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zoeology31 · 6 months

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The 2024 regular season (for 28 teams) is nearly here! As we look ahead, hopeful for another division title, and pray for the body and soul of the Twins pitching staff, let's also look back at the highlights of a very roller coaster but memorable 2023. In celebration of the team that broke the streak, I've put together a countdown of the 10 best Twins games from last season.

(not counting the playoffs because of course the three wins would top the list)

Before we start, let's toss in a baseball-ified version of Jon Bois's somewhat arbitrary definition of a "great game" (from his excellent Minnesota Vikings documentary). A great baseball game should 1) end in a walkoff, extra innings, or with the tying run at the plate, 2) have both teams score at least 4 runs, 3) feature at least one lead change, and 4) end with one team winning.

And for the sake of this list, the Twins must win the game. We had plenty of objectively great games against Cleveland in '22, but all of them contributed to the permanent degradation of my soul. Other than that criteria, I'm selecting this for games that were exciting overall, not ones where the Twins crushed their opponents.

14 Twins games from last season met these criteria, from which I chose 6, then added 4 more that missed a criterion but still fit the spirit of a great game.

First, honorable mentions:

9/20: Twins 5, Reds 3. 9th inning comeback against Alexis Díaz after Hunter Greene struck out 14 Twins. Castro bunted, then stole 2nd and 3rd as the tying run in the 9th.

7/24: Twins 4, Mariners 3 (10). Jax blew the save by giving up a 2-run homer to Kolten Wong, then Kepler tied it in the 9th and Correa walked it off in the 10th.

8/15: Twins 5, Tigers 3. Twins fell behind early on Miguel Cabrera's last ever Target Field home run, then Wallner nuked an upper deck grand slam and got the season's first curtain call.

4/14: Twins 4, Yankees 3. Varland turned in a quality start after being ambushed early by solo home runs. Correa porched one to get the Twins on the board, then got the go-ahead RBI double in the 8th.

4/7: Twins 3, Astros 2 (10). Gray set a career high in strikeouts, but the lineup couldn't back him up until the 10th, when a messy inning set up clutch hits from Miranda and Farmer to walk off the defending champs and open the home half of the season on a high note.

10. 6/1: Twins 7, Guardians 6 A tight game swung hard in the Guardians' favor when Pablo López got BABIP'd to death by patented Guardiansball(tm) in the 6th, turning a 3-1 lead into a 6-3 deficit and magnifying the existing bad vibes of Buxton getting drilled in the ribs. But the Twins battled back in the 8th, and for the second time in his three games played, Lewis tied the game late, this time with a 2-run homer. Loading the bases with no outs in the 9th, the Twins managed not to choke for once, with Castro hitting a sac fly for the walkoff.

9. 8/27: Twins 7, Rangers 6 (13) This game was both epic and physically painful to watch. Amidst the only shaky stretch of his excellent season, Ober gave up a grand slam to Jonah Heim to put the Twins down 5-0 early. Keuchel went 5 innings in relief and combined with the bullpen for 9 innings and 0 earned runs. Lewis got the Twins back in it with his first grand slam of the season, then they tied it up off Aroldis Chapman in the 9th. Finally, after 3.2 innings of bad baserunning and bad swing decisions, Taylor drew the Twins' third straight walk to win it in 13.

8. 7/23: Twins 5, White Sox 4 (12) Aka the pink eye game. For the first 8 innings, this looked like a typical shutout loss as the Twins couldn't push runners across early and fell silent late. But then they rallied for 3 runs in the 9th and re-tied it in the 10th thanks to contributions from two players dealing with pink eye that weekend. Castro had a pinch-hit RBI double in the 9th, Gallo a pinch-run tag to score in the 10th when the right fielder fell down catching a pop fly (and then a bunt lineout because he couldn't see to swing the bat). Jeffers walked it off in the 12th to complete the sweep and move the Twins to 8-2 after the All-Star break.

7. 4/11: Twins 4, White Sox 3 (10) Pablo López's home debut got off to a bad start, as the first four White Sox batters reached and two scored. Then he locked it down, Buxton hit his 100th career homer to tie it and Taylor added another for the lead, and López proceeded to retire 23 consecutive batters. In fact, Twins pitchers retired 30 of the final 31 batters; unfortunately the lone exception was the Luis Robert solo shot Duran allowed on the first pitch of the 9th for his first career blown save. The first-pitch chaos continued in the 10th, when the Sox third baseman fielded Taylor's sac bunt and hit Taylor with the throw for the walkoff error.

6. 8/6: Twins 5, Diamondbacks 3 The Twins pitching staff behind Keuchel in his Twins debut turned in an interesting performance, allowing 11 hits, 6 walks, and 8 stolen bases but only 3 runs thanks to great defense and timely strikeouts. Meanwhile Zac Gallen faced the minimum through 5, but Correa redeemed his 2-GIDP performance with a 2-out, 2-run single in the 6th. Down 3-2 in the 9th after a Christian Walker home run, Kepler answered with one of his own off Paul Sewald as the broadcast discovered a "rally turtle" hat in the crowd. After a Polanco pinch-hit walk, Wallner smashed another home run to walk it off for his hometown team.

5. 8/24: Twins 7, Rangers 5 Fresh off a brutal walkoff loss to the Brewers in 110+ heat index, this game started off equally bad. The Rangers crushed López up and down the lineup to the tune of 5 runs, 3 via solo homers, in the first 4 innings. The Twins clawed back with solo homers of their own, including two from Taylor to tie his career high, while Winder turned in 3 clutch hitless innings in relief. Correa tied the game in the 8th, setting the stage for Jeffers, who'd been practicing against Will Smith's slider for two innings and smashed that very pitch for a pinch-hit, go-ahead home run coupled with a highlight-reel pimp job and bat flip.

4. 9/22: Twins 8, Angels 6 The Twins entered Friday with a magic number of 1 over the Guardians and Tigers, setting up the first home clinch since 2010. They loaded the bases in 2 of the first 4 innings against the Angels' opener and bulk pitcher, but came away with only 3 runs, which the Angels got back in a 5th inning flurry amidst López's otherwise solid start. Kirilloff hit a go-ahead homer in the 6th and the Twins loaded the bases again to tack on several more runs in the 7th. An 8th inning homer off Thielbar set up a roller coaster Duran save, ending on a nice play by Julien on a bases-loaded chopper up the middle. And with that, the Twins were back in the playoffs after a two-year hiatus.

3. 9/5: Twins 8, Guardians 3 A night after routing the Guards 20-6, the Twins had to keep the pressure on. Though they got on the board early, they faced awful BABIP luck against Tanner Bibee, and the Guards tied it via a Bo Naylor home run. They took the lead shortly after a blown review on what should've been a Polanco home run, but the Twins re-tied it on a solo shot from Vazquez. Polanco broke that tie with an 8th inning sac fly before Trevor Stephan completely imploded, walking/plunking the bases loaded and giving up a soft liner to Solano that bounced under Myles Straw's glove for a bases (and stands)-clearing triple. After a clean, cathartic 9th from Pagan, the Twins at last put the dagger in Cleveland's season.

2. 5/29: Twins 7, Astros 5 (10) The Royce Lewis comeback game was one for the ages. Making his season debut exactly a year after his ACL tear, Lewis predicted "something special is going to happen tonight", and he backed it up with a 3 run homer to start the scoring. Adding another chapter to the endless debate over Gray's mid-inning hooks, Stewart nearly managed to get out of their jointly created jam but instead gave up a go-ahead grand slam to José Altuve. One out from defeat, Lewis doubled up on that "something special" with a game-tying single off Ryan Pressly. Jeffers slammed the first pitch of the 10th into the Crawford Boxes, and Duran locked it down against the top of the order for the win.

1. 6/13: Twins 7, Brewers 5 This game didn't have the wire-to-wire tension of some others on this list, but the Carlos Correa signature moment has to take the #1 spot. A vintage Christian Yelich performance put the Twins down early, though they scratched a few back off Corbin Burnes to keep the game close. The sellout crowd stuck around for a rally, disappointed by a Gallo full-count bases loaded strikeout to end the 8th but rewarded with an unbelievable 9th. Against Devin Williams and his .42 ERA, Taylor homered, Julien walked, Castro pinch-ran and stole second, and Solano drove him in to tie it. There was no other way it could end but with Correa's first career *regular season* walkoff homer, complete with the watch pointing celebration and everyone's realization, for the 800th time, that Carlos Correa is a Minnesota Twin for life.

#my stuff #baseball #minnesota twins

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topreviewin · 9 months

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The Pac-12 put simply two groups into the related Press preseason top-25 positions, less than just about any significant meeting. The Hotline is a tad much more upbeat. We see about four groups effective at attaining the NCAA Tournament into the Pac-12’s last period of presence. Arizona and USC will be the apparent selections; Colorado and UCLA in addition have reasonable routes into March Madness. Others? We won’t discount Arizona State or Oregon as at-large contenders. Beyond that, the pickings tend to be a tad slim. Presenting the Hotline’s top-25 positions for a season that starts Monday. 1. KansasHunter Dickinson’s arrival (from Michigan) adds among nation’s top people to a stout selection of returnees. It could take time for pieces to coalesce — two-thirds of this roster is brand new — however the Jayhawks will be the NCAA Tournament’s top total seed come Selection Sunday. 2. PurdueThe Boilermakers had been a lock for top echelon of this recreation the minute center Zach Edey revealed their return. The 7-foot-4 rating and rebounding device is regarded as five coming back beginners from a group that won 29 games, after that flopped into the NCAAs. 3. DukeYou require a Duke level to count how many blue-chip leads — record begins with Kyle Filipowski and Jeremy Roach — but also increased college dropout could feel the stress building on second-year mentor Jon Scheyer to create a-deep run-in March. 4. MarquetteThe Big East regular period and event champs get back almost all their secret people except forward Olivier-Maxence Prosper. The principal problem for Golden Eagles: Their particular meeting, which includes the protecting nationwide champs, is completely packed. 5. Michigan StateThe Spartans tend to be extremely well-positioned for an extended run-through the NCAAs as a multitude of blue-chip recruits join mentor Tom Izzo’s gifted selection of veterans. Topping that listing: all-everything shield Tyson Walker. The top Ten appears like a two-team battle. 6. UConnThe 2023 nationwide champions had been whacked by attrition (not surprising) but appear prepared to navigate the roster change with a stellar incoming course that features Rutgers transfer Cam Spencer. Obtain the Huskies early or all the best to you personally. 7. USCFew programs fared better into the offseason than USC, which welcomes right back defend Boogie Ellis and greets in shield Isaiah Collier, the nation’s # 1 recruit. Include a talented frontcourt — keep an in depth attention on Vince Iwuchukwu, an old five-star possibility — and mentor Andy Enfield features perhaps their most useful roster. 8. HoustonThe return of shield Jamal Shead and arrival of wing LJ Cryer (from Baylor) can help the Cougars manage their particular very first period into the tough huge 12. The increased competitors could negatively affect Houston’s seed but will strengthen the roster for NCAAs. 9. ArizonaWe continue to be believing that the departures of ahead Azuolas Tubelis (NBA Draft) and shield Kerr Kriisa (transfer portal) may benefit the Wildcats come March as his or her mins move to harder, much more sports people. If change causes some more early-season losings, therefore be it. Triumph are evaluated because of the few gains into the NCAAs. 10. Hillcrest StateSo what does the encore appear to be? The NCAA Tournament runner-up must handle soaring objectives and enhanced interest. The comes back of Lamont Butler, Jaedon LeDee and Darrion Trammell can help tremendously thereon front side, since will the arrival (from USC) of shield Reese Dixon-Waters, which meets completely with all the Aztecs on both stops of this judge. 11. TennesseeThe Vols washed up into the transfer portal as they are the group to conquer into the SEC if shield Zakai Zeigler totally recovers from their torn ACL once league play starts — of course they look for much more pop offensively. 12. CreightonThe Bluejays get back three double-digit scorers from a group that won 24 games and included a vital transfer in shield Steven Ashworth (Utah State).

But among top-12 groups in the united states is simply the third-best into the stacked Big East. 13. KentuckyThe Wildcats gone back to their particular one-and-done plan for roster building because the force on mentor John Calipari increases. The outcome had been impressive: They finalized the most effective recruits in the united states at three opportunities. Come March, Big Blue should always be a lot dangerous. 14. FAUOur belief in FAU continues to be powerful seven months following the miraculous Final Four run. The Reason Why? Because all five beginners return, as does mentor Dusty might. Nevertheless the transfer to the United states Athletic meeting suggests raised competitors, even more losings and a tougher course back in March Madness. 15. ArkansasMeet more skilled staff into the SEC due to the mixture of a stellar recruiting course, two effect transfers (Tramon Mark from Houston and Keyon Menifield from Washington) as well as 2 first-rate returnees (Devo Davis and Trevon Brazile). Don’t dismiss the Hogs as your final Four danger. 16. MiamiThe Hurricanes have actually a massive void to fill after the deviation of shield Isaiah Wong, but mentor Jim Larranaga’s system should contend. After Duke, the ACC is wide-open. 17. GonzagaWe merely don’t look at exact same degree of skill in Spokane that existed for many years under mentor Mark limited. Transfers Ryan Nembhard (from Creighton) and Graham Ike (Wyoming) can help counterbalance the losing Drew Timme, plus the WCC continues to be Gonzaga’s for taking. Nevertheless the wider trajectory seems to be flatlining. 18. New yorkFrom NCAA Tournament runners-up in 2022 to simple observers in 2023, the Tar Heels regressed massively. Armando Bacot and R.J. Davis tend to be right back, however the battle for 2nd invest the ACC (behind Duke) depends upon the newcomers in Chapel Hill, including Stanford move Harrison Ingram and Notre Dame transplant Cormac Ryan. 19. ColoradoThe 2nd level of Pac-12 contenders begins with all the Buffaloes, which welcome right back ahead Tristan da Silva and guard KJ Simpson. Two newcomers, mega-recruit Cody Williams and transfer Eddie Lampkin (TCU), assistance develop a core four that will propel CU back in the NCAAs. 20. VillanovaThe Wildcats thrived into the transfer portal with Washington State’s TJ Bamba and Richmond’s Tyler Burton (to call simply two). Include returnees Justin Moore and Eric Dixon, plus the post-Jay Wright plunge we saw in 2023 might be momentary. 21. Tx A&MThe Aggies have actually obtained 52 games yesteryear two periods but nothing into the NCAAs, therefore the force on fifth-year mentor Buzz Williams is significant. Four coming back beginners should assist handle heat. 22. Saint Mary’sLed by shield Aidan Mahaney, one of the better people regarding the western Coast, the Gaels should win 20 games (once again) and go back to the NCAAs. And the ground is large due to Randy Bennett’s stellar mentoring, therefore could be the roof reduced because of the not enough high-end skill. 23. BaylorAny system that averages 26 gains per period (in the last four many years) playing in possibly the nation’s best league warrants an area within our positions. Nevertheless the challenge is high for mentor Scott Drew following the triple-whammy departures of Adam Flagler, Keyonte George and LJ Cryer. 24. St. John’sIt should come as zero shock that first-year mentor Rick Pitino obtained substantial skill in a brief period of the time with all the Red Storm. (record includes Oregon State transfer Glenn Taylor.) By March, we expect you'll see St. John’s playing the NCAAs — plus the NCAA examining St. John’s. 25. UCLAThe roster return ended up being enormous, but mentor Mick Cronin is much more than effective at producing an entire more than the components. He won’t have much margin for mistake, particularly in just what should always be an aggressive meeting battle. But try to find an upside shock in Westwood. *** Forward recommendations, remarks and ideas (privacy guaranteed in full) to pac12hotline@bayareanewsgroup.

com or phone 408-920-5716 *** Follow myself on Twitter: @WilnerHotline *** Pac-12 Hotline just isn't supported or sponsored because of the Pac-12 meeting, plus the views expressed herein don't always mirror the views of this meeting. #university #basketball #Hotlines #preseason #top25 #rankings

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 10 months

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The Next Animated Blockbuster Heavies, CONTINUED...

A little while ago, I made this post. A sort of culmination to my retrospective on Top 10 animated features at the box office over the years...

Three of the movies I listed and made predictions for, all 2023 movies, came out...

THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE unsurprisingly put up a hell of a fight, making $1.361 billion at the worldwide box office. This places it, currently, at #3. Behind THE LION KING (2019) and FROZEN II...

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE opened pretty big, and had some solid legs from there, but that picture was definitely more frontloaded than MARIO was. Overseas, it did okay at best, not matching its domestic total. Still, $690m+, excellent.

WISH is not going to make all that much... Not the heavy it could've been, like director Chris Buck's two FROZEN movies...

So, 2023 is pretty much over, unless MIGRATION really surprises. But I don't see that happening. $500-600m maximum, methinks. Possibly SING numbers. A leggy Christmas season movie, but not among the biggest ever. Why would I expect that out of a modest duck picture?

Some delays happened, too, between back then (early 2023) and now.

KUNG FU PANDA 4, INSIDE OUT 2, and DESPICABLE ME 4 are next, as BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE was delayed indefinitely due to it being faaaar from ready for a 3/29/2024 release a little after the release of ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE. Like, it was very clear that the two movies were NOT in production in tandem.

My guess is that the third SPIDER-VERSE movie debuts sometime in 2025. At the earliest... 2026 seems likelier now, which is fair. We waited about 4 1/2 years between INTO and ACROSS, so...

The other 2024 movie that I thought had a shot at getting into the Top 10 is the sequel/prequel to the #1 movie itself, THE LION KING (2019). MUFASA: THE LION KING recently vacated the summer for the holidays, as it now opens December 20, 2024... While I don't really see this movie making anywhere near what the first one did, it's still possible? Maybe? I dunno, I think it performs similarly to ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS and MALEFICENT 2, a follow-up to a remake that I don't think too many folks were clamoring for.

That rounds out 2024... I think INSIDE OUT 2 is the likeliest candidate of those four movies to make the most moolah. Maybe not take home "highest earning animated movie" champion status, but the biggest of the year period... and DESPICABLE ME 4 has a very good shot at it considering how many years it had been since the last mainline movie, and how well MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU did. Heck, the long gap between KUNG FU PANDA 3 and 4 could really boost KUNG FU PANDA 4 as well. Characters/stories people love, long wait for the new one, the kids who loved them being nostalgic, etc.

Who knows, like I said in the earlier piece, maybe there will be some surprises along the way? Watch, THE GARFIELD MOVIE ends up breaking the Top 10... I mean, I don't see why not? Garfield is a god, a titan whose power we just cannot comprehend. This may be to the 2004 live-action/CG GARFIELD movie with Bill Murray what the SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE was to the 1993 SUPER MARIO BROS. film. Certainly having "The Movie" in the title and the picture being all-animated solidifies that! GARFIELD the comic strip debuted in 1978, 45 years ago. That predates Mario's first appearance as "Jumpman" in DONKEY KONG by three years... You could argue Garfield is older than that, even. Jim Davis debuted Garfield in JON, essentially an early version of GARFIELD that run from 1976 to early 1978 in a single Indiana newspaper. Okay, so I'm largely being facetious here, I don't think THE GARFIELD MOVIE cracks a billion... But who the heck knows! A movie like THE WILD ROBOT or the next WDAS movie could do it, haha.

However, I think a lot of the Q3 and Q4 animated films could be up in the air, release date-wise, should the animation strike happen when the Animation Guild contract is up.

2025 is a little spottier. A few movies have concrete release dates, none of them I feel really have a clear shot at the big billion and the Top 10. 2026 is just some dates without titles. Still too early in the game...

So, we do know that the likes of SHREK 5, ZOOTOPIA 2, FROZEN III, and TOY STORY 5 are on the horizon. Entries in beloved franchises, some of which whose movies are on the Top 10 or are very close to the Top 10. It's also obvious that a SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE sequel *will* happen, and possibly just obliterate the first one in sales.

THE LION KING (2019) is at #1, FROZEN II is #2, FROZEN is #4. The first MINIONS is #6, TOY STORY 4 is #7, TOY STORY 3 is #8, DESPICABLE ME 3 is #9, ZOOTOPIA is #11...

FINDING DORY is at #10, and there seem to be no plans for another one of those Pixar fish movies at the moment. Ditto THE INCREDIBLES, as INCREDIBLES 2 is #5... But you just know they'll happen, because Disney likes money, and if TOY STORY 5 can exist despite how both 3 & 4 ended... Yeah, there will be a FINDING Somebody 3 movie and an INCREDIBLES 3, and they're sure to tear up the box office.

But again, something that isn't a sequel to a beloved favorite could make a splash. After all, Walt Disney Animation Studios got the big billion out of FROZEN and ZOOTOPIA individually. Both movies were not expected to do anywhere near as well as they did. I remember, back in mid-to-late 2013, that the scuttlebutt was that FROZEN would be lucky to make TANGLED numbers... And that ZOOTOPIA looked like some "CHICKEN LITTLE/DreamWorks" thing.

Sometimes Pixar got close with a not-sequel. FINDING NEMO back in 2003 - without the aid of 3D/IMAX/premium formats and with much lower tickets prices compared to now and a smaller international market - nearly made $870m on its initial run. INSIDE OUT and COCO were big 800s, too. Most Pixar originals hover around $600-750m on a good day. The likes of THE INCREDIBLES, RATATOUILLE, and UP. You know.

Outside of Disney and Pixar, you've got Illumination, whose biggest original movie was THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS, which made over $800m worldwide. No original since got there, though SING did pretty great for itself. I'm not sure where MIGRATION can land, but who knows. Is the public gung-ho for funny ducks at the moment? You can never guess where the zeitgeist will be. Only when the movie comes out, you find out.

DreamWorks' highest-earning not-sequel movie is KUNG FU PANDA, which made over $630m worldwide back in 2008. No 3D, no IMAX, lower ticket prices, adjusts to something a lot bigger today I reckon. Behind that is THE CROODS, which made $580m+ in 2013, and then MADAGASCAR, which made $530m+ in 2005, and then THE BOSS BABY made $520m+ in 2017. Nothing after BOSS BABY did that kind of money: Not ABOMINABLE, and certainly not the post-Omicron BAD GUYS. Maybe THE WILD ROBOT, from Chris Sanders - who directed THE CROODS and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON as you likely already know, becomes the studio's next big not-sequel smash hit.

Sony Animation's biggest not-sequel was THE SMURFS with $560m+. INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, for an all-animated film, is second at $380m+. No original movies are on their theatrical slate at the moment. FIXED is finished and rated by the MPA, but is without a release date nor any indication of where it'll play: Streaming or theaters? K-POP DEMON HUNTERS is to be a Netflix release. Everything else, like BUBBLE, TUT, TAO, etc.? Up in the air.

Paramount Animation, can't say. All of their not-sequels went belly-up or got re-routed to streaming/VOD: THE LITTLE PRINCE got offloaded to Netflix, WONDER PARK bombed hard in 2019, RUMBLE, UNDER THE BOARDWALK and THE TIGER'S APPRENTICE all skipped a wide theatrical release. No not-sequel movie has a release date, the only things close to that are still parts of franchises: TRANSFORMERS ONE, THE SMURF MOVIE, the untitled AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER movie, etc.

So, we gotta see where everything's at by the middle of next year... But I'll be curious to see how KUNG FU PANDA 4, THE GARFIELD MOVIE, INSIDE OUT 2, and DESPICABLE ME 4 - the movies that I think are guaranteed to meet their release dates - will do.

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traveltrainsandcoffee · 1 year

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End of season FFL review 2022/23

The summer of 2022, we’d just had the world cup in Qatar and, hang on minute, that’s not right. Yes for the first time ever the World Cup wasn’t held in the summer, it would be held in winter, as a result there would be a break in the season. A part A and a part B. This meant an earlier than normal start to the season and a later finish too. It would also mean fixture chaos, with teams playing 2 or even 3 games every 8 or 9 days. Players getting injured, rested and rotated would definitely impact FFL teams.

So who were the favourites? Back in May Colin Fenwick had smashed the world record score in winning the league by a mile. Our Grimsby Roma had very nearly done the double, but lost on a tie break six to Kieron Mullin, Would Kieron be a contender in the new season. Mark Kiszka won the Champions league last time, could he feature in the new season? The Hawk was very keen to get back to winning ways. The Knightrider returned to FFL, plus new boy Gareth Dyke. No Manè or Pogba this season, but new names like Haaland and Nunez. New managers too. Ronaldo was still in the Premiership, but only 3 managers picked him. Chelsea spent a fortune and Forest bought 20 odd players. No Matt Rushton this time, so his Champions league spot went to the manager who finished 13th last season, Andy Flanagan.

So in the unbelievable heat of 2022 record breaking summer FFL started. The first weekend saw Jesus and Arsenal shining. Ten Haag’s Man Utd got hammered by Brentford, while Nunez got sent off. Early leader was Jackie Knight.

Early September and Haaland was hammering the goals in at record breaking rate. Disco Lee Ritchie and Duncan Mackenzie were the top two. League Champion Colin Fenwick beat FA Cup winner Kieron Mullin by 1 point to win The FFL Bennett’s Shield. This was one of the few bright spots of what would become a disappointing season for our Grimsby Roma. VAR was once again making the headlines. All too often it felt like the joy was being sucked out of football. The whole country was rocked by the death of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. Games were cancelled and people queued for hours and hours to see her laying in state. Well apart from Phil and Holly who jumped the queue. Unwise, but not illegal.

By October Disco was still top, but facing a challenge now from Chris Geoghegan. VAR made the headline again, this time when a power surge at Leeds caused it to shut down completely. Arsenal were top and clear, Haaland just kept scoring, Meanwhile Klopp kept on moaning, and he also got a red card. Things were going very badly for Ronaldo. Mark Taylor and Tappy were starting to regret picking him. Talking of very disappointing choices, UK Prime Minster Liz Trust was gone after only 45 days. It would be a season of sackings. Gerrard and Tuchel gone, lots more to come. After the first group stage of the champions league Senol, Kieron, Jon and Jamie were gone. Disco became the first manager to pass 100, The Hawk, Chris and Tappy challenging.

November and the FA Cup Legend Ronnie Radford sadly passed away. Meanwhile Ronaldo was interviewed by Piers Morgan. This time Ronnie didn’t hold back, attacking Man Utd and how he felt let down and ignored. He even texted me to moan that so few managers had picked him. He seemed to belittle recent league leader Disco Lee Ritchie. It was the beginning of the end for CR7 and FFL. By the World cup break Tappy was top, Disco 2nd, The Hawk 3rd and Pam Taylor 4th. That was it, the pause button pushed. Tappy was the Christmas number one in November.

Mark Kiszka narrowly beat Kieron to the World cup, as Argentina narrowly beat France.

When FFL finally returned it was Christmas. No more Ronaldo and lots of very tired and injured players. This would have a huge effect on FFL teams, subs would be more important than ever lots of penalty points.

The football world was saddened by the death of its greatest ever player. Pele was not just a great player, but also a global icon. In premiership Haaland continued to score, but Arsenal were top and clear. In the FFL Disco was top, with Pam Taylor, Tappy and The Hawk close by. More sad news was breaking, one of the stars of Football Italia, Gianluca Vialli died. There can’t be many football fans of my generation who didn’t get swept up by channel 4’s coverage of 90s Italian football. Luca was a major part of that. By the end of January Everton had sacked Lampard and not bought anyone in the January sales. Man city sold Cancelo. In fact several players left the premiership during the window. This along with the tiredness from the world cup and injuries meant lots of penalty points. This was going to be a very unpredictable and low scoring season. Mark Taylor was the new league leader. Could Mark win his first league title since 1804? I mean 1904 err 2004.

Early Febuary and my Friday night Chinese take away didn’t arrive, Apparently the firm had started using a form of balloon drone to deliver. Never did find out what happened to that balloon? Leeds sacked their manager, while new Everton manager Dyche saw his side beat Arsenal. The top of the FFL was taking a very Taylor theme. Mark top, Pam second and Paul 3rd, no sign of Ollie??? Oh there he is in the bottom 3 with Flynny and Robyn Stanney. In The champions league Andy Flanagan was flying into the semi finals, along with the Hawk. The final group games saw Michael Dymond and Mark Kiszka join them. In a season of sad football related deaths former World of Sport presenter Dickie Davis passed away. The terrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria killed tens of thousands including former Pemeirship player Christian Atsu. Chris Geoghegan was on cup run, beating Pam Taylor in round one, drawing league leader Mark in the second. Senol Durmush was also going well and into the 2nd round, where he would face The Hawk. By the end of the month the 3 Taylors were still at the top. March and Pam Taylor started to fall away, The Hawk now joined the top three with Mark and Paul. Manchester United won the league cup, beating Newcastle in the final. John Motson, the voice of FA Cup finals, world cups and Match of the day sadly passed away.

A week later and everything FFL changed. A truly terrible weekend for Mark Taylor (partly caused by Liverpool beating Man UTD 7 nil) saw him drop from top to 7th. More bad news as this was FA Cup second round weekend. Chris beat Mark by a record 33 points. New league leader Matt Wheeler was also through after hammering Paul Taylor. Disco beat Tappy by 1 point. The final game saw Senol Durmush draw with the Hawk. Senol would go on to win the replay. What followed was one of the most bizarre moments of the season. A tweet by Gary Lineker about the government’s immigration bill sent The BBC sports coverage into lockdown. He was taken off the air, as a result his colleagues went on strike. No football on 5Live, no presenters or commentary on Match of the day, all to Talk sport’s amusement. Freedom of speech became no talking at all, until an agreement was made. St Patricks day and Vieria was sacked at Palace. Palace would raid the retirement home and return Wroy as a possible saviour. The Hawk and Matt Wheeler were joint top, with Tappy, Paul, and Mark Taylor not far back. The bottom and of the table Robyn Stanney was 60 points adrift. My advice don’t let Boyfriend Jack help you with your team next season. Haaland just didn’t stop scoring. The Ivan Drago of football smashed 5 in Europe and 3 more in the FA cup. Unstoppable.

April and the sackings continued, Conte, Rodgers and Potter all gone. Lampard who had already been sacked by Everton was the new manager at Chelsea. £600 million of signings and several high profile managers, surely Lampard couldn’t make things any worse? The Hawk was the first manager to pass 200 points with a lead over Tappy, Mark Taylor and Matt Wheeler. The Champions league semi finals saw Andy Flanagan finally remove Mark Kiszka’s reign as champion. The Hawk beat Michael Dymond in the other semi. In the first leg of the final Andy took a 9 point lead.

Early May and Spurs sacked their caretaker manager and amazingly Lampard had made things even worse at Chelsea, while Wrexham Hollywood FC, with Deadpool and co in charge won promotion back into the football league. The Hawk was still top, but with strong challenges from Tappy and Mark Taylor, however with so many players missing they were struggling to field full teams. Mark in fact pulled the lead back to only 3 points. Not long ago The Hawk was looking at a treble, but now his lead was gone, out the FA cup and 9 points down in the champions league final. Chris Geoghegan’s cup run continued, beating Disco in the semi final at the Etihad, While Senol beat Matt Wheeler at Villa Park. Big Sam was back as the new Leeds Manager. Andy Flanagan won his first title. The first leg lead was enough to win the Champions league. The manager who only got in as first reserve due to Matt Rushton not entering, was victorious. With just the league left for the Hawk, he was 14 points ahead of Mark and 16 ahead of Tappy. Man City were on for the treble now

FA Cup final weekend saw Chris take an early lead, but Man City resting KDB brought points scoring subs into Senol’s team. In the end it was Turkish delight as Senol Durmush won his first FFL trophy since 2014. Man City won the league, with Haaland player of the season. The Hawk had a 26 point lead over the chasing pack of Matt, Senol, Andy and Mark going into the final premiership fixture weekend. Everton, Leicester and Leeds were fighting to avoid joining Southampton in relegation. Forest and their 30 signings had survived. Burnley Sheffield United and Luton were going up.

The final weekend of the Premiership, just these games and The FA Cup final left. The Hawk was top of the league and looking very good. A close run battle for the champions league spots. Everton had to endure 10 minutes of injury time to hold onto 3 points and premier league membership, just. So many players were rested, injured or suffering the effects of a very long season. Over half the league suffered pen points. Mark Taylor took full advantage of this and moved into second, but still 23 points behind the Hawk. Sally Sands moved into the champions league spots.

FA CUP final day, City going for the double and a chance at a treble against Utd. The Hawk was well clear at the top, but champions league spots were tight. City scored the fastest ever FA cup final goal. Utd strike back from a VAR penalty. In the end city won 2v1. The double in the bag and the champions league final to come.

So that’s it. Colin Hawkins won the FFL Title, Andy Flanagan the champions league and Senol Durmush the FA cup. Robyn Stanney the wooden spoon and gave birth on cup final day, congratulations. Mark Taylor got 2nd. Stally, Sally and our Grimsby Roma made the final champions league spots at the expense of Steve Tatham and Chris Geoghegan.

Thank you for being part of an incredible season, sometimes sad, sometimes crazy, sometimes very strange, but amazing.

Two final thoughts

Firstly, if Matt Rushton had entered this season, would he have won the Champions league?

Secondly, can anyone but Colin's win the league anymore?

0 notes

yanak324 · 2 years

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Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

Um hello @jjofalltrades - best ask ever!! It was surprisingly not very hard to select the stories that resonate the most with me. What was surprising is how varied they were in terms of fandoms... In no particular order, my five favorite fics :)

Old Love (m) - The Vampire Diaries/The Originals crossover AU featuring the one and only Caroline Forbes on a self-discovery journey that obvi ends with her and Klaus Mikaelson finding their way to each other. It's insane to think this story is nearly a decade old, but it's always going to be near and dear to my heart because it helped me deal with a shit-ton of grief...the true definition of art healing.

The Last Time (e) - Game of Thrones (TV)/ASOIAF modern AU focused on Arya and Gendry reconnecting after a decade apart. If you've been following me for some time, this one should come as no surprise. I've had this story in my head for 3 years and counting, and I am determined to finish. She my baby and I love her.

hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me (e) - Game of Thrones (TV)/ASOIAF modern au where Arya and Gendry can't seem to get their sh*t together and f*ck instead...lolol. Seriously though, this one is so special to me because I wrote it for @fineosaur, who is one of the treasures I discovered in the gendrya fandom. And it was also the easiest thing I've ever written I think...no thought here just inspiration.

surest thing i know (m) - Gossip Girl (TV) post-canon oneshot that fills in the gaps before the five year time jump in the finale. I did a manic re-watch of the original series in early 2021 and I discovered to my delight that despite me being a Dan/Blair shipper through and through, I couldn't let go of this idea of Dan and Serena finding their happy ending after the show did them so diiiirty in the final season. So I wrote my own fix-it...and it was such a liberating and fun experience. I still reflect on it from time to time like the dork that I am.

you undid me like a fairytale (m) - Game of Thrones (TV)/ASOIAF modern au where Arya has to contend with some very intense and unclear feelings for Jon's bestie, Gendry...featuring appearances by grumpy!Gendry, perfectboyfriend!Ned, and one of my favorite love confessions I've ever written. Also helps that I wrote it for one of the sweetest humans ever @beautifulinsanesanity. <3

Honorable mention goes to my 2020 Gendrya Big Bang submission: after me comes the flood. It wasn't the easiest fic to write but it turned out exactly as I envisioned & I got to work with the talented @thedesignateddriver on the fan art.

#gendrya #dan/serena #klaroline #modern aus all the way #my stories #gendrya fanfiction #gossip girl #TVD #TO #asks #thank you JJ <3

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yellowocaballero · 4 years

Text

Human Relations Snippet: Jon and Sasha versus Bad Telenovelas

This is a birthday request from @hihereami who wanted something very Latin American and an excuse to show me her favorite shows. This takes place in early Season 3, before Jude Perry but with Sasha working at the office. Jon fudged some stuff. It features incredibly stupid office dynamics, bad relationships, and a shared history that produced two very different people. Happy birthday, Ami!

CW as usual for Human Relations: explicitly discussed transphobia, references to 19th century racism, and a depiction of a platonic abusive relationship.

Sasha now understood that she was talking to an expert.

“Fine,” she said grudgingly, gathering the papers back up. She left out her great outline and timetable, though, because Martin should definitely appreciate it. “But the number one rule here is to keep up an active support system, right? Which means Jon needs more than just you.” Martin gave her a hilariously prissy look, which she responded with an equally prissy one. “He thinks we have a psychic bond or something.” They did but Sasha didn’t want to admit that. “Look, I’ve been harassing Jon for months about how shitty Jonah is. But if he’s going to listen to me, he needs to know that...I guess that I care about him more than I hate Jonah. That I’m not doing it out of spite or with some ulterior motive to get something out of him.”

Martin closed the manila folder, carefully attaching a label on it and writing down their coded filing system on the tab. “You don’t care about him more than you hate Jonah. You are doing this with ulterior motives. But it would be pretty hypocritical of me to care about that, so...he likes television? And he likes hearing about your life and the things important to you. He’s like this historical, cultural, political, anthropological sponge. I mean, he knows everything about everything, but it’s his passion. So if you want to combine the two…”

And, of course, once Martin said that then the answer was obvious.

Sasha liked to be the smartest person in the room.

The problem with people like Sasha was that, very frequently, they were the smartest person in the room. For seventeen years of her life Sasha had been remarkably and thoroughly assured that she would go places, she was really going to make all of us proud, she’s going to take care of us in our old age, Mrs. Pérez’s son just wastes every day with his girlfriend but here you are, studying all day with your complete lack of friends!

Once she skipped town - well, town, country, Americas, oceans - all of that had been replaced with shiny grades and the bragging rights of Oxford and the implicit looming pressure of her scholarship. Sasha had always been the smartest person in the room. She couldn’t afford anything else - not if she wanted someone to care, not if she wanted to get anywhere in life.

Every adult was somewhat of a child inside: happily ignoring a toy until it was taken away, at which point they would scream and scream. And when Sasha didn’t feel like the smartest person in the room - or, worse, others didn’t see her as the smartest person in the room - there was nothing tolerable about it.

Upon retrospect, workplace and academic discrimination, in addition to some healthy insecurity, bothered her so much that she sold her soul to the devil about it, but apparently this was an semi-common occurrence. Abuela had been right. Teach Sasha to doubt her again.

Mrs. Pérez’s son probably hadn’t accidentally sold his soul to the devil. He and his girlfriend were probably happy with their hard working but low-paying jobs, their cute little smattering of babies, and their mass every week. They’d have long, happy lives, and the amount of life-or-death situations they were put in were probably no more than usual.

Well. Sasha would literally rather die than do that, and that resolve had been tested very thoroughly. She stood by it. Sasha had never regretted a decision she made in her life, besides the ones that sold her soul to the devil, and also maybe some things about Tim. But most of her decisions were good. And even if they weren’t good, she stubbornly stood by them.

That’s why this was difficult. For all of Sasha’s insecurity reasons that, to be fair, had mostly drifted into the background of her life while she had been on the run for murder. And because it was Martin.

“Sasha, I’m not sure what help I can give you.”

Godfuckingdammit.

“Please?” Sasha slid into the seat across from Martin, giving him her best big cow eyes. “Don’t hog the emotional manipulation. You’re the expert in making Jon do what you want, just...work your magic!”

Martin looked up from the statement he was organizing shot Sasha an extremely flat look. Martin was extremely good at looking extremely unimpressed. “Because I’m the one who can magically make people do what I want.”

Sasha winced. “At least you didn’t sell your soul to a demon about it?”

“I know you tell yourself a lot of people do that to make yourself feel better about doing it, but literally nobody does that.” At Sasha’s double wince, Martin sighed. “Don’t listen to Jonah. You didn’t do anything a normal, non-satanic person wouldn’t do. If I could…” Martin trailed off slightly, staring a little in the distance, before shaking back to himself. “I’m not helping you manipulate Jon. That’s my place in this ecosystem.”

“Then we should team up,” Sasha wheedled. She reached into her briefcase - which nowadays contained little more than alcohol and Statements, she wasn’t sure that Georgie had been a good influence on her - and yanked out the print-outs before slapping it on the table. “See, I did research!”

Martin slid the papers closer to him, leafing through them quickly. Sasha waited for him to look very impressed and appreciative of how socially competent yet intellectual she was, but he didn’t look very impressed at all. “ “Help someone in an Abusive or Controlling relationship”, ‘3 ways to support someone stuck in a controlling relationship’, ‘How can I help someone in a toxic relationship’...”

“You aren’t going to deny it, are you?” Sasha asked heatedly. “Because Tim just does not get what I mean no matter how many leaflets I show him because he ‘framed me for murder’ or whatever -”

“Do not pretend as if you’re forgiven him for the murder thing.”

“I fucking hate his guts over it. I will never, ever forgive either of them.” Sasha’s heart spiked in her chest, and she forced herself to take a few calming breaths. “This is a problem. Jon and Jonah are a problem. I don’t think we’re in a position to take on Jonah right now - even if I am working on it. But Jon is a weak link here. We know he’s impossible to kill -” At Martin’s extremely alarmed look, Sasha quickly elaborated, “ - and I wouldn’t want to, although he would really technically deserve it with all of his human rights violations. It would be far easier, and a better use of our resources, if we got Jon to our side. Then hopefully those two could...blow each other up, or something.”

Martin stared at her, expression implacable. Sasha became abruptly aware that she had just threatened to blow up this guy’s semi-boyfriend, and resisted the urge to apologize. She wasn’t apologetic. This was what she had to do, and Sasha always did what had to be done. It didn’t matter if she hated Jon so much that she wanted him dead, when he would be more useful to her alive. It doesn’t matter if she knew that, deep down, Jon was an exceptionally kind and caring person who loved very deeply, and that who he was now was a product of a great deal of influences mostly out of his control. If he was who Sasha was going to turn into, given enough time.

She would stick to the plan. Sasha was going to get herself and her Assistants - including Melanie now, for some reason, who still refused to believe them about the psychic vampire thing despite how many times Jon confessed to it - out of this.

Finally, Martin said, “I’m not going to deny it, Sasha. I’ve printed out all those guides, I’ve read all of the books, I’ve done everything. I’ve been working on this since - I think since I decided that I loved Jon more than I hated him. I’ve got Jon’s trust. And, way more importantly, Jonah is convinced that I’m harmless. He doesn’t pay any attention to me. I think he, like, secretly hates it whenever Jon has someone - whatever. But he is obsessed with everything you do.” At Sasha’s disturbed look, Martin shrugged. “He micromanages. Jon complains about it. I don’t think Jon gets that he really spills the cards on all of Jonah’s plans when he gets drunk and bitches about him.”

Sasha now understood that she was talking to an expert.

“Fine,” she said grudgingly, gathering the papers back up. She left out her great outline and timetable, though, because Martin should definitely appreciate it. “But the number one rule here is to keep up an active support system, right? Which means he needs more than just you.” Martin gave her a hilariously prissy look, which she responded with an equally prissy one. “He thinks we have a psychic bond or something.” They did but Sasha didn’t want to admit that. “Look, I’ve been harassing him for months about how shitty Jonah is. But if he’s going to listen to me, he needs to know that...I guess that I care about him more than I hate Jonah. That I’m not doing it out of spite or with some ulterior motive to get something out of him.”

And, of course, once Martin said that then the answer was obvious.

*******

Sasha was now willing to admit that Martin was smarter than she was.

It was always kind of a crapshoot when looking for Jon. He was only around the Institute half the time, probably less, and he refused to buy a cell phone so anybody could stay in contact with him. Tim had also flatly refused, because Jon would inevitably go to him for help with figuring it out, and apparently that could take hours. Sasha had volunteered to help Jon with accessing some online archives, and apparently she had explained it so confusingly that Jon was left refusing to touch a computer for a month.

The farthest they could go was convincing him to take a Jitterbug for emergencies. Tim had taken great pains to explain the LifeAlert function, to Jon’s increasing lack of amusement. When Sasha had explained the adventure to Georgie, a known social media sensation over wine at their weekly girls night, she had found it hilarious and was very impressed.

“Jon must be really attached to you guys,” Georgie had said, carefully nibbling at her luxury chocolate. Girl’s nights with Georgie were decadent. “I mean, not that he doesn’t talk about all of you nonstop, but he can spend ten years incorporating the Beholding into every piece of technology in the country while willfully refusing to learn how to work a computer.”

Sasha hadn’t missed Georgie’s word choice - deliberately refusing instead of an incapability to learn - but something else in the sentence was stranger to her. “I thought he was all about all kinds of knowledge.”

“I hear that the future can be terrifying for a lot of people,” Georgie had said wisely. “No matter how much of it they experience.”

“Is it terrifying for you?”

“Goodness, no.” Georgie had flashed her a bright grin - not so much a showing of teeth as it was a peek at a bone-white skeleton. “I always know what the future holds.”

As it stood, Sasha got lucky today. She wasn’t forced to make Jon use his dreaded phone, and as a result she wasn’t forced to understand what the fuck Jon did all day. He was in the Magnus Institute, and when Jon was in the Institute there were three places he could be.

The Archives, which Sasha had just come from. The Institute Library, occasionally terrifying the graduate students and more frequently helping them write their papers. Sasha had heard that they had communally begun sacrificing one grad student to his hunger per week in exchange for study sessions. Which...she should discourage...whatever, it was probably ethical. Or, at the very least, voluntary.

The only other location Jon visited was Magnus’ office, where he could spend hours relaxing on the evil little bastard’s couch and annoying him. That was a last resort scenario, and was usually saved for complete and total emergencies.

Thankfully, today, Sasha found Jon in the ‘D’s. He was lying on his back, legs propped up on the bookshelf across from him, reading what looked like a very fascinating philosophy text regarding humanity’s search for aliens that Sasha silently resolved to borrow from him later. He didn’t look up when Sasha approached, so she carefully tipped a book off the shelf above him to fall on his head.

He yelped, dropping his book and sitting upright. He rubbed at his head, scowling, and Sasha saw that he had restyled his hair since the last time she had seen him. It had been growing long, but instead of cutting it and returning to his short twists styled into a loose curtain over his forehead he had pulled it back into a puffy bun. It was...somewhat more fashion forward than Sasha had ever seen from him. He had swapped his greatcoat for a primmer and shorter pea coat. Even his glasses were now thin-rimmed, circular, and kind of stylish.

“Oh my god,” Sasha said, “has Martin started dressing you?”

“Martin can barely even dress himself,” Jon said automatically. “It was Georgie. She said I have to ‘clean up nice’ if I ever ‘want a man’. What does any of that mean?”

“Isn’t it kind of weird that your wife is setting you up with someone?”

“The concept of monogamy becomes ridiculous after the first eighty years,” Jon said, also automatically. Then Sasha’s words sunk into his brain, and he flushed. “Georgie and I aren’t together right now! And she’s not setting me up with - how can you even consider - what makes you think I’m a homosexual -”

Sasha stared at him flatly. Jon gave up.

“Just let me know if I need to explain gay shit to you,” Sasha said. “It’ll cost a hundred pounds for me to explain queerness and three hundred if you want to learn about trans issues. Recompense for my emotional labor.”

“Young people think they invented these things. It’s ridiculous.” Jon stored the book back on the bookshelf behind him without looking, before carefully dropping his feet and rolling up. Sasha’s back ached in sympathy. Some people got all of the demon deal luck. “What does Martin say? ‘People are gay, Steven’? Historical figures are gay and trans, Sasha.”

“...are you a historical figure that’s -”

“I apologize for being a cisgender man that’s ruined your life, yes.” Jon arched an eyebrow at her as Sasha spent a second in confused agony over whether or not she was getting through to this guy. “I assume there’s no emergency, considering this conversation, so why are you here?”

There was no way to make this offer sound genuine. Jon would look for the catch - because there was one - or what she was trying to pull. There was something she was trying to pull, but she wasn’t about to admit it.

In the end, Sasha settled for a fragment of honesty in her heart. Jon always had a way of drawing that out of people.

“I haven’t watched my telenovelas in years. And I don’t know anybody else who speaks Spanish, and so much of it doesn’t translate that I refuse to watch it subbed with someone else, and they’re something I used to watch every night but now I haven’t seen them in years. And you speak Spanish. So.”

Jon stared at her, blinking owlishly, before his mouth twitched into a small smile. It flowered, moving from a hesitant movement of the lips into a real, close-lipped smile that sent his usually severe and sharp expression into something resembling excitement. Understated enthusiasm over novelty.

How weird, Sasha thought. That you could be 200 years old and still find excitement over something novel. Over something new. Or, maybe, over someone choosing to trust you with a part of their lives.

Or maybe it wasn’t that weird. How could someone keep living for that long if something as simple as this didn’t bring you joy? Sasha was only thirty four and she already felt so tired of life, all the time. Either tired or overwhelmed. She wondered if Jon still felt overwhelmed.

“Sounds like fun,” Jon said. “Can I bring my notebook?”

“...yeah, sure.” Sasha paused, almost uncertain. “Hey. When you get to, like, two hundred -”

“Technically two hundred and twenty.”

“When you get to two hundred and twenty, do you finally feel like an adult?”

Jon stared at her, faintly surprised, before his expression settled into something a little wry. “Anybody who says that they ever feel like an adult is a liar. That’s how you know that Jonah’s full of shit.”

Somehow, it was almost a little reassuring.

First time she had ever said that about Jon.

********

Their adventures, of course, were quickly throttled by practicalities.

Sasha suggested just watching it on a laptop, but Jon’s expression had wrinkled in distaste. Jon suggested just watching it at her place, but Sasha liked to pretend that he didn’t know where she lived. Far too much intimacy, and somewhat hilariously Jon seemed very awkward about being alone with a woman in her flat. Also they were still working, technically.

Martin, overhearing their argument in the Archives as Sasha collected her laptop, suggested Jon’s place, since it was pretty nice and cozy and close to the Archives. This forbidden knowledge, the shining proof that sometimes a little knowledge could be a terrible and traumatizing thing, the sheer mental image that imprinted itself behind her eyelids, shook Sasha to her core.

“For christ’s sake,” Martin said, “we are not fucking.”

“Sounds like someone who’s fucking our boss would say!” Tim called, from his position asleep on the break room couch. Sasha had spent roughly five hours yesterday convincing him that her plan to manipulate Jon’s psychological weaknesses was the most effective defense against evil fear powers that they had, and since he had lost the argument he was now resentfully napping on the couch. “If I walk in on you doing it in the office over a desk I’m going to fucking kill both of you and then myself!”

“Does this place have an HR?” Melanie asked, from where she was sitting at her desk actually trying to work. “Can I report all of you to HR? Please?”

“Jon can hardly fire himself,” Sasha told her sympathetically. “This shit will all make sense if you accept the fact that -”

“God, I get it, enough with the workplace hazing!” Melanie threw up her hands, as Jon unsubtly whispered something in Martin’s ear that made him blush. “You can all drop it now, it was never funny!”

“If Sasha just let me prove it to you,” Jon said, exasperated, “then you can see -”

Simultaneously, all three of them snapped, “Do not!”, cowing Jon immensely.

Tim was no help in problem-solving, since he was resentful that Sasha was doing this at all. He had been spending almost all of his time lately throwing himself into research into the rituals, into anything that explained the strange and obscure rigor of this universe. Jon only explained as much to them as Jonah let him, and the most he ever did was mysteriously drop off boxes that held a lot of information about clowns and sawdust.

He always seemed a little surly as he did it. Sometimes he looked very guilty. Sasha noticed, every time. She couldn’t afford not to.

All Sasha could try to do for Tim was help him. Their relationship had already been fractured by the way they kept secrets from each other, and although they both wanted to repair it they were forced to confront the fact that now they had to tell each other things. Accept help. Sasha hated acknowledging that she couldn’t do everything by herself, and Tim hated putting Sasha in the danger he relentlessly and suicidally threw himself into, but neither of them would let the other continue on their self-destructive path.

It wasn’t sweet. But it was the most solid and tangible proof Sasha had that they loved each other. Maybe it was the most solid proof anybody could have: that, in life or death, they’d choose wherever you were.

If Sasha followed Tim into whatever dangerous shit he was getting himself into, then he would be more careful. Tim wouldn’t survive it if he lost her, and she knew it.

Between her and Tim, and Jon and Martin...why did all of their relationships feel like mutually assured destruction?

Eventually, Jon’s solution was, as usual, the worst one. Jon’s solution to every problem always worked, but it was always the one thing that nobody wanted to do and that everyone hated. But anything else was either vetoed or improbable, and Sasha refused to back out once she committed to something, so that was how Sasha stuffed a laptop and an HDMI cable into her bag to trail behind Jon as they rode the elevator up to the third floor.

The number three rule of the Archives was not relevant right now (let Sasha have two cups of coffee before bothering her about how terrible their lives were). But the number two rule of the Archives was this: don’t fuck with Rosie. They both gave her their brightest grins as they passed, impeccably polite without actually asking if Jonah was inside. Rosie smiled munificently at them and complemented Sasha on her heels. They were in. They were now breaking the number one rules of the Archives.

The number one rule of the Archives was, of course, this: never talk to Jonah Magnus unnecessarily.

On the bright side, from this perspective Sasha could see how Jon worked his magic - that is, how he always entered Jonah’s office through kicking the door open and infuriating the other man tremendously. He actually took the time to open the door a crack first, completely silently and almost imperceptibly, before crashing it open in as annoying a way as physically possible.

“I need your fucking office!” Jon called.

When Sasha poked her head in behind him, she was treated to the sight of a terrified employee cowering in the hard plastic chair in front of Jonah’s desk. Sasha was well aware how that chair could feel like an electric chair. Across from him, Jonah looked distinctly unamused, already kneading his brow.

“I’m in a meeting, Jon.”

“Good for you.” Jon pointed at the door, and the employee silently scurried out. “Not anymore. Now fuck off, I need your office.”

Impossibly, Jonah looked even more unamused. “Fucking your Archivist on my desk in the middle of the day is a bit beyond the pale even for you, Jon.”

Sasha was immediately so fucking disgusted that she switched into Spanish and called him a great deal of incredibly rude things for an incredibly long period of time.

Talking over her, Jon said, “Take out your resentment over 1899 on someone else. We want your television, we’re watching Sasha’s programmes.”

“Right. Like how you and that boy Martin are always watching programmes -”

“Me cago en tu puta madre--”

“Honestly, Jonah, just because you had all of those men over for revision of your manuscripts doesn’t mean everyone’s as euphemistic as you are. And Sasha, that’s remarkably vulgar.”

For the first time, Jonah looked alarmed. “What is she saying?”

“Sólo porque tienes un rabo chiquito -”

“Go learn Spanish.”

“Ms. James, this is a professional office, and -”

“Melanie’s fucking right, we need a fucking HR.” Now this was a matter of pride. Sasha flounced into the office, collapsing onto one of the dumb uncomfortable leather couches facing one of those screens that rich people had in their offices to show their powerpoint slides or whatever. “I’m going to Stare you to death if you don’t leave us alone to watch telly.”

Hilariously, Jonah looked at Jon, alarmed. “Can she do that?”

Jon opened his mouth, before Sasha shot him a look. “She’s progressing amazingly rapidly. At this point, not even I know what she’s capable of.”

What a wingman. Jonah looked faintly uncomfortable, but he went back to his computer anyway instead of doing the rational thing and getting out. “This grant is due in three days, Jon, and I have no time for your little fancies. Do what you will, but leave me out of it.”

Sasha was not thrilled at the prospect of Jonah fucking Magnus hanging out in the background while Sasha and Jon watched telenovelas. She’d be outnumbered by the evil fear demons, for one. But Sasha had a sneaking suspicion, and maybe if she couldn’t genuinely stop this guy’s evil plans she could annoy him to death.

At the very least, it would make her feel better. Sasha was beginning to recognize the value of anything that just made you fucking feel better. Maybe Tim was onto something with constantly being a giant bitch all the time.

“Ignore that cunt,” Sasha said in Spanish, catching Jon’s attention as she stood up to plug in the HDMI cable and turn on the television. “I got crisps and chocolate in my bag, I’m putting on Marimar.”

“Is she insulting me again?” Jonah asked. “Jon, what’s she saying?”

“I’m afraid I only consume trauma,” Jon said, also switching to Spanish. His accent was fucking bizarre. He sounded like her great uncle, or an even worse version of Sucedió en La Habana. At her boggled look, he elaborated, “The Witness gifted me with understanding of all languages very early in my development, but it bestowed verbal fluency in...1910? Perhaps? I’m afraid that without a little practice and frequent use I’m a little bit stuck there. I was able to beat my Chinese and Russian into sounding modern, but I’m afraid that people now tell me my Chinese is somewhat 1960s and my Russian is fairly 1980s.” He scowled. “Why does modernity change so much?”

“I think telenovelas can fix this for you,” Sasha decided. She paused a beat as Jon sat down beside her, a careful distance away. “The Witness? Is that a weird translation thing? You called it the Beholding last time.”

Jon shifted, a little guiltily. In English, he said, “The term Beholding’s better...it’s more academic, and more people use it…”

“What are you two -”

“Is ‘The Witness’ your word?” Sasha asked, and to her horror she found her tone almost gentle. It was almost easier, in her own words.

This time Jon truly looked uncomfortable, and he shifted back into Spanish - perhaps, Sasha thought, because Jonah could not understand it. “Smirke contributed all of the nomenclature for this, and he never...well, none of Jonah’s little circle liked me very much.”

“Wow, wonder why.”

“Exoticism only gets you so far, I suppose,” Jon joked weakly, before sharply swerving the subject. “I always felt as if it gave me its own name. When I began to understand, really understand what it was and how we could feed each other...I felt as if it told me. And that’s what it told me. So it’s always been my name.”

Hm. Sasha wondered what it was like, to have your religion be - so tangible, so grounded. Sasha believed, and she had faith with all of her heart, but - well, you wouldn’t need faith if you had incontestable proof. Faith was about believing because you knew something in your heart. But Jon...when he had nothing else, maybe, he had this.

“I just put down ‘James’ because I thought it would make that small-dicked asshole more likely to hire me,” Sasha finally offered, her only equivalent for something like this. “Tell you what. Call me James Martinez, and I’ll curse the name of the Witness, okay? If you’d like me to.”

Jon brightened, and for a second Sasha saw her own faith in his brilliant green eyes. “My gift is shared with you, Sasha. Of course you can.”

It was not a gift. It was a terrible and disgusting curse, and it was one that Jon had inflicted upon her. But Sasha was playing nice...and this was knowledge, understanding Jon was knowledge that could save her life one day...and there was something strange about Jon’s hesitant and multi-barbed trust.

It had to be the trust of somebody who had it betrayed a hundred, thousand times. But he gave it so easily, and he reached out incessantly. Sasha knew lots of people who cared too much, although she had never been one of them - Tim and Martin, for one - but she could already see how it was making them a little bitter and jaded.

Jon wasn’t. Sasha didn’t know why.

So Sasha kicked off her heels, tucking her legs underneath her as she pulled up her favorite episode of Marimar on her laptop. It was a comfort show, having context wouldn’t help, she had rights.

“Okay,” Sasha began, a little aggressively, “we’re starting a lot of the way in, so I have to catch you up. Like a lot of telenovela protagonists, Marimar is a wholesome young girl who lives in a little sad hut shack on the beach and she can’t read. She’s raised by her grandparents and her dog talks. This is the essential premise of the show.”

“Wow,” Jon whispered, “just like me.”

“I - okay, you are not obligated to give me your backstory, but what?”

“Martin keeps calling me a ‘sad little Victorian orphan’,” Jon said defensively. “And dogs talk to me too!”

“...what do they say?”

“If you’d believe it, nothing interesting.” He paused a beat. “But Georgie’s cat is kind of a psychopath, if that helps.”

“That’s a stereotype against cats,” Sasha accused. “Just because humans don’t understand cat body language -”

“Oh, no, cats are lovely, my favorite animal. But the Admiral’s kind of a freak.”

“If you two are going to sit here and trash talk me in my own office,” Jonah said, aggravated, “then please at least take it outside.”

Actually, this was a great idea.

Sasha ran through the plot of Marimar, down to the love interest with the terrible chest hair (Jon and Sasha then got into an argument over chest hair that was so heated that Sasha suspected Martin had chest hair), the evil step-mother (they both agreed that women in soaps tended to fall within the madonna/whore complex), and the weird amounts of humiliation. Sasha loved to hate Mr. Douchey McChesthair in this one - he wooed Marimar and promised to raise her up from poverty, but he ended up ditching her when she wasn’t refined enough for him. She wins him back at the end with her nice dresses and inherited money, and they settle down with a baby and a big house. Sasha always hated the ending. Marimar should have become a career woman.

“It’s massively cheesy,” Sasha warned, finally playing the episode and letting the cheery theme song play, “so don’t sit here and point out the logical inconsistencies. We know. It’s part of the experience.”

But Jon just arched an eyebrow, unbuttoning his own pea cot to throw over the back of the sofa and lounge in his seat. “Watching telenovelas, in the office of the Director of the facility where you work, with his boss, in London, is the experience? And we’re all - how do you put it - evil fear demons?”

“You haven’t met my auntie,” Sasha said darkly. But she ended up shaking her head too, picking at her stockings a little. “The experience is...eleven pm, and the whole house is dark. The kitchen light is on, this flickering yellow thing that pops and buzzes. There’s cicadas outside, and somewhere you can hear someone playing music too loudly. Dad’s in his ripped up armchair, snoring. Mom’s on the couch, reading a magazine. They’re only half-paying attention, but it’s late, and you feel like you never get enough time with them. So you sit on the couch next to Mom, and because neither of them say anything you watch the show with all of your attention, just happy to be near them...it’s family bonding, you think. It feels like it.”

Jon was silent, staring at her. Not fixedly, or intensely - just looking, as if he was waiting patiently to see if she would say anything else. But Sasha trailed off, picking at her stockings, until she forced herself to stop. She didn’t want to say anything else. She was worried that he would know what she wasn’t saying. He always did.

“My grandmother couldn’t read,” Jon said finally, and Sasha fought the surprise. Jon never talked about this, not in any specific words. “But she would darn clothing by the fire at night. She did it for the neighborhood and earned some extra money.”

“What about you?” Sasha asked, hoping it was a safe topic. “What did you do?”

Jon grinned at her, sharp and amused. “I got into trouble.”

They both turned their attention back to the television, and Sasha silently mouthed the words along with the screen as Jon paid rapt attention.

It was later in the show, when Marimar was showing up all of the people who did her dirty when she was poor. She had a fine dress, lingering on the arm of her rich and kind of creepy father, and she walked around with her head held up high. Her old husband who treated her terribly saw her at the opera and he was stunned by how hot and cool she was now.

“Good for her!” Jon said abruptly. “Go find someone better, Marimar!”

“Oh my god,” Sasha groaned. “She ends up with him!”

“What!”

Quicker than Sasha would ever have expected, Jon got wrapped up in the episode. He gasped with her at the right parts, cheered at the screen whenever Marimar said something particularly sassy, and they booed whenever Douchey McChesthair showed up.

When Sasha glanced behind her - not that she did - she saw Jonah fixedly ignoring them. He was gritting his teeth a little. Every so often he would glance at the screen, obviously look terribly confused, then go back to his computer.

When the credits rolled Jon declared this second-hand trauma, which terrified Sasha deeply but raised interesting questions about her own future diet.

“It’s about the humiliation, fear, and voyeurism,” Jon told her. “Supernatural trauma and devastation tastes rather similar to these telenovelas.”

“...what do they taste like?”

Jon thought hard. “Taste, but if it was a feeling.”

“...what’s the -”

“What’s the feeling you have?”

Sasha was forced to concede the point, and put on another episode.

In this one, Marimar’s new dad tied tragically, and she very cunningly has him sign all of his money over to her. Sasha cheered her on very enthusiastically, and Jon agreed that Marimar was the definition of girlboss, but he found it kind of a dick move.

“I thought you hated pretentious, old money rich white Britons,” Sasha accused. She knew that Martin had been working on him and trying to convert him to socialism,, but it was slow going.

“I do hate entitled, old money people,” Jon said shortly. “But it’s hardly illegal to work your way up the social ladder and improve your station in life. Marimar isn’t putting the work in, she’s just inheriting all of this blood money. If she doesn’t make something of her life then what’s the point in all of that suffering?”

“You do know how social mobility is a lie fed to the lower class by the upper class to keep them complacently participating in the system, right?”

“I’m not saying many people do it,” Jon said, ignoring Marimar’s grotesquely fake sobbing, “but it’s possible. I’ve met plenty of people who worked hard and became successful.”

“Yeah, and those people were lucky. Most of us just sit around in poverty and suffer.” Sasha rolled her eyes, unwrapping her chocolate bar. “Not all of us can be Dr. Faust.”

“You didn’t sit around,” Jon said, turning to face her. Sasha didn’t meet his eyes, focusing on her chocolate instead. “You were smart, you worked your way up, you got your scholarship, and now you’re part of something far greater than yourself. You took what happened to you and you used to make you stronger, just like I did. Anybody can do it if they work hard enough.”

Sasha’s teeth clamped down on the chocolate.

Abruptly, stupidly, she got angry.

“I’m not better than the thousands of other trans women who got kicked out, Jon,” Sasha snapped, but Jon didn’t flinch. “I’m just luckier! I know I worked hard, but I’m not more - more worthy of what I have than the brave women back home who have nothing. And I’m not going to stomp on them to make myself feel better like you do!”

“I do not -” Jon started, outraged, but Sasha cut him off.

“You tell yourself that you worked hard for the security, money, education that you never got as a child! But you deserved all of that! That’s shit that anybody who lives deserves. But because you think of it as some kind of stupid reward, then it’s something that can be taken away. And when what you have can be taken away at any moment, then you have nothing!”

She cut herself off abruptly, unwilling and incapable of saying anything more. There were lines you couldn’t cross with Jon, and lines that she didn’t deserve to cross no matter how callous he was. She couldn’t accuse him of forgetting where he came from, or of betraying his people. Sasha knew well that Jon had never forgotten, not for a second.

He had just - twisted everything around. He had to justify to himself what he’d done, so he’d taken the truth and molded it to fit his own desires and call it holy.

It had killed her. It had killed her, how Jon told her that they were the same, but he did all of this shit to her anyway. But maybe that was no surprise: Jon hadn’t done anything to her that he hadn’t done to everybody else, and he hadn’t made any justifications to himself about his behavior towards her that he hadn’t made about everybody else.

You couldn’t live like he did with emotional honesty. Good people could do bad things - Sasha knew that better than anyone - but it required a truly disgusting level of willful blindness and cowardice that Sasha had never tolerated.

“Nobody gave me being a woman,” Sasha whispered, too full of - something, to even look at Jon. “I didn’t take it from anyone. I didn’t steal it. It was something that I always deserved, and that I always was. And because of that, nobody will ever take it away from me.” She exhaled heavily, forcing herself to stop shaking. “Nobody can make me something I’m not. Not even you.”

Jon stared at her, toxic green eyes wide and something foreign in his expression. It looked almost as if he believed her. Ha. “Sasha, I -”

“I swear, it’s like you two are making an effort to be as intrusive as possible. Jon, can’t you control your own Archivist?”

Jon almost jumped, as if he had forgotten that Jonah was in the room at all. Something in his chest seized closer, and a year ago Sasha would have just called it a twitch.

It wasn’t. It was an aborted, concealed cringe, seen only once before. But there was only one other person in this world who cared about that.

“Jonah!” Jon said, switching back to English immediately. “Sorry, we were just - having a really heated discussion about - uh, about -”

“Brujeria and how it changed when adopted by members of the Catholic church,” Sasha said smoothly. “I think his weird compulsion thing is just advanced witchcraft.”

“Yes! Yes, of course - you remember, I took inspiration from p - pagan rituals, you know, for our early work. I think you called it -”

“Bizarre?” Jonah asked, arching an eyebrow. “Jon, there were bones involved.” Jon silently pointed at the human skull taking up proud residence in Jonah’s cabinet of curiosities. “That’s different, a friend gave me that.”

“ ‘Have you seen Barnabas lately, Jonah’, I said. ‘He hasn’t seemed to have written lately’, I said. ‘Have you grown distant?’, I said. And you said -”

“Yes, he was very distant,” Jonah said dryly. “You hardly complained. You hated the man.”

“I hated all of your friends,” Jon said. He was smiling, once again relaxed with his arm spread over the back of the couch. Sasha furiously bit into a chip. “Didn’t mean you let them die.”

“Yes, but he was your least favorite, so I figured there was no harm done there.”

Improbably, Jon brightened. He smiled again, a curved slash of the mouth that had always been reserved for Jonah. It always spoke of secrets, a private joke. “You do care.”

“I’ll care more if you stop chattering when I’m trying to get us funded for another cycle.”

“Whatever.” Jon turned to face the screen again, letting the smile fall into a curiously blank expression. “Next episode, Sasha?”

“Sure,” Sasha said slowly. “But it only gets worse from here.”

It would never stop being weird how - well, maybe that was no wonder. How could Sasha begin to understand a relationship as strange and esoteric as theirs? Two hundred years in the making, forged by cruelty and passion? Two lives, intertwined so closely they fed in a parasitic loop, starving the other to feed themselves?

“Oh, I don’t mind a little tragedy,” Jon said. He spoke in English, vowels carefully rounded, posh accent meticulously stretching his words. “It’s the most entertaining.”

Sasha thought about print-outs. She thought about a many-eyed, malicious tumor of fear and pain consuming humanity alive. She thought about the face of God, and the tired and resigned face of Martin. When Sasha spoke, she stayed in Spanish.

“Even though she gets married to Mr. Douchey McChestHair at the end?”

“I’m sure he’s not all bad,” Jon said, and wouldn’t say anything more.

#my writing #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #sasha james #timothy stoker #jonah magnus #elias bouchard #tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #the magnus archives fanfiction #everything said about marimar is real #however inauthentic because I ended up using the funny or die recap #me: i am not writing any more hr #my friends: but what if you did?#been seeing so many weird takes about abusive friendships lately i feel the need to very pointedly ask the question #what is the nature of the power dynamic between jon and jonah?

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disneytva · 3 years

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Disney Television Studios Sets Comic Con At Home 20th Television Animation Panels

Disney Television Studios will produce eight virtual panels for Comic Con@Home 2021, being held online from Friday, July 23 through Sunday, July 25. The virtual presentation marks the second straight year the show will be held virtually, as per pandemic protocols.

FRIDAY, JULY 23:

3:00PM (PT) DUNCANVILLE (Produced by 20th Television Animation; Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group; and Fox Entertainment) – Join the Harris family and friends for a conversation about the spectacularly average life of 15-year-old Duncan Harris on Fox’s animated series Duncanville. Executive producers Mike Scully & Julie Thacker-Scully, executive producer and star Amy Poehler, and stars Ty Burrell, Riki Lindhome, Joy Osmanski, Yassir Lester and Betsy Sodaro tease the rest of this season and next, and give fans a special look at an upcoming episode featuring a musical number with everyone’s favorite teacher, Mr. Mitch (voiced by Wiz Khalifa).

SATURDAY, JULY 24:

11:00AM (PT) THE SIMPSONS (Produced by Gracie Films Production in association with 20th Television Animation) – Join Matt Selman, Al Jean, David Silverman, Carolyn Omine, Mike B. Anderson, Debbie Mahan and moderator Yeardley Smith as they give you an exclusive sneak preview of Season 33. A panel of animators, writers and special surprise guests will answer your questions, tell behind-the-scenes stories, and reveal the secrets of the Springfield Cinematic Universe.

3:00PM (PT) CENTRAL PARK (Produced by 20th Television Animation) – Join co-creator and executive producer Loren Bouchard; co-creator, executive producer and voice of “Birdie,” Josh Gad; the voice of “Owen Tillerman” Leslie Odom Jr.; the voice of “Cole Tillerman” Titus Burgess; and producers Kelvin Yu and Steven Davis, from Apple’s musical animated series “Central Park” for the show’s Comic-Con debut. The panelists discuss how they brought this series to life by merging comedy with Broadway talent and songwriters.

4:00PM (PT) FAMILY GUY (Produced by 20th Television Animation) – Join cast Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, Seth Green, Arif Zahir and executive producers Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin from Fox’s animated comedy Family Guy to celebrate 20 seasons of the series with a virtual trivia night. Watch the cast and produces compete against each other and see who knows the most about this iconic series. After, you’ll see a special sneak peek at the 20th season premiering this fall.

5:00PM (PT) AMERICAN DAD! (Produced by 20th Television Animation) – Ever wondered how your favorite American Dad! episodes get made? Join Matt Weitzman as he walks you through the creation of an upcoming episode of the current season airing on TBS. You’ll see a table read, featuring stars Rachael MacFarlane, Wendy Schaal, Scott Grimes and Dee Bradley Baker, followed by parts of the episode in the animatic and early stages of color.

SUNDAY, JULY 25:

12:00PM (PT) THE GREAT NORTH (Produced by 20th Television Animation) – Fox’s newest animated series, already picked up for a third season. Join creators and executive producers Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux, executive producer Loren Bouchard and the all-star cast including Nick Offerman, Jenny Slate, Dulcé Sloan, Will Forte, Paul Rust and Alanis Morissette for a truly wild and hilarious Q&A, including exclusive clips and breaking news on the Alaskan adventures in store for the Tobin family in the upcoming season.

3:00PM (PT) BOB’S BURGERS (Produced by 20th Television Animation) – The cast and producers of the Emmy Award-winning animated Fox series Bob’s Burgers are back for another virtual Comic-Con. They will be breaking news about the upcoming season, showing never-before-seen footage, and answering questions from fans who get to join the zoom. Join creator and executive producer Loren Bouchard, executive producer Nora Smith and the hilarious cast including H. Jon Benjamin, John Roberts, Kristen Schaal, Eugene Mirman, Dan Mintz and Larry Murphy.

#DuncanVille #The Simpsons #Simpsons #Family Guy #Central Park #Central Park TV #The Great North #Great North #20th Television #20th Television Animation #20th TVA #Disney Television Studios #Comic Con #SDCC 2021 #Comic Con At Home #Comic Con At Home 2021

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weclassybouquetfun · 4 years

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It’s Disney’s Investor’s Day and news of their projects just keep rolling out.

Disney bought LucasFilm for $4 billion so it’s no surprise they are going to exploit that IP the way Darth Vader....honestly, I don’t know. I’m not a “Star Wars” fan - I have nowhere to go with this analogy.

Just know they’re going to use it. Besides the STAR WARS-verse series previously announced like Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series -

now complete with Hayden Christensen.

I hope he didn’t compel his daughter over to the dark side.

and Diego Luna’s ANDOR

is the announcement of 10 more Star Wars and 10 more Marvel series including two THE MANDALORIAN spin-offs RANGERS OF THE NEW REPUBLIC and AHSOKA.

STAR WARS THE ACOLYTE:

The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era.

A Lando Calrissian limited series, LANDO from Justin Simien (DEAR WHITE PEOPLE).

Film ROGUE SQUADRON helmed by WONDER WOMAN and WONDER WOMAN 1984 director Patty Jenkins.

The animated film RAYA and THE LAST DRAGON will have a day and date drop with a theatrical release and Disney+ Premier Access drop (like they did with MULAN) on March 5th.

IDisney and Pan-African entertainment company Kugali’s science fiction series Iwájú.

- FOX / FX news: Four more seasons of IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA and a new season of the Ron Howard produced GENIUS; this time focused on Martin Luther King Jr.

An ALIENS series from Noah Hawley (FARGO, LEGION) set on Earth; and early talks about a series about the formation of The Rolling Stones focusing on the group from the 1960s to 1972.

A final INDIANA JONES film (and I hope they kill that miserable bastard off). Directed by James Mangold, at least it will look good.

NatGeo unscripted series from The Kardashians, Chris Hemsworth and Will Smith.

Two series involving director Jon Chu (CRAZY RICH ASIANS). He and Ron Moore are conceiving a series based on THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON and Chu will direct the first episode of the series WILLOW based on the Ron Howard film. Warwick Davis returns to the role.

More sequels and retreads: PETER PAN & WENDY starring Yara Shahidi (Grown-ish) as TinekerBell and Jude Law as (sexy) Captain Hook; live-action PINOCCHIO with Tom Hanks a Gepetto and directed by Robert Zemekis; THE MIGHTY DUCKS: GAMECHANGERS with Emilio Estevez returning as the coach and a Josh Peck led TURNER AND HOOCH reboot. HOCUS POCUS 2 directed by Adam Shankman (HAIRSPRAY: THE MOVIE MUSICAL); SISTER ACT 3 with Whoopi Goldberg returning and produced by Tyler Perry; a prequel to THE LION KING from Barry Jenkins (MOONLIGHT) with music from Hans Zimmer, Nicholas Brittell (SUCCESSION) and Pharrell Williams; THREE MEN & A BABY starring Zac Efron; a CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN reboot from Kenya Barris (black-ish). An animated DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, an animated NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, a hybrid live action CHIP & DALE: RESCUE RANGERS film starring John Mulaney and Andy Samberg,

series focused on TIANA and one on MOANA; a BIG HERO 6 continuation series BAYMAX; and ICE AGE: ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD featuring the voicework of Simon Pegg.

Say what now?

Final confirmation of THE LITTLE MERMAID live-action cast.

The one I’ve been waiting on: a sequel to 2007′s ENCHANTED starring Amy Adams. But it is titled DISENCHANTED which doesn’t bode well for the relationship between Adam’s Giselle and Patrick Dempsey’s Robert.

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crowdvscritic · 3 years

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round up // MARCH + APRIL 21

March and April were a whirlwind of vaccines and awards shows! A full year after we starting staying at home, the end of this weird chapter in recent history seems like it might finally be coming to a close, and this pop culture awards season—typically a time full of fun and glamour—captured our moment weirdly well. (Emphasis on the weird.) This month’s recommendations is filled with more Critic Picks than usual, so without further delay, let’s dive right in...

March + April Crowd-Pleasers

Double Feature — 2018 Action Thrillers: Bad Times at the El Royale + Den of Thieves

In Bad Times at the El Royale (Crowd: 9/10, // Critic: 8/10), Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, and Dakota Johnson are staying at a motel on the California-Nevada state line full of money, murder, and mystery. In Den of Thieves (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 6.5/10), Gerard Butler takes on some of the best bank robbers in the world. Whether you like your action with a dose of mystery or the thrills of plot twists, these will fit the bill.

Double Feature — ‘80s Comedies: Caddyshack (1980) + Splash (1984)

In the mood for pure silliness? Take your pick between a mermaid and a gopher! Five years before The Little Mermaid, Tom Hanks fell for Daryl Hannah’s blonde hair and scaly tail, and John Candy was his goofy brother in Splash (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10). And four years before Ghostbusters, Bill Murray was the goof on a golf course full of funny people like Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, and Ted Knight in Caddyshack (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10).

Double Feature — 1980s Coming-of-Age Films Starring Corey Feldman, Kiefer Sutherland, and Challenging Brother Relationships That Influenced Stranger Things: Stand by Me (1986) + The Lost Boys (1987)

Believe it or not, I had no idea these two ‘80s classics had so much in common when I chose to watch them back-to-back. In Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Stand by Me (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10), four kids (Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, River Phoenix, and Wil Wheaton) are following train tracks to find a missing body. In The Lost Boys (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10), Corey Haim and Jason Patric move to a small California town and discover it’s full of ‘80s movie star cameos and…vampires? One is a thoughtful coming-of-age story and one is just bonkers, but both are a great time.

Spaceman by Nick Jonas (2021)

My love for the Jonas Brothers is well-documented, so instead of going down the rabbit hole I started digging at 15, I’ll talk about how Nick Jonas’s latest solo album will likely appeal to a wider audience than just the fans of the brothers’ bombastic pop records. It’s full of catchy tunes you’ll play on repeat and an R&B-influenced album experience about the loneliness we’ve experienced in the last year and how we try to make long-term relationships work.

Ted Lasso (2020- )

I love stories about nice people crushing cruelty and cynicism with relentless kindness, and Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) is the warmest, most dedicated leader this side of Leslie Knope. Be sure to catch up on these witty and sweet 10 episodes before season 2 drops later this summer.

Double Feature — Tony Scott Action Flicks: Enemy of the State (1998) + The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Tony Scott’s movies have got explosions and excitement in spades. I love a good man-on-the-run movie, and in Enemy of the State (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), Will Smith is running through the streets of D.C. after getting evidence of a politician’s (Jon Voight) part in a murder. I also love a tense story set in a confined space, which is what Denzel Washington is dealing with in The Taking of Pelham 123 (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 7/10) after a hammy John Travolta takes a New York subway train hostage.

Double Feature — Baseball Movies: The Natural (1984) + Trouble With the Curve (2012)

Sue me—I love baseball movies. Robert Redford plays a fictional all-time great in the early days of the MLB in The Natural (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10), and Clint Eastwood plays a fictional all-time great scout in his late career in Trouble With the Curve (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10). If you love baseball or actors like Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, and Justin Timberlake, these movies are just right here waiting for you.

youtube

Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American (2021)

Sue me—I enjoy Netflix standup comedy specials that are safe enough to watch with your whole family. That’s exactly the crowd I laughed with over Easter weekend, and while the trailer captures Bargatze’s relaxed vibe, it doesn’t capture how funny he really is.

The Mighty Ducks (1992)

I thought somewhere in my childhood I’d seen at least one of The Mighty Ducks movies, but after watching all three, I think my memories must’ve come from previews on the VHS tapes for other Disney movies I watched over and over again. The original still holds up as an grown-ups, which is why even my parents got sucked in to this family movie while just passing through the living room. Bonus for ‘80s movies lovers: Emilio Estevez is basically continuing Andrew Clark’s story from The Breakfast Club as an adult. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10

Double Feature — New, Dumb Action on Streaming: Godzilla vs. Kong + Thunder Force (2021)

If you want something intelligent, go ahead and skip to the next recommendation, but if you’re looking for something stupid fun, these are ready for you on HBO Max and Netflix. Thunder Force (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6/10) follows Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer as they train to become superheroes who take on superhuman sociopaths wreaking havoc on Chicago, and alongside Jason Bateman, they do it with a lot of laughs. Godzilla vs. Kong (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 5/10) is, um, exactly what it sounds like, so I’ll skip a plot summary and just say it’s exactly what you want from this kind of movie. #TeamKong

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

All you need to know is Russell Crowe is an outlaw, and Christian Bale is the guy who’s got to get him on the train to prison. I also watched the 1957 version, which is also a solid watch if you love classic Westerns. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)

Marvel’s newest series isn’t nearly as inventive as WandaVision, and it may not land every beat, but it’s worth a watch for the fun new gadgets, Sebastian Stan’s dry joke delivery, and its exploration into themes of what makes a hero and what governments owe their citizens. It’s a pretty satisfying entry in the MCU canon, but I’d also recommend re-watching Captain America: Winter Soldier and Civil War—the canon is getting expansive, and it’s getting trickier every year to keep up with all the backstory.

March + April Critic Picks

Best of 2020 Picks

As per usual, the months leading up to the Oscars becomes a binge period for potential Oscar nominees. In March and April, I watched many of the films that made my Top 20 of 2020, including Boys State, The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Let Them All Talk, Minari, Nomadland, On the Rocks, One Night in Miami…, Promising Young Woman, Soul, and Sound of Metal. You can read how I ranked them on my list for ZekeFilm, plus reviews of The Father, Minari, Promising Young Woman, and Soul.

Bonus: If you loved On the Rocks, don’t miss this feature and beautiful photography starring Sofia Coppola, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, and Rashida Jones for W Magazine.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

What would you do if you started hearing a voice who narrated your every thought and move? If you’re Will Ferrell, you’ll seek out a literary professor (Dustin Hoffman), fall in love (with Maggie Gyllenhaal), and track down the voice (Emma Thompson) who’s making ominous predictions about your future. Stranger Than Fiction is funny thought-provoking, and an unusual but welcome role for Ferrell. Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

All the Royal Family News

Speaking of stranger than fiction, it’s been a busy few months for the Royal Family. We’ve celebrated 95th birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the 3rd birthday of Prince Louis, and the 10th anniversary of Will and Kate’s marriage. We also lost Prince Philip, and we watched the drama of Harry and Meaghan’s interview with Oprah. No matter what happens to their Crown, I don’t think we’ll ever get over our fascination with the Windsor family. A few pieces worth reading from the last few months:

“In Meghan and Harry’s Interview, Two TV Worlds Collided,” Vulture.com

“The Queen’s Man: Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Dies,” TIME.com

“Obituary: HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” BBC.com

Goodfellas (1990)

One of my film opinions that makes me feel like a phony is that Martin Scorsese just isn’t my cup of tea. He’s brilliant, but his films tend to be long and dark, two qualities that are never my first choice…and somehow Goodfellas still worked for me? Maybe it was the TV edit graciously toning down the violence or maybe it was that Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci were firing on all cylinders, but for some reason this ‘90s classic didn’t suck the joy out of my evening like Scorsese often does. (Bonus: For a Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro I don’t really recommend, head to the last section of this Round Up.)

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Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (2021)

Her voice has only matured, so Taylor Swift revisiting her old albums is like upgrading a blast to the past. Plus, the six new tracks make me feel like 15 crushing on that boy in Spanish class again, and her Grammys performance (just before her third Album of the Year win) was magical and folklore-tastic.

Double Feature — ‘60s Action Classics: The Guns of Navarone (1961) + Planet of the Apes (1968)

The Guns of Navarone (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) follows Gregory Peck and David Niven as they destroy Nazi weapons in the Mediterranean. Planet of the Apes (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) follows Charlton Heston as he attempts to escape from, well, a planet full of apes. The pacing of ‘60s films doesn’t always hold up, but that’s not the case with this pair. Both are still full of suspense, and you can’t go wrong hanging with casts like these.

Let Him Go (2020)

Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play a farming couple who unexpectedly help raise a boy who lost his biological father—sound familiar? But instead of a superhero origin story, they’re part of a thrilling Western with performances nuanced (Costner and Lane) and showy (Lesley Manville). If I’d watched this before completing my Best of 2020 piece, it likely would’ve been on my list. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

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The Oscars

I’m a ride-or-die fan of the Academy Awards, but I’ll admit even I found this year’s ceremony odd. Instead of focusing on what wasn’t so hot, I’ll recommend a few moments you don’t want to miss:

Emerald Fennell giving a shout-out to Saved by the Bell

Daniel Kaluuya acknowledging his parents’ sex life during his acceptance speech (??)

Yuh-Jung Yoon flirting with Brad Pitt and acknowledging she’s just “luckier” than her fellow nominees

Glenn Close dancing to…”Da Butt”?

You can also read about the historic wins and nominations from this year’s Oscar class and why the Golden Globes were an even stranger production weeks earlier.

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Trailer-palooza!

Movies are on their way back, y’all! I’m counting down the days until I can get back to a theatre, and even if some of these movies are duds, I’m planning to see all of them on a big screen if possible:

Those Who Wish Me Dead (May 14)

Cruella (May 28)

In the Heights (June 11)

Space Jam 2 (July 16)

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (September 3)

West Side Story (December 10)

Also in March + April…

To add to the Oscars love, you can listen to a conversation about what we learn about family, community, and society in some of the year’s biggest nominees on the Uncommon Voices podcast. I join regular hosts Michael and Kenneth in this episode, and I recommend all of their thoughtful discussions on their “What’s Streaming” episodes.

I’ve previously recommended the Do You Like Apples weekly newsletter, so I’m proud to share I contributed twice in March! I wrote about Love and Basketball, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, and one of my all-time favorite Julia Roberts rom-coms, Notting Hill. (I also tied to win their Oscars pool, but I suppose that’s less exciting for you than me.)

It was a busy couple of months on SO IT’S A SHOW! New logo, new email list, new Instagram, and a host of new episodes about a flop of a Madonna flick, a Swedish children’s TV show, an urban legend turned into a horror movie, one of the best films about journalism ever, and a Martin Scorsese movie about a real boxer.

Most of what I wrote for ZekeFilm in March and April was mentioned in Best of 2020 recommendations…except for The Nest, a film that couldn’t figure out what genre it wanted to be.

Photo credits: Nick Jonas, Royal Family. All others IMDb.com.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Summer Movie Preview: From Black Widow to The Suicide Squad and Beyond

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The summer movie season has returned. Finally. Once something we all just took for granted, like handshakes and indoor dining, a summertime season stuffed with pricy Hollywood blockbusters and cinematic escapism suddenly feels like a long lost friend. But, rest assured, the summer movie season is genuinely and truly here. It’s maybe a little later than normal, yet it’s still in time for Memorial Day in the States.

This is of course happy news since many of the big screen events of this year have been 12 months or more in the offing. A Quiet Place Part II was supposed to open two Marches ago, and In the Heights is opening almost an exact year to the day from its original release. They’re here now, as is an impressive assortment of new films. There are genre fans’ long lost superhero spectacles, with Black Widow and The Suicide Squad leading the pack (and Shang-Chi closing out the season unusually late in time for Labor Day weekend), and there are also horror movies like The Conjuring 3 and M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, aforementioned musicals, family adventures in Jungle Cruise, psychedelic Arthurian legends via The Green Knight, and a few legitimately original projects like Stillwater and Reminiscence. Imagine that!

So sit back, put your feet in the pool, or up by the grill pit, and toast with us the summer movie’s resurrection.

A Quiet Place Part II

May 28 (June 3 in the UK)

Fourteen months after its original release date, the first movie delayed by the pandemic is finally coming to theaters for Memorial Day weekend. And despite what some critics say (even our own), most of us would argue it’s worth the wait. As a movie about a family enduring after a global crisis that has left their lives in tatters, and marred by personal tragedy, A Quiet Place Part II hits differently in 2021 than it would have a year ago. And it’s undeniably optimistic view of humanity feels like a warm balm now.

But beyond the meta context, writer-director John Krasinski (flying solo as screenwriter this time) has engineered a series of intelligent and highly suspenseful set pieces which puts Millicent Simmonds’ Regan front and center. Also buoyed by subtle and affecting work by Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy, here as a neighbor they knew a few years and a lifetime ago, this is one worth dipping your toe back into cinema for, especially if you liked the first movie.

Cruella

May 28

We’ll admit it, we had the same initial skepticism you’re probably feeling about a Cruella de Vil origin story set in punk rock’s 1970s London. But put your cynicism aside, Disney’s Cruella is a decadent blast and the rarest of things: a live-action Disney remake that both honors its source material and does something creative with it. Neither a soulless scene-by-scene remake of a better animated film, or a lazy Maleficent like re-imagining, Cruella more often than not rocks, thanks in large part to its lead performance by Emma Stone.

Also a producer on the picture, Stone takes on the role of Cruella de Vil like it’ll be on an awards reel and absolutely flaunts the character’s madness and devilish charm. She also finds an excellent sparring partner via Emma Thompson, young Cruella’s very own Miranda Priestly. Once these two start their verbal battle at the end of the first act, the movie is elevated into an electric period comedy (with plenty of heavy handed period music). It’s a pseudo-thriller for all ages, enjoying some very sharp elbows for a kids movie.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

June 4 (May 26 in the UK)

The latest big-screen adventure for real-life ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) sees the two drawn into the unusual case of the first ever U.S. murder trial where the defendant claimed he was innocent because he was possessed by a demon. This is the eighth movie in The Conjuring expanded universe—director Michael Chaves has already made a foray into this supernatural world with The Curse of La Llorona—and as with all the main Conjuring films, the hook is that it’s (very loosely) based on a true case that the Warrens were involved with.

Peter Safran and James Wan are back on board as producers, although with this being the first time Wan isn’t directing one of the main Ed and Lorraine investigations, we’re a little cautious about this return to the haunted museum.

In the Heights

June 11 (June 18 in the UK)

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Tony award winning musical is getting the proper big screen treatment in In the Heights. A full-fledged movie musical—as opposed to a taped series of performances, a la Disney+’s Hamilton—In the Heights is like a sweet summer drink (or Piragua) and love letter to the Latino community of New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood.

Movies

Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century

By David Crow

Movies

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and the Perils of Taking on a Real Life Murder

By Rosie Fletcher

Closer in spirit to the feel-good summertime joy of Grease than the narratively complex Hamilton, this is perfect multiplex escapism (which will also be on HBO Max if you’re so inclined). Directed by Crazy Rich Asians’ Jon M. Chu, In the Heights has a euphoric sense of movement and dance as it transfers Miranda’s hybrid blend of freestyle rap, salsa rhythm, and Caribbean musical cues to the actual city blocks the show was written about. On one of those corners lives Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner with big dreams. He’s about to have the summer of his life. You might too.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

June 16 (June 21 in the UK)

You know Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is a throwback when even its trailer brings back the “trailer voice.” But then the appeal of the 2017 B-action comedy, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, was its very throwback nature: a violent, raunchy R-rated buddy comedy that starred Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, who exchanged quips as much as bullets between some genuinely entertaining stunts.

Hopefully the sequel can also be as much lowbrow fun as it doubles down on the premise, with Reynolds’ Michael Bryce now guarding Samla Hayek’s Sonia, the wife of Jackson’s Darius. All three are on a road trip through Italy as they’re chased by Antonio Banderas in what is sure to be a series of bloody, explosive set pieces. Probably a few “motherf***ers” will be dropped too.

Luca

June 18

Pixar Studios’ hit rate is frankly incredible. With each new film seemingly comes a catchy song, an Oscar nomination, and a flood of tears from anyone with a heart—and there’s no reason to believe that its next offering will be any different. Luca is a coming-of-age tale set on the Italian Riviera about a pair of young lads who become best friends and have a terrific summer getting into adventures in the sun. The slight catch is that they’re both sea monsters.

Movies

How Luca Became the First Pixar Movie Made at Home

By Don Kaye

Movies

Pixar, Italian Style: Why Luca is Set in 1950s Italy

By Don Kaye

This is the feature directorial debut of Enrico Casarosa, who says the movie is a celebration of friendship with nods to the work of Federico Fellini and Hayao Miyazaki. The writers are Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones—Andrews is new to Pixar but has experience with coming-of-agers, having penned Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, while Jones co-wrote Soul. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the young boys (sea monsters)—13-year-old Luca and his older teenager friend Alberto—with Maya Rudolph as Luca’s sea monster mom. After a year of lockdown, this could be the summer movie we all need.

June 25

You better start firing up the grill, because the Fast and Furious crew is finally ready to have another summer barbecue. And this time, it’s not only the folks whom Dom Toretto calls “mi familia” in attendance. The big new addition to F9 is

John Cena as Jakob Toretto. As the long-lost little brother we didn’t know Vin Diesel’s Dom had, Jakob is revealed to be a superspy, assassin, and performance driver working for Dom’s arch-nemesis, Cypher (Charlize Theron). Everything the Family does together, Jakob does alone, as a one-man wrecking crew, and he’s coming in hot.

Fans will probably be happier, though, to see Sung Kang back as Han Seoul-Oh, the wheelman who was murdered in Fast & Furious 6, and then pretty much forgotten in The Fate of the Furious when his killer got invited to the cookout. It’s an injustice that brought veteran series director Justin Lin back to the franchise to resurrect the dead. So it’s safe to assume he won’t be asking Cypher to bring the potato salad.

The Forever Purge

July 2 (July 16 in the UK)

We know what you’re thinking: Didn’t The Purge: Election Year end the Purge forever? That or “are they really still making these?” The answer to both questions is yes. Nevertheless, here we are with The Forever Purge, a movie which asks what happens if Purgers just, you know, committed extravagant holiday crime on the other 364 days of the year? You get what is hopefully the grand finale of this increasingly tired concept.

The Tomorrow War

July 2

Hear me out: What if it’s like The Terminator but in reverse? That had to be the pitch for this one, right? In The Tomorrow War, instead of evil cyborgs time traveling to the past to kill our future savior, soldiers from the future time travel to the past to enlist our current best warrior and take him to a world on the brink 30 years from now.

It’s a crazy premise, and the kind of high-concept popcorn that one imagines Chris Pratt excels at. Hence Pratt’s casting as Dan, one of the best soldiers of the early 21st century who’ll go into the future to stop an alien invasion. The supporting cast, which includes Oscar winner J.K. Simmons and Yvonne Strahovski, Betty Gilpin, and Sam Richardson, is also nothing to sneeze at.

Black Widow

July 9

The idea of making a Black Widow movie has been around since long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe first lifted into the sky on Tony Stark’s repulsors. The character has been onscreen for more than a decade now, and Marvel Studios has for too long danced around making a solo Widow, at least in part due to the machinations of Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter.

Movies

How Black Widow Could Build The MCU’s Future

By Kayti Burt

Movies

Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Dates: MCU Phase 4 Schedule, Cast, and Story Details

By Mike Cecchini and 1 other

But the standalone Black Widow adventure is here at last, and it now serves as a sort-of coda to the story of Natasha Romanoff, since we already know her tragic fate in Avengers: Endgame. Directed by Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome, Lore), the movie will spell out how Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) kept herself busy between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, primarily with a trip home to Russia to clear some of that red from her ledger.

There, she will reunite with figures from her dark past, including fellow Red Room alumnus Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Russian would-be superhero Alexei Shostakov, aka the Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), another survivor of the Black Widow program and a maternal figure to Natasha and Yelena.

It’s a chance to say goodbye to Nat and see Johansson as the beloved Avengers one more time. But this being Marvel, we suspect that the studio has a few tricks up its sleeve and in this movie about the future of Phase 4.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

July 16

In the annals of synergistic branding, Space Jam: A New Legacy might be one for the record books. A sequel to an older millennials’ 1990s touchstones—the thoroughly mediocre Michael Jordan meets Bugs Bunny movie, Space Jam—this sequel sees LeBron James now trapped in Looney Tunes world… but wait, there’s more! Instead of only charmingly interacting with WB’s classic stable of cartoon characters, King James will also be in the larger “WB universe” where the studio will resurrect from the dead every property they own the copyright to, from MGM’s classic 1939 The Wizard of Oz to, uh, the murderous rapists in A Clockwork Orange.

… yay for easter eggs?

Old

July 23

Though he might be accused of being a little bit hit-and-miss in the past, the release of a new M. Night Shyamalan movie should always be cause for celebration. Especially one with such a deeply creepy premise. Based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Old sees a family on vacation discover that the beach they are on causes them to age extremely rapidly and live out their entire lives in a day.

This is surely perfect fodder for Shyamalan, who does high-concept horror like no one else. The cast is absolute quality, featuring Gael García Bernal, Hereditary’s Alex Wolff, Jo Jo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie, Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps, Little Women’s Eliza Scanlen, and many more. The trailer is pleasingly disturbing too as children become teenagers, a young woman is suddenly full-term pregnant, and adults seem to be decaying in front of their own eyes. Harrowing in the best possible way.

Snake Eyes

July 23 (August 20 in the UK)

Snake Eyes will finally bring us the origin story of the G.I. Joe franchise’s most iconic and beloved member. Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) stars in the title role, with Warrior’s Andrew Koji as his nemesis—conflicted baddie (and similar fan fave) Storm Shadow. Expect a tale heavy on martial arts badassery, especially with The Raid’s Iko Uwais on board as the pair’s ninja master. Samara Weaving will play G.I. Joe staple Scarlett after her breakout a few years ago in Ready or Not, while Úrsula Corberó has been cast as Cobra’s Baroness. Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Red) directs.

Jungle Cruise

July 30

Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra is best known for making slightly dodgy actioners starring Liam Neeson (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night) and half-decent horror movies (Orphan, The Shallows), so exactly which direction this family adventure based on a theme park ride will take remains to be seen.

Borrowing a page and premise from Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen (1951), Jungle Cruise stars the ever-charismatic Dwayne Johnson as a riverboat captain taking Emily Blunt’s scientist and her brother (Jack Whitehall) to visit the fabled Tree of Life in the early 20th century. Like the ride, the gang will have to watch out for wild animals along the way.

Unlike the ride, they’re competing with a German expedition team who are heading for the same goal. A solid supporting cast (Jesse Plemons, Édgar Ramírez, Paul Giamatti, Andy Nyman) and a script with rewrites by Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) might mean Disney has another hit on its hands. Either way, a lovely boat trip with The Rock should be diverting at worst.

The Green Knight

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

There have been several major Hollywood reimaginings of Arthurian legends in the 21st century. And every one of them has been thoroughly rotten for one reason or another. Luckily, David Lowery’s The Green Knight looks poised to break the trend with a trippy, but twistedly faithful, interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain, a chivalrous knight in King Arthur’s court who takes up the challenge of the mysterious Green Knight (The Witch’s Ralph Ineson under mountains of makeup): He’ll swing a blow and risk receiving a returning strike in a year’s time. Gawain attempts to cheat the devil by cutting his head clean off, yet when the Green Knight lifts his severed head from Camelot’s floors, things start to get weird. As clearly one of A24’s biggest visual fever dreams to date, this is one we’re highly anticipating.

Stillwater

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

The Oscar winning-writer director behind Spotlight, Tom McCarthy, returns to the big screen with a fictional story that feels awfully similar to real world events. In this film, Matt Damon plays Bill, a proud father who saw his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) go abroad to study in France. After she’s accused of murdering her roommate by local authorities, the deeply Southern and deeply Oklahoman father must travel to a foreign land to try and prove his daughter’s innocence.

It obviously has some parallels with the Amanda Knox story but it also looks like a potentially hard hitting original drama with a talented cast. Fingers crossed.

The Suicide Squad

August 6 (July 30 in the UK)

You might have seen a Suicide Squad movie in the past, but you’ve never seen James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. With a liberating R-rating and an old school vision from the Guardians of the Galaxy director—who likens this to 1960s war capers, such as The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare—this Suicide Squad is absolutely stacked with talented actors wallowing in DC weirdness. One of the key players in this is Polka-Dot Man, another is a walking, talking Great White Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone. The villain is a Godzilla-sized starfish from space!

Movies

Margot Robbie Wants Poison Ivy to Join Harley Quinn in the DCEU

By Kayti Burt

Movies

What to Expect from the Candyman Reimagining

By David Crow

So like it’s namesake, there’s probably a lot of characters who aren’t going to pull through this one. Even so, we can rest easy knowing that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn will be as winsome than ever, and the likes of Idris Elba and John Cena will add some dynamic gravitas to the eccentric DC Extended Universe.

Free Guy

August 13

Perhaps pitched as The Truman Show for the video game age, Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as an easygoing, happy-go-lucky “Guy” who discovers… he’s a video game NPC living inside the equivalent of a Grand Theft Auto video game. This might explain why the bank he works at keeps getting robbed all the time. But as a virtual sprite who’s developed sentiency, he just might be able to win over enough gamers to not shoot him, and make love not war.

It’s an amusing premise, and hopefully director Shawn Levy can bring to it the same level of charm he achieved with the very first Night at the Museum movie.

Respect

August 13 (September 10 in the UK)

Before her passing in 2018, Aretha Franklin gave her blessing to Jennifer Hudson to play the Queen of Soul. Now that musical biopic is here with Hudson hitting the same high notes of the legend who sang such standards as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and of course “Respect.”

The film comes with a lot of expectation and a lot of pedigree, with Forest Whitaker and Audra McDonald in the cast. Most of all though, it comes with that rich musical library, which will surely take center stage. And if movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have taught us anything, it’s that moviegoers love when you play the hits.

Reminiscence

August 20 (August 18 in the UK)

Lisa Joy is one of the most exciting voices on television today. One-half of the creative team behind Westworld, Joy steps into her own with her directorial debut (and as the solo writer) in Reminiscence, a science fiction film with a reliably knotty premise.

Hugh Jackman plays Nick Bannister, a man who lives in a dystopian future where the oceans have risen and the cities are crumbling. In a declining Miami, he sells a risky new technology that allows you to relive your past (and possibly change it, at least fancifully?). But when he discovers the lost love of his life (Rebecca Ferguson) is cropping up in other peoples’ memories, which seem to implicate her in a murder, well… things are bound to start getting weird. We don’t know a whole lot more, but we cannot wait to find out more.

Candyman

August 27

Announced back in 2018, this spiritual sequel to Bernard Rose’s 1992 original is one of the most exciting and anticipated movies on the calendar. Produced by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta, the film takes place in the present day and about a decade after Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects have been torn down. Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays an up-and-coming visual artist who moves to the now-gentrified area with his partner and is inspired by the legend of Candyman, an apparition with a hook for a hand, to create new work about the subject. But in doing so, he risks unleashing a dark history and a new wave of violence.

Tony Todd, the star of the original movie, will also reprise his role in a reboot that aims to inspire fear for only the right reasons.

The Beatles: Get Back

August 27

Director Peter Jackson thinks folks have a poisoned idea about the Beatles in their final days. Often portrayed as divided and antagonistic toward one another during the recordings of their last albums, particularly Let It Be (which was their penultimate studio recording and final release), Jackson insists this misconception is influenced by Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary named after the album.

So, after going through the reams of footage Lindsay-Hogg shot but didn’t use, Jackson has crafted this new documentary about the album’s recording which is intended to paint a fuller (and more feel-good) portrait of the band which changed the world. Plus, the music’s going to be great…

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

September 3

The greatest fighter in Marvel history finally hits the big screen with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Simu Liu (Kim’s Convenience) takes on the title role of a character destined for a bright future in the MCU. Marvel fans might note that the “Ten Rings” of the title is the same organization that first appeared all the way back in Iron Man, and Tony Leung will finally bring their villainous leader, The Mandarin, to life. Awkwafina of The Farewell and Crazy Rich Asians fame also stars. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12), this should deliver martial arts action unlike anything we’ve seen so far in the MCU.

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alinaastarkov · 4 years

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Worst game of thrones hairstyles and why. Go!

Hi! Thanks for the ask! I profusely apologise for the extensive rant that is about to follow.

I thought, before we jump into negativity, I would list some of my faves. I liked the hair more than the costumes, and a few of these were really pretty. Here we go!

These are some of my faves and I will just run through a few of them. Dany’s hair was really good until the enormous braids started coming in. At the start, with a few really pretty braids, and especially when she had her hair down cause it made her look so soft, she looked amazing. It showed Daenerys the queen and Daenerys the girl at the same time. Her hair in these early seasons is what Arya’s should have been. The same goes for Catelyn and Cersei. These styles were understated but pretty, and was all part of Catelyn adapting to the Northern style and Cersei playing on her beauty to fool people. The same goes for Margaery. It incorporated braids and curls in a really fashionable way, matching her intelligence to her need to be underestimated. Sansa’s hair in King’s Landing (when it was down) was pretty too as she adapted to her surroundings and the people around her, but it was still soft and gentle like her. Petyr is here because he looks the most like his book character, I think out of everyone. They really cast and styled him perfectly. Jon’s bun style was the closest to book!Jon he ever got, and though I love his curls, I preferred this to his earlier looks. It helps that it matched his father’s and Arya’s hair, too, so for the first time (because of poor casting) we saw the family resemblance. And these styles for Arya, apart from maybe a few in the HOBAW, were the only times she looked like a Northerner and was allowed to look like a girl. It’s not perfect, as her Northern braids aren’t woven into loose hair, but it did make her look a little wild and were the only times we saw a proper Northern hairstyle done well.

Now, onto the ones I don’t like:

I’ll get these in heere now because they’re not the worst. Joffrey and Tommen’s hair was weird. It’s not the long, golden waves as described in the books, they don’t really look like Lannisters apart from the colour, and the hair itself did not work with the crowns they both wear, especially Joffrey. I don’t know, it’s not terrible, but the men’s hair was mostly unremarkable, so, scraping the bottom for these. And then young Ned. *sigh* Why did 20-or-whatever-year-old Ned have the exact same hair as Sean Bean? He hasn’t changed his hair in 17 years? Lazy and boring and makes no sense. He should also have darker hair but that’s a book thing, so…

From now on, we’re gonna tackle this by character. Up first: Margaery Tyrell

Margaery almost escaped this list because her hair was often really good. As with the outfits, I know she was supposed to be pious, but the hair was a miss in that situation. It was basic and boring, and so far removed from the Margaery we had seen before. Why is her hair straight all of a sudden when it has always been curly? And the way she tied it back when she wore that awful dress in season 2 looked very strange. As for her wedding with Tommen, there was the opposite problem. As Tommen was younger, she needed to look more innocent and sweet, but instead they went over the top to make her look elaborate and rich, almost emphasising that her family was ambitious. Normally her hair and clothes struck a balance between innocent and ambitious, but this just went too far and it didn’t really fit her face. Though, I have to say, I don’t despise any of Margaery’s looks.

Now, Cersei Lannister

Some of these just made absolutely no sense. The helmets of braids she got, one of which was lopsided, just looked awful. It was far too much and they’re never seen again, which shows how bad they were. I don’t even know what her hair was supposed to be during the tourney but it didn’t work at all. And her short hair didn’t always look terrible, but it got far too shaggy for a Queen and here it didn’t fit the clothes she was wearing in this picture.

The Sand Snakes

Once again, I am simply bored by the Dornish characters in the show. There is no variation or variety, very little thought put in other than hair that might be useful in battle. They didn’t care to give them anything interesting and it shows. Where is Tyene, with her flowing golden hair? Where is Nymeria’s soft but deadly features? Where is the variation? It’s boring and does a disservice to the Sand Snakes.

Sansa Stark

I liked Arya’s northern braids, but Sansa’s version did not work. They were a lot messier than Arya’s (ironic, isn’t it?) and it wasn’t styled properly to fit the image of a proper northern/ southern lady. She would have been better off with hair more like her mother’s rather than braids, both aesthetically and storywise. Her hair in King’s Landing early on was similar to Cersei’s, which was definitely a bad thing. Her hair, which looked like a massive headband, was not as bad as Cersei’s version, but it wasn’t a good look. There were no strands or enough loose hair to properly frame the face, so that became the only thing to focus on and it didn’t work. Now, Sansa’s second wedding looked alright mostly (though I was not the hugest fan of the dress but I’ll get into that in another ask) but the hair was an issue story-wise. There was this thing going on with the Starks, supposedly the wildest and most rugged of the great families, where their hair was constantly super tight and pulled back, restrained when it should be free and wild. I know Sansa was being held against her will, but this wedding is also to give the Boltons a claim to Winterfell, so they needed to emphasise that she was a Stark, and that includes having Northern hair.

And once again we have the opposite problem. Her coronation hair had nothing to it. It was completely straight, unadorned and had no northern-ness to it at all. There were no waves to give it a bit of depth. It was super plain, boring and unimaginative. Then the Dragonpit, though it looked good, at that point Sansa had betrayed her Northern heritage and her family, so she shouldn’t have been the most northern-looking person on the screen. Once again, this is a style that Arya should have had, not Sansa.

Arya Stark

Just like the costumes, she had the same hair for 3 seasons. It got old quick, especially when she has different hair in the books during this time. It made sense for 1 season, not 3.

This monstrosity was one of the worst hairstyles in the show. The one time Arya gets the chance to dress like a girl, and this is the hair that goes with it? Really? It didn’t frame her face well, it reduced the feminine aspects that Arya was finally getting to express, and was a clear attempt to infantilize Arya and prevent the audience from thinking of her as a woman. It was also not a very nice style on its own; the buns should have been further back, but that would have been space buns and so very inaccurate, so she should have just worn it down anyway. Huge miss on this one. Super ugly. Only upside is she finally got the blue flowers she deserved.

This is what I said about the Starks having restrained, pulled back hair and it’s especially egregious for Arya, who is sooooo Northern and so wild. She needed her hair down, with braids woven in, longer and more natural. Instead, her hair looks like it’s covered in tar and there is nothing natural or northern about it. Once again, I am bored by the looks. And she kept this for two seasons straight, never changing. It’s ridiculous. The makers of this show just didn’t care about Maisie or Arya and it shows visually. It makes no sense for the princess of the north to have the same hair and clothes for years, with zero variation, especially when Sansa and Dany are out here with a new look every episode, sometimes two in a single episode.

This is what Arya’s hair should have looked like:

It’s extremely disappointing what we got instead.

Daenerys Targaryen

I mostly adored Dany’s hair, but as the seasons went on her braids got more and more elaborate and fake, and it started to become painfully obvious that it was a wig with huge braids stuck on. The looks with huge buns in the back just looked a bit silly, and I feel bad for Emilia who must have been so weighed down by all of that on her head. The braid she wore beyond the wall, and the one on the bottom row second from the right, were just a bit messy. As I said, her hair became a bit insane as it went on, making it less believable and less beautiful. And her finale hair, whilst fine from the front, was the most obvious example of braids being stuck on. It was basically a helmet and it made no sense. The braids were far too big and it didn’t work.

Sorry for the rant, nonny, but thank you for the ask!

#anti got #anti d&d #got hair #daenerys targaryen #arya stark #sansa stark #catelyn stark #cersei lannister #margaery tyrell #neve has mail

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