favourable.

 These techniques can be used to gradually change people’s opinions andbeliefs. If you wanted to you could show your character being manipulated usingthese techniques and how these social pressures could drive him to do awfulthings under orders.

 If you wanted to you could then use torture as a traumatic incident thatdrives the character to break away from the military. Or you could just havehim witness atrocity after atrocity, showing how that wears him down until hedecides the military is the problem.

 You could also use something close to your original scenario, with atoxic environment full of torturers and a real threat of torture scaring the character into short term compliance.

 But the problem with that is it really is short term and shallow and it only seems to work for relativelysimple actions. The more complex something is the more likely a character whois under duress will mess it up (either on purpose or because they’re morelikely to be highly distressed and not concentrating on their work). If yourplan was the have the character stay in this military organisation for years,doing these things repeatedly, then- well the longer he’s forced the stay in anenvironment like that the more likely he’d; commit suicide, escape, attack oneof the torturers/ranking officers, refuse orders or do something obviouslytreasonous.

 Hopefully one of these scenarios fits reasonably with your story. Thereare a lot more possibilities, and I could keep writing but without moreinformation on the story I’m not sure if it would be helpful.

 So if I haven’t covered whatyou want please send in another ask when the box is open. Take up as many asksas you like.

 I hope this helps. :)

Disclaimer

[it1776]

The Best Nintendo Switch Controller Review

The Pro Controller is fine.

I still recommend it to most people

but if you play a lot of 2D games that the D-Pad placement

just isn't gonna cut it. 8BitDo is been making

fantastic Deepak controllers for a while now.

I originally recommended the old SN30

if you wanted to play a lot of 2D games.

Its biggest flaw was it's ergonomics, making it hard to play

3D games with its thumb sticks.

They fixed that with the release of the SN30 Pro+

a near-perfect controller that quickly became

my favorite controller for the Switch.

I used it so much that I ran it into the ground

and had to buy a new one recently. Almost two years later,

they finally released an updated version,

simply called the 8BitDo Pro 2.

Thank God that name was starting to be a mouthful.

This version adds a lot

to the already fantastic Pro Controller alternative.

If you are on the fence about getting one before,

this one will for sure give you

a couple of pretty good reasons to reconsider.

(upbeat music)

This video is sponsored by Aspyr, the guys who brought you,

the Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy Switch ports

are now bringing you Star Wars Republic Commando.

It's finally on Nintendo Switch

and PlayStation 4 for just 1499.

Check it out at the link in the description below.

Whoa! Whoa! Come on, dude.

Chaos has erupted throughout the galaxy.

As leader of an elite squad of Republic Commandos,

your mission is to infiltrate, dominate,

and ultimately annihilate the enemy. You will play as Boss,

leader of the special ops unit Delta Squad

together with Fixer, Scorch and Sev

working together as a team

instinctively, intelligently, instantly. You guys all right.

I was here first and then you guys just came.

Battle a variety of highly intelligent and deadly enemies

from brutal Trandoshan mercenaries, all right.

To the flying insectoid warriors of Geonosis.

This game was originally released in 2005

and I think is a crucial part of Star Wars history.

I love this era of Star Wars games and I love that Aspyr

is putting some games from this era on the Switch.

So again, you can try it for yourself for just 1499

at the link in the description below.

(water bubbling)

Sorry anybody got a USB-C charger.

(water bubbling).

So if you're new here

the biggest reason why I recommend this controller

is because of the D-pad. It's perfectly clicky.

It feels almost exactly like an original S.N.E.S controller

but you know, newer obviously. But it also has

all of the makings of a great modern controller.

It's thumb sticks feel almost exactly

like a DualShock 4 thumb sticks, making this a great option

for 3D games if you need something that could do both.

Here's something I often forget to mention.

It comes with a rechargeable battery, but it can be removed

and replaced with two double A's if you're in a bind,

something Microsoft should take note of.

It also has great motion controls and rumble.

The only thing that it's missing

that the Nintendo Pro Controller has is NFC.

But at the significantly lower price point,

are you really gonna be missing NFC that much?

The original SN30 Pro+ was and still is $45.

This new one bumps the price up to $50,

which is still a reasonable price

and some harsh competition for Nintendo's $70 controller.

It also works on Switch, Windows, Mac, Android,

and Raspberry Pi via Bluetooth, which is great

if you wanna play emulators or 2D games via Steam.

It's an all-around great controller

and I haven't even mentioned any of the new features yet.

Everything that I've said is also available

on the older $45 model.

The Pro 2 Sports 2 assignable back buttons.

This is a very welcome addition

and something I wish more controllers included.

My only gripe here is that

they're a little too easy to press. They're very large.

It's very difficult to grip the controller

without touching these buttons with your middle fingers.

In an intense game of Mario Maker

I accidentally press these buttons many times.

Luckily, by default they're assigned to nothing.

So pressing them did nothing at all.

You can assign functions to these buttons

using the brand new 8BitDo companion app.

In fact, you can remap all of the buttons

using the companion app.

And there are three different assignable profiles

that you can swap between on the fly.

Technically there's four because

there's just a baseline default one which is great

for when you don't wanna accidentally hit the back buttons.

Pressing this button right here switches between the modes.

There's off one, two and three.

In addition to remapping the buttons,

this software also allows you to fix the sticks dead zones.

It's also supposed to let you fix the trigger sensitivity,

but I couldn't figure out how to do that in the app.

I can only figure out how to do that on the desktop version.

But I like having my trigger sensitivity set really high

so they're like hair triggers because almost no Switch games

registered trigger sensitivity anyway.

Upon further review it seems that they disabled

the trigger sensitivity tab for the Switch.

So they got rid of trigger sensitivity

entirely for the Switch which is weird

'cause there are games that could still use it.

But if you go to Android or DInput or whatever,

it shows the trigger sensitivity, which is very strange.

You can also adjust vibration levels and of course,

macros, which go great with the new additional back buttons.

Previously, I used to assign macros to the share button.

Now I don't have to, unfortunately, the macro functionality

still, isn't very intuitive. You have to program it yourself

in the app, one button at a time. You can set the timings

between button presses but that's way harder to do

than just inputting a macro yourself on the controller

and having it record your inputs.

Something I've seen in a few other devices lately.

I hope that 8BitDo can eventually update

the Ultimate software and the Pro 2's firmware

to have this sort of functionality.

Because right now the macro function is pretty much

all only useful for like fighting games.

They did add the ability

to use thumb stick inputs for macros.

So if you have more patience than me

you can figure out some macros for Smash Brothers.

What might be more useful is assigning a turbo button

which is useful for many games, namely Animal Crossing.

I have a whole video on that if you're interested.

The old Pro+ had a turbo function but with this new Pro 2,

it might be worth it to assign one of the back buttons

to enable the turbo function. You can also have

the other back button assigned to hold.

So it will hold down a button forever.

So you can breeze through long menus or something.

Another useful feature that was recently added.

You can set the left stick to be swapped with the D-pad.

This is useful for games like Link's Awakening,

which should have D-pad support, but it doesn't.

There's also an option

to swap the right stick with the triggers.

I think that's some fighting games.

But my favorite part about this new mobile app

is that it allows you to change your settings on the fly.

You don't have to disconnect it from your Switch at all.

You can have it connected to your Switch

and the app at the same time.

This is something that you could not do

with the previous desktop app. This is huge for figuring out

the timing of macros or finding out the right button mapping

for yourself and immediately trying it out in the field.

One of my least favorite things

about wireless controllers like this

is connecting it to the Switch.

I often find myself just (indistinct) the button

till it finally comes up.

This controller alleviates some of that pain

by adding a mode switch on the back.

On the previous Pro+ you had to hold Start and Y

to enter switch mode. Windows, Android, and iOS,

all had different corresponding face buttons.

You expect me to remember all those.

There was also no indication

what mode you were currently in.

Now it's as easy as just flipping the switch.

You have Nintendo Switch, Apple DInput and XInput.

XInput is for Windows and Android.

DInput is for like old. I don't know it's

just probably don't worry about it. Other than all that

the only other real difference is it's enhanced grip

which is really just a textured back

similar to the textured back

of the new DualSense controller.

Other than that, this controller feels exactly the same

as the old SN30 Pro+ controller.

Switching between the two reveals that the face buttons

feel more responsive on the newer one.

Maybe it's because it's newer

and I used the shit out of my old one.

It's hard to tell.

- Oh no. - Hit the button, dude.

I think this controller.

(upbeat game music)

You know, I'll try, I'll try the top ones.

The buttons, the build quality, everything feels the same.

The Pro 2 comes in gray, black and GB edition.

I pre-ordered myself the Game Boy looking one

so I'll be getting that one when it eventually comes out.

But 8BitDo sent me their gray edition one, which looks like

it's attempting to resemble a PlayStation 1 controller.

It's an okay design. The A, B, X, Y buttons

colored like PlayStation buttons is like unsettling.

It's like a sin. The strongest design that they have

is definitely the Game Boy looking at one.

8BitDo used to have controllers that looked almost exactly

like Super Nintendo and N.E.S controllers,

but I'm sure they strayed away from that

so that they weren't bullied by Nintendo's lawyers.

It's also probably why they don't have

a Super Nintendo looking one at all anymore.

But I mean, the feel of the controller

is more important than anything else. And for 2D games,

there's nothing better than this,

until you find your Lord and Savior keyboard keys baby.

So if you haven't yet picked yourself up a 8BitDo controller

now might be the time to make the jump.

$5 extra for the back buttons,

the updated Ultimate software, the mode switch,

the custom profiles that can switch on the fly.

Yeah, I'd say it's worth it to get this version

over the original or Pro. Now is it worth upgrading to

if you already have an original SN30 Pro+.

That I'm not sure about.

Maybe if yours is starting to feel like shitty.

I know mine started to feel like

a little unresponsive, I guess.

I don't know how to describe it other than

it just got shitty and then I had to buy a new one.

But if you're perfectly content with your original SN30 Pro+

then it's probably not worth dropping an extra $50

on a brand new controller. It's like 90% the same controller

and about 10% new hotness. Or maybe I'm sure

you could find a way to justify it.

Maybe you could teach your grandma how to do Kaizo Mario.

What do you guys think about the brand new 8BitDo Pro 2?

It's a lot easier to say at this time.

Is this gonna make you finally make the jump

into getting an 8BitDo controller? Or it's something that

you would consider upgrading to from the original?

I don't think you really need to

unless like yours got like old crappy.

If you have a Nintendo Switch Pro controller already,

and you find yourself playing way more 2D games

this might be worth getting in addition to.

I mean it's like a second,

you get a second player with it to.

Leave in the comments below, add me on Twitter

and all this social media garbage.

As always we have new videos here all the time,

at least once a week.

This week, I think you're getting two, lucky you.

And we got streams over on twitch.tv/wulffden

where we can hang out and chat with each other

about stuff like this. Look at that.

Make sure you turn on notifications for all of that stuff

so you know, when we go live

'cause you can't rely on YouTube or Twitch to tell you.

But of course the most important thing right now

is just subscribe. Thank you.

I appreciate you for wanting to watch these videos.

And share this video with a friend.

A friend who maybe hasn't gotten

one of these controllers yet and it's still stuck

with the freaking regular role Pro controller.

Or maybe they're using the freaking split Joy-Cons

like a real, degenerate.

(gentle music)

Thank you. Have a good week.

[studentdiaries]

study diary #1

let's start off with something simple. i'm nearing exam season, with a week before quiet days start and somehow it feels like there's still so much material to cover.

in music i have 2 technique tests, both on minor scales that must be memorized. as well as turning in CPT pre-work and editing my final composition. on my exam day i'll have to play my recital piece, a song with virtually no information online, and one that i personally find much more beautiful slowed down, which i'm not entirely sure if i am allowed to do. i was unable to do any practicing asides from using my family's piano. however i have two of the five minor scales i need to know memorized, melodic and harmonic.

in chemistry i managed to finish the procedures for my final lab exam, and just need to finish drawing the diagrams for it. i need to catch up on the lesson i missed last friday, and i'll be trying to start preparing for the test at the end of this week. i also plan on reviewing for the written exam. i'm hoping to bring my mark up to a ninety which i know i can achieve.

in biology i'm bored as heck. what we're learning is fairly simple to me. i do however enjoy having a bit of a bird course, but i'll need to remind myself that it's still important to focus and do the work. i think with the exam i can bring my mark to a ninety five, if the dissection doesn't bring me down.

in math i need to clarify the information on pascal's triangle, just to make sure i know how to apply it. we should be having a test soon, with a few review periods before then. for the exam i definitely need to focus on the factoring unit, considering every other unit has been near perfect asides from that near failure.

overall this weekend was not academically productive, however, having been fairly sick recently i am fine with that. i also haven't missed my medication at all which is really good, and earlier in the week i procrastinated by building a desk and cleaning my room, a feat that i have not been able to do for a long time. i think i like my productive procrastination habits for the most part. and considering one of my problematic friends has really been an issue, i'd say this week has done well.

goals for the new week: complete half of the required math review. finish memorizing the minor scales necessary. catch up on missed lessons. create a post on mnemonic devices.

[invertedeidolon]

The Longest Library #7: The Little Book of Complete Bollocks by Alistair Beaton

This is a series in which I attempt to read and review all (or most of) my library of 297 books.

Rundown: I'm just going to quote part of the back here: In this witty hatchet job on the therapy culture, writer and broadcaster Alistair Beaton invites you to make friends with your anxiety, give your anger a hug, and have a good long satisfying shag with your negativity.

This is a small pocket book you'd probably gift to the drunk in your life if you share their views that therapy is too touchy feely, or if one of you have failed therapy before. I was wondering why these jokes were falling flat, and more importantly, why they were falling flat in a weird way instead of a mean-spirited way you'd expect. Then I read the back and realized that the author is british. (not sorry, british comedy is fine, bad british humor is just disappointing and feels like a small round man in his 30's trying to be clever at me in the pub)

I give this a 1/5. It'll waste a good thirty minutes, and there's like, five that made me exhale through my nose a little bit, but the rest of it was slightly exasperating.

So, this book reads like 12 year old me trying to be funny. It's a comment on therapy culture if all they've seen is TV gurus and overwritten self-discovery (not self-help) books. What I'm saying is that it could have been better. There's shitposts on tumblr that does a better job than about 89% of this book. Some of these do, in fact, read like tumblr shitposts that just barely miss the mark. There were times I felt like a lot of these were better off on a twitter account, or could be plugged into a bot that's attached to a twitter account.

However, I will share a few choice pieces with you.

IMPORTANT

Feelings of unimportance are often caused by a lack of importance. Banish your feelings of unimportance by becoming President of the United States.

Did the orange narcissist read this?

THE CHILD WITHIN

Finding the child within yourself can be harder than you think. Buy a cuddly toy and take it to bed with you. Use it to rediscover the child-self you thought you had lost forever. Keep in touch with this child-self wherever you go. Throw tantrums with people who won't let you have your way. Eat too much chocolate and be sick. Show your partner your anger by wetting the bed.

*ANGRILY PEES THE BED* YOU NEVER PUT THE FORKS BACK IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION!!!

URINE

Let urine be the mirror of your soul. Every Monday morning, use a chopstick* to whisk a little of your urine in a white porcelain bowl. If your urine turns frothy, you have a terminal illness and will be dead by the weekend. *if you have issues around chopsticks, it is better to use a fork.

Here's one that makes little if any sense and feels like it failed to set out what it wanted to do. Yes I'm complaining. Yes I'm implying I might know how to do it better. Yes I'm actually going to do it.

"Urine can be a good reflection of the state of your soul. Every Monday morning,( the day of new beginnings for each week,) you can best check your soul's status by whisking some of your urine in a white porcelain bowl with a chopstick. Almost clear urine reflects your clarity of mind and peacefulness, as you must live a balanced and peaceful life to be able to drink that much water on an almost constant basis. If you can see patterns or small particles forming in the liquid, now is the perfect time to pause and contemplate the state of your medical insurance, as you will soon be needing a doctor for that heinous infection."

There. A soft punchline that makes the laughing portion of your brain give a little squeeze without actually giving you the physical urge to giggle. Because that's what they were going for, right?

COLOUR THERAPY

Try painting your therapist a different colour.

This one works. I like this one.

YOUR BODY

Your body is a superb instrument. Why not invite it to join an orchestra?

This one doesn't. Where's the funny? What's the implication? An actual orchestra, despite the average reader not being a trained musician? A choir? An orgy?

MIRROR MEDITATION

Sit down in the lotus position, facing a full-length mirror. In complete silence, stare at your own face in the mirror, without blinking. For three or four hours, nothing will happen. Persist.After four to six hours, the eyes of the face in the mirror will start to roll its eyes and its tongue will flop out of its mouth. Do not be alarmed - this is perfectly normal. Persist. After seven to eight hours, the face in the mirror will suddenly become distorted and appear to be screaming. Do not be alarmed - this is perfectly normal. Persist. After eight to ten hours the face in the mirror will come to meet yours. It will feel as if you are bashing your head repeatedly into a glass object. You will now find yourself in an altered state of consciousness. This is known as unconsciousness.It is followed by another, higher state, known as hospital.

Are they going for a horror bent? This definitely isn't advanced enough to consciously make it about eye fatigue and hypnogogic hallucinations. I feel like the amount of hours doesn't justify the end goal. It's a meditation. Usually there's an end goal of some kind in mind. Be it a time limit or a specific state or some way to KNOW when it ends. This joke only works if someone would actually have a reason to continue the exercise even though the ending may land them in the hospital. Yes I'm nitpicking. Yes I'll admit that if the bulk of it were shorter and the ending bit came way sooner it would be funnier to my tiny pea brain with a fly's bladder sized attention span.

PAINFUL

Make space for pain in your life. If you feel just fine, seek out a counselor or therapist who will explore with you the reasons why you are denying your pain.

:)

:') This is good, it feels like a joke one of your friends would make at you.

DYSFUNCTIONAL

A dysfunctional family is not a family that fails to function; a dysfunctional family is a family that fails to function for you. Make your family function for you by asking family members to rub essential oils into your thighs. If anyone refuses, ask them why they feel threatened by your thighs.

Dril goes to therapy: the movie. This one's good.

ON THE PLANE

During long air journeys, endear yourself to crew and passengers alike by introducing those around you to the ancient power of group chant.

Theater kids, am I right?

SIMPLE PLEASURES

Get pleasure out of the little things in life. Stand on an ant.

This one is the best one. It's the absurdist and casual aggression. It's perfectly modernized and it would probably be considered the worst one back in the day.

BEYOND WORDS

Understand the importance of non-verbal messaging. Give people the sound cues which reveal your mood: If you are happy, ululate in people's ears. If you are anxious, make moaning noises. If you are depressed, fart loudly and persistently.

Ah, so mid-2000s anime fans? Got it.

So in conclusion, no need to waste time on this book. Unless wasting time is what you set out to do.

If you're truly curious, I'm selling this book. It's not on the inverted selections ebay page (where I'm putting all my stuff I don't want any more and these books will likely appear there as well) because ebay is weird and has itty bitty tiny selling limits, so I can only have 5 active listings at a time. However, if you want this before anybody else can get to it, you simply have to message me on any platform you can find me one, and we'll set something up. It's 2 US dollars for me, and about 3.50 for the postal system.

[dukereviewstv]

Duke Reviews TV: Smallville 1x21 Tempest (Season Finale)

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Tv Where Today We Are Continuing Our Look At Smallville By Talking About The Season Finale Of Season 1, Tempest

This Episode Sees Clark And His Friends Getting Ready For The Spring Formal As Lionel Closes The Plant, Lex Attempts To Lead A Employee Buyout Of The Plant And Roger Nixon Finds Out Clark's Secret And Threatens To Expose Clark To The World...

How Will This All Work Out? Let's Find Out As We Watch Tempest...

The Episode Starts At The Luthorcorp Plant As Lex Awaits Lionel Who's Arriving By Helicopter To A Speech Of Some Kind...

(Start At 1:05, End At 2:45)

Meanwhile At Smallville High, Clark And Pete Get Ready For The Spring Formal Only For Chloe To Break The News To Them That The Luthorcorp Plant Is Closing...

After School, Clark Finds Jonathan And Martha Reading A Special Edition Of The Ledger That Talks About The Plant Closing. Despite Telling Them That Chloe And Her Dad Are Unhappy About This, Jonathan And Martha Are More Concerned About The Domino Effect It'll Have On The Community As Millions Of People Are Now Out Of Jobs...

But As Jonathan And Clark Debate Over Who's Fault It Really Is, Lana And Whitney Have A Picnic To Thank Her For Being With Him Throughout Everything He's Gone Through And To Break The News To Her That He Signed Up For The United States Marine Corp...

(Start At 1:14)

I Tried To Find Answers On The Smallville Wiki Over Why Whitney's Actor Eric Johnson Left The Series But There Wasn't Really Anything On The Subject...

Visiting Lex At The Mansion, Clark Asks Lex What Happened That Caused The Plant To Shut Down? Which Leads Lex To Tell Him The 2 Theories That Everyone Has, Either He Ran It Into The Ground Through Incompetence Or Did It Deliberately So He Could Go Back To Metropolis...

With Clark Telling Lex To Tell The Truth, He Doesn't Really Want To Because If He Does He'll Be Stuck With The Incompetence Rap And Instead Figures That Being Reviled Is Just The Lesser Of 2 Evils But Despite Lionel Doing This, Lex Swears It's Not Over And That He's Trying To Come Up With A Plan...

Stopping By The Torch Afterwards, Chloe Is Still Bummed About Her Dad Losing His Job To The Point That Clark Offers To Cancel The Spring Formal On Saturday For Her But She Doesn't Want To As It's The Only Thing She Has To Look Forward To As Her Dad Is Thinking About Moving Them Back To Metropolis Permanently Due To The Luthorcorp Thing...

Having Clark Promise Her Saturday Will Be Great, He Promises Saying That It'll Be A Night To Remember...

Oh, It'll Be A Night To Remember All Right....

Later That Evening, Lex Calls A Meeting With His Former Plant Managers Saying That He Has A Plan To Keep The Plant Running By Holding An Employee Buyout With Lex Raising 90% Of The Capital With The Rest Coming From Them And In Return They'll Become Minority Owners...

Knowing It's A Risk To The Point That They'll Have To Morgage Their Homes Along With Trying To Convince Members Of The Luthorcorp Board To Go Along With Their Plan, The Managers Are In

Visiting The Talon, Clark Tells Lana That Chloe May Be Leaving For Metropolis Only For Lana To Tell Clark That Whitney Is Joining The Marines And It Now Has Both Of Them Thinking What Their Lives Will Be Like Without Them...

The Next Day Clark Places Large Stakes In The Ground Only For The Car To Blow Up When He Starts It...

Surviving The Accident, It Was All Unfortunately Caught On Tape By Roger Nixon Who Has Been Monitoring Clark Since He Saved Lana From Watts...

Visited By Lionel At The Mansion, He Wonders Why Lex Hasn't Packed Only For Lex To Tell Him That He's Not Leaving And That He's Calling For An Employee Buyout Of The Plant...

(Start At 0:28, End At 1:30)

Talking With Chloe In The Hallway Of School, Clark Tells Chloe That He Can't Pick Her Up Because His Ride Went Up In Flames Which Leads Her To Offer To Pick Him Up Saying Cinderella Was Never Her Role Model Anyway...

(As Valley Girl) And Like, It's The 20th Century, Girls Rule The World...

Hearing About Whitney Leaving, Chloe Tells Clark About A Recurring Nightmare She's Been Having About Clark Rushing To The Bus Station When Whitney's Gone To Profess His Love To Lana And That She'll Be Waiting At The Gym All Alone...

Telling Clark That If He Does That, She'll Never Speak To Him Again, Clark Tells Chloe That He's Going With Her Because He Wants To And That He Didn't Choose Her As A Default...

Stopping By The Talon After School, Clark Runs Into Roger Nixon Who Introduces Himself Saying That He Wants To Do A Story About Him...

(Start At 0:15, End At 1:13)

Telling Jonathan And Martha About Nixon, They Tell Clark To Just Continue Living His Life Despite Clark Being Upset About This After What Happened With Phelan In Metropolis...

But Aside From That Clark Saw The Octagonal Disc That Lex Found And He Now Believes It To Be Part Of The Ship As It, Of Course, Matches The Missing Piece But Despite How Persistent Lex Can Be, Jonathan And Martha Know That It Won't Be Traced Back To Them So Again They Tell Clark To Just Do His Chores And Stay Away From The Storm Cellar...

But Unbeknownst To The Kents, Nixon Heard Everything With The Help Of Some Spy Gear He Has...

Visiting Lex The Next Day, Roger Steals The Disc As Lex Reminds Nixon That The Kents Are Off Limits But Not Worried About Lex Or His Threats, He Tells Lex To Be Nice Or He Won't Let Him In On His Discovery With Nixon Promising To Show Lex All The Evidence Tonight Telling Nixon To Pray That He's Not Wrong, Roger Leaves...

Later That Night At The Barn, Clark Is Getting Ready For The Spring Formal As Lex Enters To Help Clark With His Tie. Telling Clark That Whatever Happens In The Next Few Days, He's Still His Friend And That Won't Change It Has Clark Wondering What Lex Thinks Is Going To Happen? He Just Tells Clark That It's Just A Bad Feeling, Like It's The Calm Before The Storm..

Meanwhile At School, Lana And Whitney Take One Last Look Around School Before Whitney Ships Out For Training But Before They Get Ready To Leave, Whitney And Lana Have One Final Dance Before They Do...

Stopping By To Pick Up Clark At The Farm, He Gives Chloe Her Corsage And They Drive Off To The School As Nixon Sees Them Drive Away...

They Arrive At School As The Winds Start To Pick Up, Once Inside They Run Into Lana And Whitney And Pete And His Date...

With Chloe Taking A Pic Of Pete And His Date, Whitney Talks With Clark Asking Him To Look After Lana While He's Gone To Which He Promises To As Whitney Leaves...

Dropping Whitney Off At His Bus, Lana Says Goodbye...

Meanwhile On The Kent Farm, Nixon Enters The Storm Cellar And Gets Footage Of The Spaceship...

Back At School, The Spring Formal Goes On As Remy Zero Plays As The Band...

Because Who Better To Play At The Formal Than The Band That Sings Your Damn Theme Song...

Dancing With Chloe When The Band Plays Her Favorite Song We Eventually Cut To Lana As She's Coming Home Only To See That The Wind Has Picked Up To The Point That A Mailbox Hits Her Car Causing Her To Crash It...

Managing To Get Out Of The Car Lana Watches As Twisters Form In The Distance...

With The Kents Getting In The Storm Cellar Because Of The Twister They End Up Finding Nixon As He Places The Disc On The Ship...

(Start At 0:43, End At 1:41)

Back At The School, Clark And Chloe Kiss As The Vice Principal? Tells The Kids About The Tornadoes Which Are South Of Town And Knowing That Lana Is South Of Town, Clark Races Off To Save Her To Chloe's Dismay...

Meanwhile At The Luthor Mansion, Lex Discovers That Nixon Took The Disc As Lionel Enters As He Figured Out How Lex Is Funding The Buyout..

(Start At 1:48, End At 3:45)

Eventually Finding Lana, Clark Watches As Her Car Is Taken Up Into One Of The Twisters With Him Following To Save Her...

Where In All Honesty I Hope They Land In Oz...

And Yeah, This Is Where The Episode Ends Till Next Season And It Was A Good Episode...

The Story Was Good, The Characters Were Well Written, All In All It Was An Okay Episode And I Say See It..,

But What Do I Think About The Season In General Well, For That You'll Have To Tune In Next Week But Until Then This Is Duke, Signing Off...

[usaonetwothree]

I really hope they redeem Steve in Infinity War because I feel like he totally got screwed over in Civil War with 0 characterization and he was almost made out to be the bad guy in his own movie? (I'm just really bitter about the treatment he's getting here and in the comics at the moment; I just want him and Tony to be happy friends.) thoughts?

First off, an ask! Yay!  Second, I spent a lot oftime reviewing and re-reviewing my answer because the Civil War was sopolarizing to the fandom and I don’t want to get swept up into that.  I think I’m fair to both sides so please putdown the knives and pitchforks.

Now, to the ask.  Let’sstart with the comics.  I think these twotags (#saynotohydracap and #say no to hydra cap) have everything you need toknow about how I feel about Hydra!cap.

As for the movies. The thing I love most about Steve Rogers is that he’s not perfect.  He’s a flawed human.  And that’s what makes his storiesinteresting.  He may have superstrengthand amazing regeneration abilities but at the root of it all is a little boywho was taught to look out for the little guys, to try to do what isright.  And I think because of theobvious villains in the first few movies (Nazis, invading aliens, rogue AI),the fact that he is still a human, with his own feelings and emotions, sort ofgets lost.

As for his characterization, I think Chris Evans said itbest: “Up until this movie, Steve has always done what other people need. InCivil War, he does what he wants. He’s selfish for the right reasons: for hisfriend. It’s about Bucky.” (X)

In all his individual movies, we built up Steve being asoldier, serving others, doing what someone else believed to be right(exceptions in the next paragraph but overall he believes in what he’s doingand trusts the people in charge).  Thenhe realizes it was for a crooked organization. We see him losing faith in the people who are making the decisions hehas to carry out.  And honestly, this isgreat storytelling across many movies and directors to bring us to this pointwhere he defies his orders to bring Bucky in alive.  That to me was perfect.  He made a choice, ran with it, then did theequivalent of turning himself in after (only to escape again when he finds a moreterrible threat but that’s a discussion for a separate time.)

Once again from Chris Evans “I think to [Steve] a dark side is when [he] fights for what [he] wants, notabout what other people need.  And inthis film, it’s really about what he wants.” (X) And that’s what I really liked about the Civil War.  Steve isn’t a robot blindly followingorders.  He has feelings and thoughts andemotions and he’s willing to act on all those to do what he thinks is right.  To be super on the nose, he’s not a perfectsoldier but…

[Tons more after the cut]

Let’s also remember that Steve has never been one to blindly follow orders.  Especially when it comes to Bucky.  The whole Azzano situation in TFA was Stevedefying Colonel Phillips to save Bucky, who might not even have been alivestill.  Bucky has always been Steve’s blindspot, his dark side, because Bucky was always there for him, even when he wasjust a little guy.  Bucky’s his link tothe past, to who he used to be before the wars and the killing.  Bucky knows and respects him as Steve—justSteve—no super-abilities involved.

Re: Steve being a bad guy in his own movie.  I understand how people can feel that way butthat’s not how it came across to me. He’s fighting for what he wants, what he believes in.  And if we’re going to discuss him not signingthe Accords, no matter at what cost it was to Tony, remember Steve was willing to compromise—he talkedabout requiring safeguards with Tony—but then Tony mentioned Wanda and that wastoo much for Steve.  He couldn’t give inthen, not if it meant that those actions were lawfully justified.

He’s not perfect.  Neither is Tony.  Tony signed first to amend later but Capcan’t agree with that.

I think part of the negativity comes because, for the first time on screen, Steve is now working againstsome of his team, in order to achieve what he wants.  Yeah that’s selfish of him (but again, thisis a rounded out, very realistic characterization) and not everyone is going to agree with him doing that, especially when it causes so much chaos with the rest of the team. But I don’t see his actions as mis-characterized. I see them as filling in a missing piece of who he is.  This is what all the movies havebeen leading up to.

I don’t see Steve as abad guy.  I don’t see Tony as oneeither.  They both did what they thoughtwas right, and I thought that was realistic. Things don’t always work out well and I would have been upset to see them tie a nice bow around the whole conflict, instead of letting it drag out between films.

Now, some of this gets diminished because we know they allhave to get back together in the Infinity War, which is now just one movie sothere isn’t a whole lot of time to unite everyone again.  So Tony and Steve (or, more accurately, theirteams) are going to have to put aside any hurt feelings not long into the filmand defeat Thanos.

Re: Steve’s redemption. The only thing I feel Steve really needs to be redeemed for is 1)knowing Bucky killed Tony’s parents and not telling him and 2) leaving Tony topublically deal with the fallout of their fight and the bombing, etc.  Some people will argue Steve left him inSiberia with a disabled suit.  Ipersonally believe he ran into T’Challa on the way out, and the Cat Kingoffered to take him home while dropping off Zemo, or that Tony took thesnowmobile back to civilization.  Butthat may be just me and my rose-colored glasses.

As for him and Tony being friends again, they were never best friends like Steve and Bucky are,or Tony and Rhodey are.  But they arefriends: they care about each other, they like spending time with each other.  I think we’ll get back to thateventually.  Maybe not inInfinity War but hopefully before Chris Evans’ contract runs out.  But eventually yes.

Additional thoughts that didn’t fit in anywhere else:1) Ireally want to see the original Cap 3 script before they decided to make it theCivil War which I believe was Steve, Sam and Natashasearching for Bucky while chasing down Rumlow.2) TheCivil War commentary is fantastic. The Russos, Markus and McFeely have a reasonfor putting each and every scene in the movie. Sure I'd’ve liked a little moreCap in my Cap movie but the writers did their due diligence to support Tony’sposition so the movie would be fair and balanced and not skewed in oneparticular direction. It wasn’t as tight a movie as TWS but once you hear theirbackstories and intentions, it really is a masterpiece given all the groundthey had to cover.3) I’ve never seen our fandom so polarized by a movie.  The whole conflict was made binary: “Steve was right, Tony was wrong” or vice versa. No in-between.  You are Team Cap or Team Iron Man and how dare you try to see good points in both arguments?  And that doesn’t even get into how terribly authors who tried to write post-CW fics were treated by people who didn’t agree with their views!   It was really hard to watch and I hope we’re all past that.

TL;DR: Steve isn’t perfect and in the Civil War he chose toprotect Bucky, which to me is perfect characterization of him that’s beensupported in many prior films, no matter how hard it might have been to watchonscreen.  Fandom blew things out ofproportion re: who was right/who was the bad guy, when it’s not quite so blackand white.  I believe they willeventually get to be friends again.

[chpatdoorsl3z0a1]

Sony a9 shooting experience: Here's why I'm impressed

Introduction

Sony's looking to storm the sports photography market with its new a9 mirrorless camera.

When I started shooting sports for college publications, I was stuck working with 3 fps. Then I graduated to a new camera offering 5 fps, and gravitated towards weddings and events. Now that I've been with DPReview for a year and a half, I've gotten used to 12, 14, 18 and 24 frames per second for shooting just about everything.

To be blunt, past a certain threshold, burst shooting speeds don't net me appreciably more keepers in my usual style of photography. But that won't be the case with everyone, and honestly, it doesn't hinder my enthusiasm with regards to the new Sony a9, even though that's one of its headline features. Even setting burst speeds aside, this camera is among the best I've ever used, bar none. Here's why.

Background

During my time at DPReview, Sony's always left me feeling a little conflicted.

On one hand, the technology and features crammed into the company's cameras are always impressive; during my interview for this job, our own Rishi Sanyal showed me Eye AF on an a7R II, and I accidentally blurted out an expletive as my jaw dropped – it was something I'd never seen before. On the other hand, I've consistently found the usability of Sony's cameras to be a primary concern for me. The interface and general operation were laggy enough to be irksome, I got lost in the menus all the time (movie options should never be nonsensically shuffled among stills options), and there were times that I felt I was fighting the camera to get it to just do what I wanted.

Sony's RX100 V is an incredibly capable pocket camera, but the series hasn't seen any ergonomic or UI improvements in two generations. Photo by Samuel Spencer

The list of qualms I have with the a7-series in particular is full of items that, on their own, are quite insignificant; but as the list grows, they all combine to make for cameras that I almost never choose for personal work or play. But the sheer volume of improvements and refinements in the a9 are having me singing a different tune.

So, what exactly has changed with the a9?

Despite similarities to the a7-series at first glance, a lot.

The buttons and dials all come with better haptic feedback. The AF joystick replaces an eternity of clicks when moving the AF point. When you flip the screen out, the eye sensor is disabled, which resulted in fewer missed shots when working at odd angles. Boot-up time is shorter. Battery life is way better. The interface is more responsive. I don't get lost in the menus at all anymore. All of these changes add up to a camera that is more transparent, in the sense that it just 'gets out of the way' more than any previous Sony camera I've used, and lets me get on with taking pictures.

The controls, the feel and the operation of the new a9 have all been improved relative to Sony's a7-series of full frame mirrorless cameras.

Even if you don't use the full 20 fps (electronic shutter) burst speed, shooting anything you could want without any intrusive shutter noise (important for delicate moments during, say a wedding reception) without any blackout whatsoever is a revelation. Sure, the RX100 V and Olympus E-M1 II both also offer fully electronic shutters and silent operation, but neither has a full-frame image sensor, neither can show you a live view during bursts (only slideshows of images being taken), and the a9 suppresses rolling shutter so ably that it's one more thing that I almost never have to worry about.

I had a big hand in the reviews of Nikon's D5 and Canon's EOS-1D X Mark II, and while the optical viewfinder blackout on both of those cameras is incredibly short, I have to stress that the Sony a9 goes one step further in that it shows no blackout whatsoever. None. This camera makes it easier than ever to simply follow the action, and catch exactly the moment you want.

An additional plus - this camera has taken the preliminary crown (review units are forthcoming) for the best mirrorless autofocus system I've ever used. We were given the opportunity to photograph hockey, figure skating and a full-on track meet, and the a9 rarely let me down. Watch our site next week, when we'll be able to post actual photos and videos from these events for you to examine for yourself.

What's the catch?

Okay, there's a few catches here.

First of all, do you need 20 fps? I don't. There are, of course, those that will. But that feature, that incredibly fast readout speed of that new 24MP sensor, is something you're paying for if you shell out $4,500 for this new camera, even if you're only interested in the other (not insignificant) improvements outlined above.

I shot over 2,800 images during our shooting experience with Sony in New York. That caused me worries about card space (even with a 128GB card), cost me hard drive space, and cost me time during downloading and editing. I'm no pro sports shooter, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I got an appreciably greater number of keepers because of the a9's burst rate than I would have with a slower-shooting camera. Heck, I even switched to 10fps halfway through to save card space, and I still came away with images I was pleased with. And it's worth noting that the absence of any blackout whatsoever is still incredibly awesome, even at 10fps.

This image is from the first occasion where I really soaked a camera in the name of a shoot; photographing the King County Search and Rescue team during a training exercise as part of my job for Puget Sound Energy. That D800 and 24-70mm F2.8 are still in good working order, though the rubber zoom ring on the lens had started to come a little loose. ISO 1600 | F4 | 1/100 sec Photo copyright Puget Sound Energy, image via Flickr

Also, Sony's made claims that the a9 is weather resistant, but after handling the camera and flipping out the port doors, battery door and memory card doors, I just don't have the same faith that it would survive a downpour that a D5, 1D X II or E-M1 II could shrug off. That said, this isn't necessarily a common requirement, but it's something to keep in mind. Were I to take a personal a9 into a rainstorm, I'd gaff tape the heck out of it.

And lastly, where are the XQD card slots? Yes, the a9 has an amazing buffer that I never once hit, but that buffer takes a good amount of time to clear. Incorporating XQD cards would also have meant my download times would be closer to three minutes instead of thirty at the end of the day, plus they're simply more durable for demanding situations. After having used them extensively on Nikon's D500 and D5, I'm sold: for sports cameras, faster media is the way to go.

The wrap

Looking forward - does the a9 have what it takes to steal the hearts of sports shooters around the globe? Only time will tell. Okay, time, durability and quality of professional service and support.

Professional sports and action photographers have demanding jobs, and it goes without saying that learning a new camera system is not usually something they're looking to add to their workload. But the a9 might just be worth it.

Sony says it's rolling out more robust professional support, with one-day turnaround for loaner units when a camera needs repair, and walk-in service centers in New York and Los Angeles (with more coming soon), and better support throughout Canada. That's promising, for sure, but in a chicken-and-egg dilemma, do you want to be among the first to adopt the Sony system and test the validity of those claims for yourself, or wait to see what other professionals who switch have to say? 

For a professional wedding and event photographer who isn't spending hours in inclement weather, I'd say the Sony a9 is worth a look if you're used to Dx-series cameras from Nikon, and 1D-series models from Canon. With the a9, you'll save a ton of weight, have a higher frame rate (again, only relevant if you need it), and likely have an easier time following the action than with even the best DSLRs. 

But it must be said, the cost of switching systems isn't something to be sneezed at – and it's something we'll be looking at in detail in a forthcoming article, so stay tuned.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2p53TWM

[repwincoml4a0a5]

Sony a9 shooting experience: Here's why I'm impressed

Introduction

Sony's looking to storm the sports photography market with its new a9 mirrorless camera.

When I started shooting sports for college publications, I was stuck working with 3 fps. Then I graduated to a new camera offering 5 fps, and gravitated towards weddings and events. Now that I've been with DPReview for a year and a half, I've gotten used to 12, 14, 18 and 24 frames per second for shooting just about everything.

To be blunt, past a certain threshold, burst shooting speeds don't net me appreciably more keepers in my usual style of photography. But that won't be the case with everyone, and honestly, it doesn't hinder my enthusiasm with regards to the new Sony a9, even though that's one of its headline features. Even setting burst speeds aside, this camera is among the best I've ever used, bar none. Here's why.

Background

During my time at DPReview, Sony's always left me feeling a little conflicted.

On one hand, the technology and features crammed into the company's cameras are always impressive; during my interview for this job, our own Rishi Sanyal showed me Eye AF on an a7R II, and I accidentally blurted out an expletive as my jaw dropped – it was something I'd never seen before. On the other hand, I've consistently found the usability of Sony's cameras to be a primary concern for me. The interface and general operation were laggy enough to be irksome, I got lost in the menus all the time (movie options should never be nonsensically shuffled among stills options), and there were times that I felt I was fighting the camera to get it to just do what I wanted.

Sony's RX100 V is an incredibly capable pocket camera, but the series hasn't seen any ergonomic or UI improvements in two generations. Photo by Samuel Spencer

The list of qualms I have with the a7-series in particular is full of items that, on their own, are quite insignificant; but as the list grows, they all combine to make for cameras that I almost never choose for personal work or play. But the sheer volume of improvements and refinements in the a9 are having me singing a different tune.

So, what exactly has changed with the a9?

Despite similarities to the a7-series at first glance, a lot.

The buttons and dials all come with better haptic feedback. The AF joystick replaces an eternity of clicks when moving the AF point. When you flip the screen out, the eye sensor is disabled, which resulted in fewer missed shots when working at odd angles. Boot-up time is shorter. Battery life is way better. The interface is more responsive. I don't get lost in the menus at all anymore. All of these changes add up to a camera that is more transparent, in the sense that it just 'gets out of the way' more than any previous Sony camera I've used, and lets me get on with taking pictures.

The controls, the feel and the operation of the new a9 have all been improved relative to Sony's a7-series of full frame mirrorless cameras.

Even if you don't use the full 20 fps (electronic shutter) burst speed, shooting anything you could want without any intrusive shutter noise (important for delicate moments during, say a wedding reception) without any blackout whatsoever is a revelation. Sure, the RX100 V and Olympus E-M1 II both also offer fully electronic shutters and silent operation, but neither has a full-frame image sensor, neither can show you a live view during bursts (only slideshows of images being taken), and the a9 suppresses rolling shutter so ably that it's one more thing that I almost never have to worry about.

I had a big hand in the reviews of Nikon's D5 and Canon's EOS-1D X Mark II, and while the optical viewfinder blackout on both of those cameras is incredibly short, I have to stress that the Sony a9 goes one step further in that it shows no blackout whatsoever. None. This camera makes it easier than ever to simply follow the action, and catch exactly the moment you want.

An additional plus - this camera has taken the preliminary crown (review units are forthcoming) for the best mirrorless autofocus system I've ever used. We were given the opportunity to photograph hockey, figure skating and a full-on track meet, and the a9 rarely let me down. Watch our site next week, when we'll be able to post actual photos and videos from these events for you to examine for yourself.

What's the catch?

Okay, there's a few catches here.

First of all, do you need 20 fps? I don't. There are, of course, those that will. But that feature, that incredibly fast readout speed of that new 24MP sensor, is something you're paying for if you shell out $4,500 for this new camera, even if you're only interested in the other (not insignificant) improvements outlined above.

I shot over 2,800 images during our shooting experience with Sony in New York. That caused me worries about card space (even with a 128GB card), cost me hard drive space, and cost me time during downloading and editing. I'm no pro sports shooter, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I got an appreciably greater number of keepers because of the a9's burst rate than I would have with a slower-shooting camera. Heck, I even switched to 10fps halfway through to save card space, and I still came away with images I was pleased with. And it's worth noting that the absence of any blackout whatsoever is still incredibly awesome, even at 10fps.

This image is from the first occasion where I really soaked a camera in the name of a shoot; photographing the King County Search and Rescue team during a training exercise as part of my job for Puget Sound Energy. That D800 and 24-70mm F2.8 are still in good working order, though the rubber zoom ring on the lens had started to come a little loose. ISO 1600 | F4 | 1/100 sec Photo copyright Puget Sound Energy, image via Flickr

Also, Sony's made claims that the a9 is weather resistant, but after handling the camera and flipping out the port doors, battery door and memory card doors, I just don't have the same faith that it would survive a downpour that a D5, 1D X II or E-M1 II could shrug off. That said, this isn't necessarily a common requirement, but it's something to keep in mind. Were I to take a personal a9 into a rainstorm, I'd gaff tape the heck out of it.

And lastly, where are the XQD card slots? Yes, the a9 has an amazing buffer that I never once hit, but that buffer takes a good amount of time to clear. Incorporating XQD cards would also have meant my download times would be closer to three minutes instead of thirty at the end of the day, plus they're simply more durable for demanding situations. After having used them extensively on Nikon's D500 and D5, I'm sold: for sports cameras, faster media is the way to go.

The wrap

Looking forward - does the a9 have what it takes to steal the hearts of sports shooters around the globe? Only time will tell. Okay, time, durability and quality of professional service and support.

Professional sports and action photographers have demanding jobs, and it goes without saying that learning a new camera system is not usually something they're looking to add to their workload. But the a9 might just be worth it.

Sony says it's rolling out more robust professional support, with one-day turnaround for loaner units when a camera needs repair, and walk-in service centers in New York and Los Angeles (with more coming soon), and better support throughout Canada. That's promising, for sure, but in a chicken-and-egg dilemma, do you want to be among the first to adopt the Sony system and test the validity of those claims for yourself, or wait to see what other professionals who switch have to say? 

For a professional wedding and event photographer who isn't spending hours in inclement weather, I'd say the Sony a9 is worth a look if you're used to Dx-series cameras from Nikon, and 1D-series models from Canon. With the a9, you'll save a ton of weight, have a higher frame rate (again, only relevant if you need it), and likely have an easier time following the action than with even the best DSLRs. 

But it must be said, the cost of switching systems isn't something to be sneezed at – and it's something we'll be looking at in detail in a forthcoming article, so stay tuned.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2p53TWM

[repwinpril9y0a1]

Sony a9 shooting experience: Here's why I'm impressed

Introduction

Sony's looking to storm the sports photography market with its new a9 mirrorless camera.

When I started shooting sports for college publications, I was stuck working with 3 fps. Then I graduated to a new camera offering 5 fps, and gravitated towards weddings and events. Now that I've been with DPReview for a year and a half, I've gotten used to 12, 14, 18 and 24 frames per second for shooting just about everything.

To be blunt, past a certain threshold, burst shooting speeds don't net me appreciably more keepers in my usual style of photography. But that won't be the case with everyone, and honestly, it doesn't hinder my enthusiasm with regards to the new Sony a9, even though that's one of its headline features. Even setting burst speeds aside, this camera is among the best I've ever used, bar none. Here's why.

Background

During my time at DPReview, Sony's always left me feeling a little conflicted.

On one hand, the technology and features crammed into the company's cameras are always impressive; during my interview for this job, our own Rishi Sanyal showed me Eye AF on an a7R II, and I accidentally blurted out an expletive as my jaw dropped – it was something I'd never seen before. On the other hand, I've consistently found the usability of Sony's cameras to be a primary concern for me. The interface and general operation were laggy enough to be irksome, I got lost in the menus all the time (movie options should never be nonsensically shuffled among stills options), and there were times that I felt I was fighting the camera to get it to just do what I wanted.

Sony's RX100 V is an incredibly capable pocket camera, but the series hasn't seen any ergonomic or UI improvements in two generations. Photo by Samuel Spencer

The list of qualms I have with the a7-series in particular is full of items that, on their own, are quite insignificant; but as the list grows, they all combine to make for cameras that I almost never choose for personal work or play. But the sheer volume of improvements and refinements in the a9 are having me singing a different tune.

So, what exactly has changed with the a9?

Despite similarities to the a7-series at first glance, a lot.

The buttons and dials all come with better haptic feedback. The AF joystick replaces an eternity of clicks when moving the AF point. When you flip the screen out, the eye sensor is disabled, which resulted in fewer missed shots when working at odd angles. Boot-up time is shorter. Battery life is way better. The interface is more responsive. I don't get lost in the menus at all anymore. All of these changes add up to a camera that is more transparent, in the sense that it just 'gets out of the way' more than any previous Sony camera I've used, and lets me get on with taking pictures.

The controls, the feel and the operation of the new a9 have all been improved relative to Sony's a7-series of full frame mirrorless cameras.

Even if you don't use the full 20 fps (electronic shutter) burst speed, shooting anything you could want without any intrusive shutter noise (important for delicate moments during, say a wedding reception) without any blackout whatsoever is a revelation. Sure, the RX100 V and Olympus E-M1 II both also offer fully electronic shutters and silent operation, but neither has a full-frame image sensor, neither can show you a live view during bursts (only slideshows of images being taken), and the a9 suppresses rolling shutter so ably that it's one more thing that I almost never have to worry about.

I had a big hand in the reviews of Nikon's D5 and Canon's EOS-1D X Mark II, and while the optical viewfinder blackout on both of those cameras is incredibly short, I have to stress that the Sony a9 goes one step further in that it shows no blackout whatsoever. None. This camera makes it easier than ever to simply follow the action, and catch exactly the moment you want.

An additional plus - this camera has taken the preliminary crown (review units are forthcoming) for the best mirrorless autofocus system I've ever used. We were given the opportunity to photograph hockey, figure skating and a full-on track meet, and the a9 rarely let me down. Watch our site next week, when we'll be able to post actual photos and videos from these events for you to examine for yourself.

What's the catch?

Okay, there's a few catches here.

First of all, do you need 20 fps? I don't. There are, of course, those that will. But that feature, that incredibly fast readout speed of that new 24MP sensor, is something you're paying for if you shell out $4,500 for this new camera, even if you're only interested in the other (not insignificant) improvements outlined above.

I shot over 2,800 images during our shooting experience with Sony in New York. That caused me worries about card space (even with a 128GB card), cost me hard drive space, and cost me time during downloading and editing. I'm no pro sports shooter, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I got an appreciably greater number of keepers because of the a9's burst rate than I would have with a slower-shooting camera. Heck, I even switched to 10fps halfway through to save card space, and I still came away with images I was pleased with. And it's worth noting that the absence of any blackout whatsoever is still incredibly awesome, even at 10fps.

This image is from the first occasion where I really soaked a camera in the name of a shoot; photographing the King County Search and Rescue team during a training exercise as part of my job for Puget Sound Energy. That D800 and 24-70mm F2.8 are still in good working order, though the rubber zoom ring on the lens had started to come a little loose. ISO 1600 | F4 | 1/100 sec Photo copyright Puget Sound Energy, image via Flickr

Also, Sony's made claims that the a9 is weather resistant, but after handling the camera and flipping out the port doors, battery door and memory card doors, I just don't have the same faith that it would survive a downpour that a D5, 1D X II or E-M1 II could shrug off. That said, this isn't necessarily a common requirement, but it's something to keep in mind. Were I to take a personal a9 into a rainstorm, I'd gaff tape the heck out of it.

And lastly, where are the XQD card slots? Yes, the a9 has an amazing buffer that I never once hit, but that buffer takes a good amount of time to clear. Incorporating XQD cards would also have meant my download times would be closer to three minutes instead of thirty at the end of the day, plus they're simply more durable for demanding situations. After having used them extensively on Nikon's D500 and D5, I'm sold: for sports cameras, faster media is the way to go.

The wrap

Looking forward - does the a9 have what it takes to steal the hearts of sports shooters around the globe? Only time will tell. Okay, time, durability and quality of professional service and support.

Professional sports and action photographers have demanding jobs, and it goes without saying that learning a new camera system is not usually something they're looking to add to their workload. But the a9 might just be worth it.

Sony says it's rolling out more robust professional support, with one-day turnaround for loaner units when a camera needs repair, and walk-in service centers in New York and Los Angeles (with more coming soon), and better support throughout Canada. That's promising, for sure, but in a chicken-and-egg dilemma, do you want to be among the first to adopt the Sony system and test the validity of those claims for yourself, or wait to see what other professionals who switch have to say? 

For a professional wedding and event photographer who isn't spending hours in inclement weather, I'd say the Sony a9 is worth a look if you're used to Dx-series cameras from Nikon, and 1D-series models from Canon. With the a9, you'll save a ton of weight, have a higher frame rate (again, only relevant if you need it), and likely have an easier time following the action than with even the best DSLRs. 

But it must be said, the cost of switching systems isn't something to be sneezed at – and it's something we'll be looking at in detail in a forthcoming article, so stay tuned.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2p53TWM

[stormdoors78476]

Sony a9 shooting experience: Here's why I'm impressed

Introduction

Sony's looking to storm the sports photography market with its new a9 mirrorless camera.

When I started shooting sports for college publications, I was stuck working with 3 fps. Then I graduated to a new camera offering 5 fps, and gravitated towards weddings and events. Now that I've been with DPReview for a year and a half, I've gotten used to 12, 14, 18 and 24 frames per second for shooting just about everything.

To be blunt, past a certain threshold, burst shooting speeds don't net me appreciably more keepers in my usual style of photography. But that won't be the case with everyone, and honestly, it doesn't hinder my enthusiasm with regards to the new Sony a9, even though that's one of its headline features. Even setting burst speeds aside, this camera is among the best I've ever used, bar none. Here's why.

Background

During my time at DPReview, Sony's always left me feeling a little conflicted.

On one hand, the technology and features crammed into the company's cameras are always impressive; during my interview for this job, our own Rishi Sanyal showed me Eye AF on an a7R II, and I accidentally blurted out an expletive as my jaw dropped – it was something I'd never seen before. On the other hand, I've consistently found the usability of Sony's cameras to be a primary concern for me. The interface and general operation were laggy enough to be irksome, I got lost in the menus all the time (movie options should never be nonsensically shuffled among stills options), and there were times that I felt I was fighting the camera to get it to just do what I wanted.

Sony's RX100 V is an incredibly capable pocket camera, but the series hasn't seen any ergonomic or UI improvements in two generations. Photo by Samuel Spencer

The list of qualms I have with the a7-series in particular is full of items that, on their own, are quite insignificant; but as the list grows, they all combine to make for cameras that I almost never choose for personal work or play. But the sheer volume of improvements and refinements in the a9 are having me singing a different tune.

So, what exactly has changed with the a9?

Despite similarities to the a7-series at first glance, a lot.

The buttons and dials all come with better haptic feedback. The AF joystick replaces an eternity of clicks when moving the AF point. When you flip the screen out, the eye sensor is disabled, which resulted in fewer missed shots when working at odd angles. Boot-up time is shorter. Battery life is way better. The interface is more responsive. I don't get lost in the menus at all anymore. All of these changes add up to a camera that is more transparent, in the sense that it just 'gets out of the way' more than any previous Sony camera I've used, and lets me get on with taking pictures.

The controls, the feel and the operation of the new a9 have all been improved relative to Sony's a7-series of full frame mirrorless cameras.

Even if you don't use the full 20 fps (electronic shutter) burst speed, shooting anything you could want without any intrusive shutter noise (important for delicate moments during, say a wedding reception) without any blackout whatsoever is a revelation. Sure, the RX100 V and Olympus E-M1 II both also offer fully electronic shutters and silent operation, but neither has a full-frame image sensor, neither can show you a live view during bursts (only slideshows of images being taken), and the a9 suppresses rolling shutter so ably that it's one more thing that I almost never have to worry about.

I had a big hand in the reviews of Nikon's D5 and Canon's EOS-1D X Mark II, and while the optical viewfinder blackout on both of those cameras is incredibly short, I have to stress that the Sony a9 goes one step further in that it shows no blackout whatsoever. None. This camera makes it easier than ever to simply follow the action, and catch exactly the moment you want.

An additional plus - this camera has taken the preliminary crown (review units are forthcoming) for the best mirrorless autofocus system I've ever used. We were given the opportunity to photograph hockey, figure skating and a full-on track meet, and the a9 rarely let me down. Watch our site next week, when we'll be able to post actual photos and videos from these events for you to examine for yourself.

What's the catch?

Okay, there's a few catches here.

First of all, do you need 20 fps? I don't. There are, of course, those that will. But that feature, that incredibly fast readout speed of that new 24MP sensor, is something you're paying for if you shell out $4,500 for this new camera, even if you're only interested in the other (not insignificant) improvements outlined above.

I shot over 2,800 images during our shooting experience with Sony in New York. That caused me worries about card space (even with a 128GB card), cost me hard drive space, and cost me time during downloading and editing. I'm no pro sports shooter, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I got an appreciably greater number of keepers because of the a9's burst rate than I would have with a slower-shooting camera. Heck, I even switched to 10fps halfway through to save card space, and I still came away with images I was pleased with. And it's worth noting that the absence of any blackout whatsoever is still incredibly awesome, even at 10fps.

This image is from the first occasion where I really soaked a camera in the name of a shoot; photographing the King County Search and Rescue team during a training exercise as part of my job for Puget Sound Energy. That D800 and 24-70mm F2.8 are still in good working order, though the rubber zoom ring on the lens had started to come a little loose. ISO 1600 | F4 | 1/100 sec Photo copyright Puget Sound Energy, image via Flickr

Also, Sony's made claims that the a9 is weather resistant, but after handling the camera and flipping out the port doors, battery door and memory card doors, I just don't have the same faith that it would survive a downpour that a D5, 1D X II or E-M1 II could shrug off. That said, this isn't necessarily a common requirement, but it's something to keep in mind. Were I to take a personal a9 into a rainstorm, I'd gaff tape the heck out of it.

And lastly, where are the XQD card slots? Yes, the a9 has an amazing buffer that I never once hit, but that buffer takes a good amount of time to clear. Incorporating XQD cards would also have meant my download times would be closer to three minutes instead of thirty at the end of the day, plus they're simply more durable for demanding situations. After having used them extensively on Nikon's D500 and D5, I'm sold: for sports cameras, faster media is the way to go.

The wrap

Looking forward - does the a9 have what it takes to steal the hearts of sports shooters around the globe? Only time will tell. Okay, time, durability and quality of professional service and support.

Professional sports and action photographers have demanding jobs, and it goes without saying that learning a new camera system is not usually something they're looking to add to their workload. But the a9 might just be worth it.

Sony says it's rolling out more robust professional support, with one-day turnaround for loaner units when a camera needs repair, and walk-in service centers in New York and Los Angeles (with more coming soon), and better support throughout Canada. That's promising, for sure, but in a chicken-and-egg dilemma, do you want to be among the first to adopt the Sony system and test the validity of those claims for yourself, or wait to see what other professionals who switch have to say? 

For a professional wedding and event photographer who isn't spending hours in inclement weather, I'd say the Sony a9 is worth a look if you're used to Dx-series cameras from Nikon, and 1D-series models from Canon. With the a9, you'll save a ton of weight, have a higher frame rate (again, only relevant if you need it), and likely have an easier time following the action than with even the best DSLRs. 

But it must be said, the cost of switching systems isn't something to be sneezed at – and it's something we'll be looking at in detail in a forthcoming article, so stay tuned.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2p53TWM

[grgedoors02142]

Sony a9 shooting experience: Here's why I'm impressed

Introduction

Sony's looking to storm the sports photography market with its new a9 mirrorless camera.

When I started shooting sports for college publications, I was stuck working with 3 fps. Then I graduated to a new camera offering 5 fps, and gravitated towards weddings and events. Now that I've been with DPReview for a year and a half, I've gotten used to 12, 14, 18 and 24 frames per second for shooting just about everything.

To be blunt, past a certain threshold, burst shooting speeds don't net me appreciably more keepers in my usual style of photography. But that won't be the case with everyone, and honestly, it doesn't hinder my enthusiasm with regards to the new Sony a9, even though that's one of its headline features. Even setting burst speeds aside, this camera is among the best I've ever used, bar none. Here's why.

Background

During my time at DPReview, Sony's always left me feeling a little conflicted.

On one hand, the technology and features crammed into the company's cameras are always impressive; during my interview for this job, our own Rishi Sanyal showed me Eye AF on an a7R II, and I accidentally blurted out an expletive as my jaw dropped – it was something I'd never seen before. On the other hand, I've consistently found the usability of Sony's cameras to be a primary concern for me. The interface and general operation were laggy enough to be irksome, I got lost in the menus all the time (movie options should never be nonsensically shuffled among stills options), and there were times that I felt I was fighting the camera to get it to just do what I wanted.

Sony's RX100 V is an incredibly capable pocket camera, but the series hasn't seen any ergonomic or UI improvements in two generations. Photo by Samuel Spencer

The list of qualms I have with the a7-series in particular is full of items that, on their own, are quite insignificant; but as the list grows, they all combine to make for cameras that I almost never choose for personal work or play. But the sheer volume of improvements and refinements in the a9 are having me singing a different tune.

So, what exactly has changed with the a9?

Despite similarities to the a7-series at first glance, a lot.

The buttons and dials all come with better haptic feedback. The AF joystick replaces an eternity of clicks when moving the AF point. When you flip the screen out, the eye sensor is disabled, which resulted in fewer missed shots when working at odd angles. Boot-up time is shorter. Battery life is way better. The interface is more responsive. I don't get lost in the menus at all anymore. All of these changes add up to a camera that is more transparent, in the sense that it just 'gets out of the way' more than any previous Sony camera I've used, and lets me get on with taking pictures.

The controls, the feel and the operation of the new a9 have all been improved relative to Sony's a7-series of full frame mirrorless cameras.

Even if you don't use the full 20 fps (electronic shutter) burst speed, shooting anything you could want without any intrusive shutter noise (important for delicate moments during, say a wedding reception) without any blackout whatsoever is a revelation. Sure, the RX100 V and Olympus E-M1 II both also offer fully electronic shutters and silent operation, but neither has a full-frame image sensor, neither can show you a live view during bursts (only slideshows of images being taken), and the a9 suppresses rolling shutter so ably that it's one more thing that I almost never have to worry about.

I had a big hand in the reviews of Nikon's D5 and Canon's EOS-1D X Mark II, and while the optical viewfinder blackout on both of those cameras is incredibly short, I have to stress that the Sony a9 goes one step further in that it shows no blackout whatsoever. None. This camera makes it easier than ever to simply follow the action, and catch exactly the moment you want.

An additional plus - this camera has taken the preliminary crown (review units are forthcoming) for the best mirrorless autofocus system I've ever used. We were given the opportunity to photograph hockey, figure skating and a full-on track meet, and the a9 rarely let me down. Watch our site next week, when we'll be able to post actual photos and videos from these events for you to examine for yourself.

What's the catch?

Okay, there's a few catches here.

First of all, do you need 20 fps? I don't. There are, of course, those that will. But that feature, that incredibly fast readout speed of that new 24MP sensor, is something you're paying for if you shell out $4,500 for this new camera, even if you're only interested in the other (not insignificant) improvements outlined above.

I shot over 2,800 images during our shooting experience with Sony in New York. That caused me worries about card space (even with a 128GB card), cost me hard drive space, and cost me time during downloading and editing. I'm no pro sports shooter, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I got an appreciably greater number of keepers because of the a9's burst rate than I would have with a slower-shooting camera. Heck, I even switched to 10fps halfway through to save card space, and I still came away with images I was pleased with. And it's worth noting that the absence of any blackout whatsoever is still incredibly awesome, even at 10fps.

This image is from the first occasion where I really soaked a camera in the name of a shoot; photographing the King County Search and Rescue team during a training exercise as part of my job for Puget Sound Energy. That D800 and 24-70mm F2.8 are still in good working order, though the rubber zoom ring on the lens had started to come a little loose. ISO 1600 | F4 | 1/100 sec Photo copyright Puget Sound Energy, image via Flickr

Also, Sony's made claims that the a9 is weather resistant, but after handling the camera and flipping out the port doors, battery door and memory card doors, I just don't have the same faith that it would survive a downpour that a D5, 1D X II or E-M1 II could shrug off. That said, this isn't necessarily a common requirement, but it's something to keep in mind. Were I to take a personal a9 into a rainstorm, I'd gaff tape the heck out of it.

And lastly, where are the XQD card slots? Yes, the a9 has an amazing buffer that I never once hit, but that buffer takes a good amount of time to clear. Incorporating XQD cards would also have meant my download times would be closer to three minutes instead of thirty at the end of the day, plus they're simply more durable for demanding situations. After having used them extensively on Nikon's D500 and D5, I'm sold: for sports cameras, faster media is the way to go.

The wrap

Looking forward - does the a9 have what it takes to steal the hearts of sports shooters around the globe? Only time will tell. Okay, time, durability and quality of professional service and support.

Professional sports and action photographers have demanding jobs, and it goes without saying that learning a new camera system is not usually something they're looking to add to their workload. But the a9 might just be worth it.

Sony says it's rolling out more robust professional support, with one-day turnaround for loaner units when a camera needs repair, and walk-in service centers in New York and Los Angeles (with more coming soon), and better support throughout Canada. That's promising, for sure, but in a chicken-and-egg dilemma, do you want to be among the first to adopt the Sony system and test the validity of those claims for yourself, or wait to see what other professionals who switch have to say? 

For a professional wedding and event photographer who isn't spending hours in inclement weather, I'd say the Sony a9 is worth a look if you're used to Dx-series cameras from Nikon, and 1D-series models from Canon. With the a9, you'll save a ton of weight, have a higher frame rate (again, only relevant if you need it), and likely have an easier time following the action than with even the best DSLRs. 

But it must be said, the cost of switching systems isn't something to be sneezed at – and it's something we'll be looking at in detail in a forthcoming article, so stay tuned.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2p53TWM