#its important to read comedy comics in between all the super serious dramas

[nikrei]

I am living for blue devil omg

He cares about rampant property destruction

(Blue Devil 2)

The demon that cursed him with his powers thinks he's an adorable deluded little brother (until they start fighting again, then he's an annoying deceitful little brother)

(Blue Devil 4)

He doesn't even want to be a superhero (yes he does)

(Blue Devil 5) (also yes pls using the horns as a handle)

[borkthemork]

Drabble Request: Anne and Marcy after her rescue

You know what, Anon? You get a 2,600 word draft as a treat. Thank you for your patience!

-----

Anne had read books before.

She wasn't the kind of person to read long-winding literature like the typical bookworms back home, but she did read whatever interested her. From magazines to comics to zoo books about bird mating dances, Anne liked stuff that had meat to it.

Give her enemies to lovers, she'd cheer at the makeouts. Give her gut wrenching biographies about surviving the Himalayas, she'd bawl her eyes out. And if one gave her story about being one's true self under the guise and acceptance of a duck instructor then she'd quack it up and never be heard from again.

There needed to be meat, drama, scenes of people kissing in the rain. Stories were all about getting punched in the gut over some random guy, and that would always be the best part!

So she had no idea why Cynthia Coven never stood out to her.

It might be because of the choppy writing style or perhaps fantasy wasn't her thing, but that didn't make sense to her. After all, she'd read anything as long as it was interesting and somehow the Coven books just…didn't stick?

Sure, Cynthia had a pet squirrel. Anne could find a squirrel at the park anytime. Cynthia had spells, curses, people with talking body parts that shouldn't be talking at all. Okay, cool — ugh, why wasn't she interested? Everything about it seemed right up her alley!

She chalked it up to preferences and moved on. 

But somehow, after all these years, the same book fluttered between the pages in her hands. And she found herself narrating, speaking the paragraphs out loud under the green canvas of her tent. 

All because the bedridden girl beside her couldn't sleep. 

It had been forty-six hours since Anne and the girls united. It felt a lot longer than that, if she wanted to be honest, but all the footing, fighting, and planning they did to get out unharmed from Andrias's castle had taken a toll on them. And for Mar-mar even more so, what with the amount of stuff that went down. A lot of explosions. Crying. Frog-on-frog violence.

So in this tent came privacy. Not enough privacy to basically stop Sprig or Sasha from barging in, but the makeshift walls were one of the most protected cliff faces inside the forests. So they were basically between a rock and a hard place.

And since Amphibia's nature became a hazard to not only the typical frog but aggro robot intruders, nothing got through as a threat in the end. Not even the huge mother frobo that she and Sash fought days prior.

Anne flipped a page.

The cold draft had slipped in and raised goosebumps on her umber skin. It almost seemed surreal that Summer started to transition out with the months passing, but the chirp of birds and the lack of cicada song had marked a new season, and now Anne shivered slightly with her narration.

Marcy's wounds needed to heal. From the remains of the stab wound to the headache to the numerous nicks upon her feet, if she didn't start sleeping then the medicine Maddie gave wouldn't come into effect anytime soon.

And if she didn't snore in the next ten minutes, Sash would have to knock her out with some sleepshroom grub saute and Anne wasn't going to let her get drugged anytime soon.

But from what was currently happening, Anne became unsure.

Marcy's eyes fluttered shut a few times. She would start drifting off at some random part in the story and then jolted back to listening intently as if nothing had happened. Nothing in the book could get her to sleep. Not Cynthia's introduction to werebeasts, her dramatic one-liners, or how she got knocked out for a minute straight from drinking a pint of Canadian beer.

Wait, could teens drink beer in Canada? Gah, that wasn't important!

What was important was that Marcy looked dead — terrifyingly dead — and no matter how much Anne tried to keep her eyes on the words, the fear clung to the recesses of her mind, asking if everything was going to be alright despite the girls' current luck streak.

That maybe this would be the last time she'd ever see Marcy alive. All because she fell asleep.

Anne leveled her voice when these thoughts struck her, and hoped Marcy didn't note the hitch in her throat or how she blinked faster to catch herself from crying.

Because Marcy was strong. She was stronger than people gave her credit for.

Anne peered down. Marcy's thumb had pressed to the side of Anne's fingers, their eyes meeting for a second; one harbored bags under her eyes, the other of worry.

"I promise I'll sleep." Her smile reached her gaze, the weariness plain on her worn out dimples and ashen cheeks. Anne might need a washcloth later. "It's been a long time since I've read the Cynthia Coven series, my brain can't help but pay attention."

"I know, Mar-mar." Anne closed her eyes for a second and let out a relaxed sigh. "Seven months can be pretty long."

"Tell me about it." Marcy's eyes lingered at the ceiling, licking her lips. "I've been so busy with everything that's been happening that I've barely caught up with the latest book."

"Yeah." Anne smiled. "You know they've got a new release out?"

She blinked. Almost as if Anne punched her in the face at that moment. "Are you serious? Aw man, I missed so much."

"Hey, it's alright. It'll be waiting for you when we get back." Besides, Anne already wrapped the edition in a lot of Christmas paper, might as well keep the surprise.

But Marcy still looked miserable. She pouted,  letting her sink more into the mattress almost comically, and Anne bit back a laugh when she groaned. "Oh man, I'm so excited, this sucks! At least tell me if Cynthia gets over the Bridge of Quintessence."

"I don't know what that means and besides, you're two books behind, why would you wanna spoil it!"

They shared a laugh and carried on. Anne missed this. She did. In between the page clips and the eagerness flowing in Marcy's voice, it almost seemed like they were back to what they once were: Two girls laughing and making fun of bad jokes, giggling at stuff that didn't make sense in the story. It almost made the worries over Andrias and her parents grow into background noise.

Almost.

Anne perked up. A question had flown past her, and now Marcy stared at her, inquiry clear in her eyes. "Oh, sorry, I zoned out a bit. What'd you say, Marbles?"

"I'm curious, Annarama."

"Curious about what?"

Marcy's eyes traveled over her shoulder for a second. Was it the fatigue? Judging from how she fiddled with her fingers, the question must've been something serious, maybe something about Andrias or what happened back in the castle.

Whatever it was, Anne readied herself as she waited.

And then:

"Is that mine?"

Anne blinked. She ogled her book, then at the bedside table with its medicinal herbs, then the Thai Go logo printed fresh on her shirt. "What's yours?"

She pointed to Anne's waist.

When Anne looked down, the realization struck her like a bat. Under the filtered sunlight, she almost forgot that the yellow jacket around her waist was there to begin with, snug and tight in that hard knot Anne tied everytime she stepped out of the house.

And somehow, it remained clean from countless dimensional hops and Super Saiyan power-ups. And now it was here. Being scrutinized by her and the girl opposite her.

With that, she started to sweat.

Right, that.

A nervous laugh burst out from her mouth, making Marcy stare at her more out of concern.

How was she going to explain that?

"Oh, yeah! I almost forgot!" She rubbed her neck, trying her best to pick out the right reasons in her mind, but nothing stuck out to her. "It's a funny story actually, so funny that you'll probably forget in the morning so why not another time?"

A smile formed. "I don't know, Anne." Her eyes scrunched up too in pleasure, pressing her thumb against Anne's knuckles. "I'm all for sleeping to a comedy. Remember when we watched Borat? I laughed so hard I passed out."

"Oh, Mar-mar, that's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?" She then pulled her hand away, frowning. "Unless I'm pushing you, then I'll just—"

"No, no. You're fine!" What wasn't fine was how her heart pounded against her chest. Or, that the more she tried to take a deep breath, Marcy's growing concern made her laughter sound more like an old man wheezing from an asthma attack.

Anne was about to make a dumbass out of herself and that was fine! As long as she stayed calm and explained then maybe she wouldn't feel nervous about this.

Wait, why was she nervous anyway? It was just a jacket!

Oh, she knew why.

"Okay." Anne placed the book down, trying to regain her breath. Might as well go for it. What was the worst that could happen? Don't answer that. "So you remember how I've been trying to find my way back after I got through the portal?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I didn't want to forget. Not like I would've but I thought you died and I knew taking down Andrias was the only way to avenge you and get Sasha back." Anne sharply inhaled — words speeding past her ears. "So I thought 'Hey, I'll carry your jacket so I don't forget' and I basically wore it around everyday until I finally found a way back. So…"

Marcy's stare didn't help her sweating as she spoke, giving jazz hands to finish it all off. "Here I am. Yeah."

Marcy continued to stare at her. She'd never seen her this gobsmacked before; usually she found a way to ask questions, to let her enthusiasm shine through with eager stride, but now she became a deer in the highlights. All agape. All wide-eyed.

Oh Frog, I broke her.

"Mar-mar, you okay?"

"So you wore my jacket as a reminder to stop Andrias," she asked slowly, "after months of finding a way back?"

Anne puffed out her cheeks. "Maybe?"

"Anne…"

"Okay, okay, yeah." She hung her head, defeat in her voice. "I did."

"Oh." Marcy's eyes widened to the size of saucers, a shaky exhale breaking through. "Oh."

Anne stood up. If she didn't get out in the next fifteen seconds, she was going to explode. "Okay, yep! That's it for the Cynthia Coven series! Goodnight, Mar-mar, I'll check up on you later—!"

"Wait, wait!"

Marcy latched onto her wrist. Her ears pounded on, hard to focus with her sweaty palms and the shallowness of her breath. Because this whole situation was awkward and weird and it made her feel funny things in her heart and darn it Anne should've handled this back on Earth — not while they were stuck in the middle of a Frog darn war!

"Anne, please look at me."

She did. 

When she turned, the sight surprised her. Marcy's cheeks had darkened considerably as they held each other's gazes, the hold on her arm still having them tethered to one another.

Then the touch loosened slightly. It didn't speak of fear nor did it speak of pain. It didn't speak of the desperation Marcy once had when she held her fists in the broken halls of the Newtopian castle. What Anne instead found was reassurance. A reassurance in their interlocked hands, at how they gazed intently under the tent canvas, a heat creeping well onto Anne's cheeks too.

"It's really sweet that you wore my jacket like that." Marcy then bore down at the bedding lines, almost squeaking her words. "And very clever! Yeah! Because a physical reminder is a great alternative to notebooks and to-do list, and since my jacket has emotional connotations to me, of course you'd wear it! It just makes sense."

Marcy coughed into her sleeve, words almost a whisper. "You've always been good at improvising, after all."

"Mar-mar..."

"And thank you."

Anne stopped. She could've honed in on the bustling Wartwoodians outside. Or the rustle of the forest trees. But she focused on the comforting tap of Marcy's fingers, and the gleam in the girl's eyes — almost as if Marcy was about to cry.

"You've always been kind," she murmured. Her fingers trailed circles on Anne's palms, leaving her to shudder slightly under the touch. Especially when Marcy's eyes grew half-lidded. Remorse on her lips. "And to know you worked so hard after everything I did to you and Sash, I don't how I'll ever make it up for it."

"You don't have to do that," she said. Her words drifted between them, remembering what Mrs. Wu said a few months ago: That Marcy was the best out of all of them. Because she always needed to be. "What Andrias did was not your fault, and I'll beat him again if he ever makes you think it is."

"Besides," she said, putting on a smile. "Having you beside me has always been enough. Honest."

But Marcy's grief remained on her face, unspoken as her fingers faltered their dragging on Anne's palms.

Because she wanted to hold her hand instead, both their fingers trembling from the bedridden girl's arm.

"Anne, I hurt you. I did. No matter how much I try to justify myself, I still omitted everything about what I knew." Her eyebrows furrowed, glaring more at their shaky hands. "I was selfish. I wasn't honest."

"Don't say that. You didn't know this would happen, I understand this now."

"But you're still angry." Marcy sighed. "I know you are."

The conifers rustled silently. The faraway bugs whistled, occupying each interval as they held hands, their gazes observing anything but the other. Until Anne couldn't think up a better excuse anymore.

As much as Anne tried to forgive, there was something frightening about the resentment in her skin, underneath all that warmth. It went against every lesson she learned. Every lesson of compassion. Or maybe she was just denying it for what it truly was — a tight angry wound that had reason to exist as much as their handlock. 

Her body sagged at the thought. She'd gotten so far, trying to deny anything about herself would reverse so much.

"Yeah," she said softly. "I'm still mad. I don't want to be, but I am. But that doesn't mean I was gonna leave you guys in the middle of a war." The next words were under her breath. "I never wanted you guys to get hurt in the first place."

Marcy brushed her knuckles. "Take as much time as you need."

"I think a few months is enough."

"Or a year."

A smile. "Maybe more."

And Anne held her hand until the silence heard their heartbeats. Until their smiles returned slowly, surely.

"I talked to Sasha before you came in," Marcy said.

"You did?"

She nodded. "Mhm. And I don't know if she told you this, but we both agreed to a concordance." Marcy faltered. "An agreement I mean."

Anne snorted. "You don't have to dumb yourself down around me."

"Heyy, I'm not, I just don't want this to sound...clinical."

"Right."

The younger girl shuffled closer to her, which was surprising enough with the limited room on the bed itself. But when Anne held her eyes, there came recognition of something new. Was it relief? Worry?

"What we agreed on is that you don't have to forgive us. Maybe you'll be mad at us for a long time—"

"Mar-mar, I'm not—"

"Let me finish," she said softly. Anne hesitated. She resolved to caress Marcy's knuckles instead, and, of course, she didn't seem to mind. "Whatever happens, whatever you decide, we're not going to abandon you. If you want us out of your life, we'll respect it. If you want us to stay, then we'll respect that too."

Marcy inhaled, slow and careful. 

"And when you're ready, I'll make sure to be close by."

There had been times where Anne couldn’t predict what her future held. There had been numerous moments where Anne wanted to quit, to get angry, to question how her life hit upon all these coincidences like pinball and found herself in the most surprising of situations.

But when Marcy finished, stared at her, waiting for her to let her statement sink in, everything seemed to click in place. For just a single moment.

Each word had come out resilient, well thought-out. Anne could imagine the planning so clearly: How Sasha and Marcy sat in the same positions as them, sat with their heads together as they discussed what to say. And the more Anne listened, she could only hope that Sasha was just around the corner, ready to say the same things in her own Sasha-like way.

But for now, they gripped each other's hands, squeezed their fingers until Anne could only think of the heat. The burn in her nose. Then the bit-back sob and her trembling lip as Marcy pressed a thumb carefully to Anne's cheek, rubbing the tear trail away.

Because out of everything Anne predicted to find at the other end of the portal, it wasn’t this. 

"You promise?"

Marcy smiled, the ends of her lips twitching weakly. "I promise this time." Her voice broke. "I do."

With it, came the waterworks.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Deadpool 2 review

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS! READ PAST THE BREAK WITH CAUTION!

It’s about time I reviewed this.

I put off reviewing this movie because of some barely-worth-mentioning drama, and it has been on the backburner for months. But after finally watching the Super Duper Cut, it’s time to break my silence and talk about this year’s biggest breath of fresh air and its funniest comedy.

Deadpool 2 is the Aliens of superhero movies. It takes the groundwork laid out by an already fantastic first film and just amps up everything: the humor, the action, the character interactions, all of it is just fine tuned and perfected. Where the first film was an impressive work for a first-time director, blending a romantic arc and an origin story together while delivering all the fun and laughs you’d expect from a character like Deadpool, this movie features a lot more impressive action, which is fitting since it’s given to us by the man behind John Wick and Atomic Blonde, while still delivering all sorts of gut-busting laughs and wonderful character interactions.

So what sort of mess has Wade gotten into this time? Well, after a life-changing event, Wade is down in the dumps and trying to figure out what to do with himself. In his attempts at straightforward X-Men style heroism he ends up being sent to jail alongside the superpowered kid he was trying to save, Russel. Russel soon ends up as the target of the time-travelling cyborg badass known as Cable, and after getting the shit kicked out of him Wade realizes his true calling: saving this kid from Cable. Armed with guns, katanas, a bigger budget, and his all-new X-Force team, can Wade hope to stop Cable from axing Russel?

The beauty of this film is, ultimately, how it manages to subvert expectations. A lot of movies lately have made being subversive into a big selling point; sometimes it works out really well and the movie is all the better for it - see Infinity War, a film that features the heroes failing miserably and ending on a shot of the villain contentedly relaxing after committing galactic genocide, the opposite of what you’d expect from a superhero blockbuster. Sometimes, it works poorly - see The Last Jedi, which features things going the opposite of how you’d expect due to bad writing and characters acting like idiots and trusting the shadiest people possible, the sort of idiocy we thought Star Wars had moved on from after the first two prequels. And then you have films like this, where everything is subverted for hilarity. And nothing in the world is funnier than how it subverts your expectations for Deadpool’s X-Force. Filled with unique and quirky characters like Shatterstar (who remains an alien from Mojoworld, meaning that Mojo is in fact canon in the X-Men cinematic universe. Put him in a movie, Fox) and big names like Bill Skarsgard as Zeitgeist and Terry Crews as Bedlam, not to mention the hilarious everyman without powers that is Peter, the film builds up and hypes their big skydiving scene, blasting “Thunderstruck” as they leap from the plane onto a convoy to save Russel from Cable…

...And then each and every one of them dies brutally, painfully, and horribly. And HILARIOUSLY, that’s the most important thing. I don’t think there is a funnier bit of black comedy in any other film, let alone a superhero film. Even funnier is that the invisible character, who has not spoken a word and who one could easily assume did not actually exist, has an amusing reveal right upon his death, which is the most hilariously wasteful use of an actor I have ever seen. The entire scene is just brilliant in its subversion of our expectations for a badass new hero team, helped for once by the advertising, which built things up so one would expect this team to stick around.

Of course, we have one survivor - Domino, played by Zazie Beetz, a mutant with luck-based powers. She’s one of the numerous highlights of this film, and she plays the character with the laid-back, rolls-with-the-punches attitude a character like Domino deserves. Frankly, I like her a bit more than her comic version. And speaking of new characters, let’s talk about the best new element of the film, Deadpool’s beleaguered badass bro-for-life, Cable. Played by Josh Brolin - complete with the requisite references to The Goonies and Infinity War from Deadpool - he is the ultimate straight man, his gritty, grim badassery contrasting to Deadpool’s zany, wacky bullshit. Of course, that’s not to say Cable gets no good laughs; there’s something to be said for a man who can growl “Dubstep is for pussies” with a straight face. I’m fully of the mind Cable is the best addition to the movie, and I’m praying we get even more of him and Wade interacting in potential sequels.

Then we have our special guest of the hour, the character we’ve all wanted in the X-Men universe, the one, the only, the unstoppable motherfucker to end all motherfuckers… IT’S THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH. And lord is he incredible, especially compared to the dipshit from The Last Stand. Sadly he does not utter “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!” at all in the film, but he does rip Wade in half, confirm he’s Xavier’s half-brother, and threaten to turn Colossus into a cock ring, so it all evens out in the end. In this film, he actually FEELS unstoppable, and though he’s only onscreen in the third act, he definitely uses that screentime effectively, delivering the epic, ultimate smackdown between him and Colossus in what Deadpool helpfully informs us is the movie’s big CGI fight scene.

And speaking of Colossus, he’s even better here than in the first film. His interactions with Wade are hilarious and priceless, which is aided by Wade’s blatant crush on him - Wade at one point gropes his ass, and there is a romantic musical scene that calls back to a similar scene in the first film. He also gets a bit of character growth here, which is great and unexpected. Sadly I can’t say the same for Negasonic Teenage Warhead; she’s relegated to a bit part here, which is a damn shame since she was one of the highlights of the first film. On the plus side, not only is she revealed to be gay, but her girlfriend Yukio is absolutely adorable and charming… though, sadly, she also gets very little to do in the film aside from a cute running gag with her and Wade cheerily exchanging greetings.

Stuff like that is honestly the biggest problem with the film, and even then, the biggest problem is what amounts to a nitpick. Yes, it does suck that some of the characters are underutilized, but it’s hard to be too angry when the rest of the film is so gutbustingly hilarious and action-packed. One thing that did disappoint me a fair bit is Vanessa getting killed in the movie’s opening. Now, unlike many others, I’m not going to whine about “stuffing her in the fridge,” because I think that concept is so absolutely stupid and is used for literally every time a woman gets killed in a story, even if it makes sense for the story and progresses the plot meaningfully and in a well-done way. I don’t think this was awful or tacky, and regardless of anything else, the post-credit scene renders her death a moot point; still, I’m upset that she didn’t get to do anything in this movie aside from be a stand in for Lady Death. I would love if Vanessa got her comic book powers and fought alongside Wade, making them the ultimate power couple. It’s just mild disappointment, though much like with X-Force, it is a pretty subversive move to kill the love interest so abruptly and so quickly, especially when there was every indication Deadpool would get a happy ending… and then even more subversion comes at the end when Deadpool saves her (among many other hilarious moments) via the magic of time travel.

Aside from that, there’s not much else to complain about. The only other minor complaint is that the turn towards more serious elements isn’t always perfect, and some of the stuff with Russell could have been done better, but really, it’s just too hard to get worked up over the flaws. This is a fantastic, funny movie, and one of the best sequels I’ve ever seen. It’s bigger, funnier, flashier, and introduces so many more exciting elements into an already great series. This is how you make a superhero sequel, this is how you make an action-comedy, this is how you make one of the best movies ever. If you like Deadpool, if you like superheroes, if you like action-comedies, movies with great choreography, or love seeing a good subversive film, this is a movie you shouldn’t miss.

As for what version to watch, the Super Duper Cut or the theatrical cut… I have to say that the Super Duper Cut fleshes the story out a lot better and gives some much needed context, as well as adds in some new jokes that were cut from the original, as well as delivering callbacks a lot better and staying more cohesive… but I will say the theatrical cut had some much better jokes that were replaced with some less impressive takes in the Super Duper Cut. Still, the Super Duper Cut is the one I’d recommend watching, just because the story feels more fleshed out, and also because it features Deadpool trying to kill baby Hitler.

Also, I just want to say this: “Ashes” is a better Bond theme than the piece of shit theme song to Spectre.

[biofunmy]

From ‘Looking for Alaska’ to ’13 Reasons Why’

CLOSE

A new season means you need a new show to watch. Here are five series coming this fall. USA TODAY

We keep getting older, but the teens on TV stay the same age. 

There’s been a recent boom in young adult and teen series on TV, especially on streaming services (even HBO is getting into the mix), leading to a lot of good programming for Generation Z – and some mediocre drivel. And with the upcoming debuts of new streaming services Disney+ and Apple TV+, the adolescent marketplace is only going to get more crowded.  

In honor of the recent releases of “Looking for Alaska” on Hulu and “Daybreak” on Netflix (streaming now), we ranked some of the highest-profile teen-focused streaming original series from the past few years.

13 Reasons Why (Photo: Beth Dubber/Netflix, Beth Dubber/Netflix)

10. ’13 Reasons Why’ (Netflix) 

The success of this series, which explains how a teen girl’s suicide affects her classmates and friends, is perhaps the inspiration for the recent boom in teen TV, which is great because it means you can watch any other series on this list for teen hormones and drama. “13 Reasons” is controversial in its depiction of suicide, but just a badly written and acted series that has become more ludicrous the longer it’s around. There really are zero reasons to watch. 

A scene from Netflix’s “Daybreak.” (Photo: Ursula Coyote, Netflix)

9. ‘Daybreak’ (Netflix) 

The latest entry in the young adult subgenre of “teens on their own after something supernatural happens,” Netflix’s zombie apocalypse dramedy portrays a post-nuclear world where the bombs killed everyone over the age of 18 or turned them into “ghoulies” (aka zombies). The series has a few good moments that hone in on Gen Z anxieties about climate change and gun violence, but most of the time it’s trying far too hard to be hip and cool. Netflix’s “The Society” does a far better job of creating characters and conflicts with a very similar concept. 

“Marvel’s Runaways” (Hulu): A group of runaways, including Alex Wilder (Rhenzy Feliz), Molly Hernandez (Allegra Acosta), Chase Stein (Gregg Sulkin) and Gert Yorkes (Ariela Barer), face off against their parents, who are part of a criminal organization. (Photo: Greg Lewis, Hulu)

8. ‘Marvel’s Runaways’ (Hulu)

Hulu’s take on one of Marvel Comics’ best superhero teams is a wild disappointment and disservice to the source material. The series, about a group of super-powered teens fighting with (and running away from) their maybe-evil parents, is slow and plodding, and lacks the heart of the comics while spending too much time on the dull parental plots. It’s far outshined by Freeform’s rival teen Marvel series, “Cloak & Dagger,” which isn’t a streaming original but has its past seasons on Hulu, too.

Jules (Hunter Schafer), left, and best friend/love interest Rue (Zendaya) are torn apart in the Season 1 finale of “Euphoria.” (Photo: Eddy Chen/HBO)

7. ‘Euphoria’ (HBO) 

Sparking nearly as much controversy and conversation as the far inferior “13 Reasons Why,” HBO’s first foray into a younger-skewing series didn’t garner nearly as many viewers as it did headlines. The messy drama is a dark take on being a teen in a modern world with easy access to porn and drugs. Some of its outrageousness (MS-13 drug dealers, frequent teen-sex videos, unauthorized One Direction fan fiction) seems designed to shock rather than tell a story, but when the series takes a step back to focus on its main pair, recovering addict Rue (Zendaya) and transgender teen Jules (Hunter Schafer), it finds a lot more truth in their quieter emotional journey than all its fearmongering about vaping and partying. 

A scene from Netflix’s “The Society.” (Photo: Seacia Pavao, Netflix)

6. ‘The Society’ (Netflix) 

A modern, supernatural take on the classic novel “Lord of the Flies,” the series reveals what happens when high school students are suddenly alone in their quaint New England town with no adults around. Have the kids been transported somewhere? Has something happened to the adults? It’s not immediately clear. The series leans toward cheesy most of the time, but it’s got a good cast (including “Blockers” breakout Kathryn Newton) that sells the relationship drama, which ultimately becomes far more important than the supernatural mystery. 

Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka, center) takes part in a dark baptism in Netflix’s “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” (Photo: DIYAH PERA/NETFLIX)

5. ‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ (Netflix) 

If you need a little darkness and magic, this horror-tinged update on everyone’s favorite teenage witch has you covered. Kiernan Shipka stars as Sabrina, and while it sometimes struggles with acting and tonal consistency, most of the time the series is fun and campy enough to make up for its flaws.

Miles (Charlie Plummer) and Alaska (Kristine Froseth) in “Looking for Alaska.” (Photo: Alfonso Bresciani/Hulu)

4. ‘Looking for Alaska’ (Hulu)

A gauzy, emotional fantasy, “Alaska” is a millennial teen story set in the early 2000s, like the book it’s based on, by “The Fault in Our Stars” author John Green. At a Georgia boarding school, a prank war breaks out between the rich “Weekday Warriors” and the scholarship students, until a tragedy changes everything.  A rare adaptation that improves upon the source material, “Alaska” modernizes and expands the book, bringing greater depth to Alaska (Kristine Froseth), the object of protagonist Miles’ (Charlie Plummer) affections. 

Maya (Maya Erskine, left) and Anna (Anna Konkle) navigate seventh grade together in Hulu’s ‘PEN15.’ (Photo: ALEX LOMBARDI)

3. ‘PEN15’ (Hulu) 

If you are emotionally secure enough to laugh at puberty rather than hide under the covers in embarrassment and shame, then “PEN15” is perfect. One of the best – and most cringe-inducing – shows on television, the series, set in 2000, features comedians Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle playing middle schoolers surrounded by a supporting cast of actual kids. Braces, bowl cuts, crushes and intense awkwardness abound in the riotous series. 

Jessica Barden and Alex Lawther in “The End of the F***ing World” (Netflix) (Photo: Netflix)

2. ‘The End of the F***ing World’ (Netflix)

This weird, violent and surprisingly sweet British series from early 2018 is returning for a second season in December, but the first was a perfectly bookended story about two runaway teens who get in way over their heads. As wild-child Alyssa and self-proclaimed sociopath James, Jessica Barden and Alex Lawther have perfect chemistry and timing, making the dark comedy addictive. The wonderfully ambiguous ending is about to be undone (for better or for worse), so it’s worth experiencing the first season on its own while you can. 

Tyler Alvarez and Jimmy Tatro on ‘American Vandal.’ (Photo: Tyler Golden, Netflix)

1. ‘American Vandal’ (Netflix) 

Although Netflix canceled this gem of a mockumentary after just two seasons, those outings are so superb that a third year may not have been able to match them. The series skewers true-crime documentaries and teen TV shows, by investigating pranks (male genitalia graffitied on faculty cars) with the vigor and detail of a “Making a Murderer”-type docuseries. The first season excels at the true-crime jokes, but the second season, set at a new high school, finds deeper insights, as its main characters have a far more serious crime to investigate (poisoning dozens of students with painful laxatives).

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[neoduskcomics]

Samurai Jack Season 5 Review - Part 1 (SPOILERS)

So, for those of you not in the know, Samurai Jack had a final, conclusive fifth season this year that aired on Toonami/Adult Swim. It consisted of ten episodes which ran successively over 11 weeks (one episode being displaced by a Rick and Morty surprise season premiere). This is going to be a review of that season, with one section dedicated to each episode, and then a “closing thoughts” segment. This review will also be split into two parts since it’s so damn long, so hopefully that will allow more people to actually read it. The second part will go up tomorrow.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

XCII

This episode was loads of fun and set a high standard for what was to come. While not a whole lot happens in terms of advancing the plot, this definitely felt more like an episode that sets the stage for the following nine. It allows us to see what sort of a state both Jack and the world around him are in. The world itself seems very unchanged, but Jack has changed a lot, and we can understand a sort of causality between the two.

We see how fifty years of status quo has left Jack in a torn and jaded state, haunted by hallucinations that chide him over his failure. A Jack tormented by shame, frustration, and survivor’s guilt really gives you a compelling gateway into this new story arc for the character—not to mention the fact that he’s lost his sword. But, we also see that the old Jack is still in there somewhere, as he’s still not willing to back down from a fight or run away from innocents in peril (at least, when he’s not being overwhelmed by tree leaves carrying the visages of his dead parents).

Ashi, our deuteragonist, is also introduced in this episode, and we can see through the circumstances of her birth and upbringing just how deeply Aku’s shit storm has seeped into the earth. We get some really dark and intense imagery in this episode that is unlike anything we’ve seen in the series thus far, and it really serves as a great starting point, pulling the audience in to wonder if and how things could ever go right again. Aku’s got cult followers birthing and torturously training assassins to kill Jack, Jack has lost his sword and nearly his mind, and Aku is no closer to releasing his dark hold on the world at large.

When Jack says in the opening “hope is lost”, these first couple episodes really make you feel it. And yet, again, we can still see glimmers of humanity and hope in our central characters to keep us connected. Jack still fights to survive and to help survivors. Ashi, despite her horrendous upbringing, shows glimmers of a soft side and curiosity in the beauty of the world beyond her underground den. The episode does a great job of balancing out its darkness and light. It lets things get intense, but also remembers to keep a bit of warmth and sentiment, however subtle, to keep the emotional stakes from getting out of hand.

And with that in mind, this brings me to Scaramouche, who is, to me, the absolute best part of this episode, and maybe one of the best parts of this whole series. After such carnage and emotional distress, we get introduced to a scene that reminds us “Hey, guys. This is still Samurai Jack. We can still have fun.” And “fun” is definitely a fitting descriptor for this character. Apparently he was modeled after a real actor and singer, Sammy Davis Jr., and while I’m not personally familiar with his work, I’m sure he was a great entertainer if Scaramouche is anything like him. The way this robot assassin talks, moves, dresses, and fights are all wildly stylish and amusing. Moving mindless puppets with a magic flute did give me Naruto flashbacks, but telekinetically manipulating his sword through scatting and his kickass tuning fork blade that blows up shit with residual vibrations were crazy creative and fun.

Overall, this was a great episode. It wasn’t mind-blowing, but it definitely hooked me in to see what came next.

 XCIII

This is probably my favorite episode of the entire season or, hell, the entire series. Not only does Jack have seven highly trained and highly deadly assassins chasing after him, not only is he in the most mortal peril he’s ever been in in his entire life, not only is it fantastically animated, not only are the pacing, music, and atmosphere drenched with the most palpable tension and adrenaline…but—BUT—it completely removed all of my hang-ups about Aku having a replacement voice actor.

And I don’t want to make this out to be like it was the highlight of the episode. Because it wasn’t. There was way more stuff to like in this episode. But goddamn, man. In the middle of all this horrible, super dark, super serious and traumatic shit, what is the first scene we get reintroducing the show’s main antagonist and the literal sole cause of all this horrific chaos and torment?

We get Aku waking up to an alarm clock, smashing it, opening his nightstand drawer, pulling out two flaming eyebrows, and then placing them on top of his eyes as though they were miniature eye-hats.

That was it. I was on board.

And let me emphasize the fact that I don’t think this scene was comedic genius for the fact that it had some of the absolute most clever visual or scripted humor ever in an animated series. But for me, especially in a show such as this, comedy works best when it is used to break up tension. A lot of comedy comes from surprise—seeing something somewhere or in such a way that you weren’t expecting. When you use comedy to unexpectedly break a pattern of darkness and desolation, it becomes that much funnier simply because of that contrast. Aku could’ve been reworked to be a much more serious and diabolical threat in this season, sort of like how he was in the “Birth of Evil” prequels, but they did not go that route, and I was super happy that they didn’t when this scene happened.

Giving Aku such a comical introductory scene not only provided much needed levity to the opening of this season, but it also reaffirmed to the audience that we weren’t just getting some post-apocalyptic nightmare-scape. We were going to get a story with a widely varied tone which, for me, is my favorite type of story. I enjoy narratives that let you gasp, cry, clench your teeth, and laugh. Hideo Kojima, the creator and overseer of the Metal Gear franchise (before leaving Konami) said something similar about how he thinks all stories, no matter how serious, require levity. This was a primo example of that.

But, okay, on with the actual bulk of the episode. Whatever that initial Aku scene did for giving the show brightness and levity, the main Jack plot did for reinforcing the show’s drama, atmosphere, and tension. This episode is so beautifully paced, scored, and animated that I honestly don’t even know where to begin in extolling it. Keeping Jack’s humanity in tact from the first episode proves to be an incredibly essential calculation on the part of the writers here, because without it, all we would’ve been seeing is a man who has given up on life and success, following his animal instincts to survive.

But this is Jack. Even without his sword and without his ability to look at anything without it turning into an emaciated victim of war, he still wants to live and fight another day. We remain invested in Jack as a character, and so we are completely and absolutely terrified for him as we see him go up against an enemy the likes of which we have never seen before. Jack is completely outnumbered and seemingly outmatched, and the episode plays this out with masterful execution. Jack tries to fight at first of course, and we get not a fight where Jack is just mowing down baddies effortlessly, but where he’s in a real, life-threatening struggle. It’s packed with adrenaline. And then, when he’s quickly cornered, we shift into a state of survival horror. Where are they? What will Jack do? How will he survive? Can he survive?

The colors, the lighting, the environments, the slow pacing of the events punctuated by huge rushes of intense action—it all plays out beautifully and made me feel like I was watching a segment of a foreign animated film. We also get a deeper look into Jack’s heavily weighted psyche as he converses with an illusory version of himself. We see all of his shame, frustration, and even suicidal notions given a voice—and not just any voice, but his own. It works very well to show us the struggle going on within him, even if it is a bit played out as a plot device.

The ending sequence where he slits that girl’s throat, while we all knew it had to happen eventually, is still a bit of a shock both for us and Jack. And even with this pyrrhic victory, Jack is not only now at death’s door, but he’s still being pursued by the seven (now six) still-deadly and still-threatening assassins. It’s a grim ending to the episode, and it really leaves the mind to wonder just what could possibly happen next.

 XCIV

This episode basically marks the end to the new season’s opening act. It’s where Jack pulls his shit together, is reawakened with a new resolve to fight and survive, and (mostly) puts an end to his deadly pursuers. While it didn’t give me the same highs as the previous episode might’ve, it still worked quite well to give this segment of the story some closure and have Jack undergo some real growth as a character (something that’s almost a bit of a stranger to the Samurai Jack series as a whole).

Seeing Jack in such dire straits, bleeding out into the river, still running for his life, struggling to remain conscious and yet still vigilant and on guard, keeps us on our toes as we know he’s not out of the woods yet (literally). But we are allowed to ease off a bit once the wolf from the previous episode returns (who we may have thought was just a thinly veiled symbol) He meets Jack and we see the healing process that Jack undergoes. While this part of the episode may come across a bit as padding, I think it was important for us to see Jack recuperate and see him form a connection to something—in this case, the wolf. Again, it’s a reminder that humanity still dwells in that guilt-ridden mind, and it makes the process of Jack’s both physical and mental healing seem natural, so that he is prepared for the climactic fight at the end of the episode.

It is also in this time that Jack is able to recall a vital lesson from his childhood. It was nice to see Jack when he was a child living with his family—a good reminder of the time before; what it was that Jack lost and once sought to reclaim. And, more importantly to the plot, it provided Jack with some much needed guidance. Jack understands from this memory that he is responsible for his actions, but his actions are also what define him as a person. It was a succinct if a bit simplistic way of getting Jack through the guilt of killing another human being. To me, this also helped absolve Jack of some of his other guilt as well—the guilt of never having returned home to save his people. The flashback itself is well-told, giving us just enough to understand what Jack experienced, what he and his father were feeling, and why it was such an important lesson for Jack to learn.

The resolving fight that follows is of course greatly animated and a lot of fun. The tides have turned, and Jack is now ready and capable to take his assailants down. This turning of the tide is also reflected in the background. In the previous episode, the landscape was always dark, foggy, and obfuscated in one way or another, complementing and enshrouding his black-clad enemies. Here, the land is so pristinely white that the only thing you can actually see is Jack and his opponents. It harkens back to the “Samurai vs Ninja” episode wherein while the Ninja uses the darkness as his domain, Jack uses the light to combat the darkness.

We also get a tiny bit more of Ashi’s humanity working its way to the surface in this episode. We see her volunteer for guard duty and then use the opportunity to gaze at the starry sky. It’s not a lot, but it communicates to us that there’s something more to her than there is to her sisters, and that we can probably expect more to be explored.

Jack, of course, beats all the bad guys as the episode leaves us on an almost literal cliffhanger, as Jack and Ashi are dropped from a towering precipice to the ground far below. It’s not quite as intense or exciting a cliffhanger as the last couple episodes, but the show at this point has demonstrated enough quality and gotten us invested enough in the characters and events that we’ll definitely tune in again anyway. Overall, a well-told story and a pretty fitting end to the season’s first act.

 XCV

This is probably what you could consider to be the first “comedy” episode of the season, and it actually comes at a good time. Jack has just dealt with probably the shittiest situation in his life (maybe short of the time he realized that he was sent thousands of years into the future, that his whole family and nation were dead, and that Aku essentially had taken over the world). If there was a time for some levity, it was probably now.

Here is where we first see Jack and Ashi directly interact outside of combat, and we really get a sense of just how thorough her brainwashing is, in spite of her glimmers of humanity. What results from these interactions varies a bit. We get some genuinely funny exchanges, but we also get a lot of Ashi consistently and unyieldingly berating Jack and praising Aku. While I still welcomed the episode at the time despite it not being my favorite, and while I do still think it was a nice change of pace for the season, I now kind of recognize that it wasn’t just a break from the incredibly tense first several episodes. It was actually more of an indication of the general direction the show would now move in, and this has caused me to revise my initial opinion of it.

This is getting ahead of the episode, but a lot of the story that follows relies heavily on Jack’s relationship with Ashi. In fact, their relationship is kind of the emotional backbone for the final act of the whole season, and for that to work, we really needed something skillfully and gracefully defined. This episode, if you ask me, was a bit of a missed opportunity—in retrospect, at least.

This was basically 20 minutes of us having nothing but Ashi and Jack alone together, but instead of learning more about them and them learning more about one another, we spend most of it just repeating the same motions over and over again, either to play up the pointlessness of Jack trying to reach Ashi, or for the sake of escalating the absurd comicality of it all. Or perhaps both. But in either case, especially when the past few episode were so rich with characterization and insight, it does kind of feel like some time was wasted here, and this is reinforced by the fact that we really don’t get much meaningful dialogue or interaction between Jack and Ashi even after this episode, which I will discuss when we get to the relevant episodes.

This is part of why I felt like Ashi’s turnaround at the episode’s end was somewhat unnatural. Okay, as a scene by itself, it’s pretty well done. We have Ashi flash back to a moment from her childhood concerning a ladybug, and then a parallel is drawn with Jack and another ladybug. It mainly uses visuals to communicate to us how Ashi has a change in perspective, and it’s done pretty well. But I couldn’t really shake just how stark a change it is when, for the first couple episodes, Ashi was unyieldingly determined to kill Jack, and then for this entire current episode, Ashi was totally closeminded and did nothing but hold fast to her belief that Jack was evil and Aku was the shit.

I’m not saying that I didn’t believe this shift in perspective could’ve happened, but, again, it feels like there were a lot of opportunities, not just in this episode but in the whole season, to give us a more natural and emotionally poignant transition. This discussion of Ashi’s turnaround from evil to good will be further explored in the next episode, and I hope that my views on it will be more substantiated by the evidence provided there.

However, all that said, this episode was still good. It was nice to see Jack find himself resolute enough to try to save Ashi not just from bodily peril, but from the poison in her own mind. We get more of Jack debating with his inner, negative self over whether he should continue to bother with all the trouble, and Jack struggling to remain steadfast in his resolve. We also got a bit of a return to the show’s roots, putting Jack in a new and fantastical environment with strange creatures and obstacles for him to explore and overcome—only this time with a very, very vexing and trying companion (who also wants to kill him). The comedy in this episode also still worked pretty well, and I did enjoy some of the ways in which Ashi and Jack displayed that comical chemistry. Not an amazing episode, but still a pretty good one.

 XCVI

Scotsman is back. This is easily the highlight of this episode. He is very old, but he hasn’t lost a step (well, figuratively speaking). And he and his (now deceased?) wife were apparently very busy making an able-bodied army of warrior daughters, except not the vicious murderous kind that we were familiar with from the first couple episodes. Seeing Scotsman charge into battle against Aku before bombarding him with his trademark longwinded flurry of insults was great for longtime fans of the show, even if it did end with Aku laser-eyeing him to death (and then thankfully him returning as a ghost). It was another fun and funny return to a beloved character from the show’s history, not unlike Aku’s own introductory scene this season.

That being said, I actually did not care for much of the remainder of this episode. I discussed previously how I felt that there was some missed opportunity in exploring Jack and Ashi’s relationship. It instead devoted an entire episode to Jack fruitlessly trying to reach Ashi, only to be spurned at every turn and then only for Ashi to undergo a decisive emotional epiphany through a single moment at the episode’s end. Here, we now spend half the episode with Jack providing Ashi with exposition, explaining to her how Aku is evil and, like, literally just the worst with some visual aids.

Now if you were to ask me how else I would’ve done it, I honestly couldn’t tell you. All I can tell you is that the high bar set by the first several episodes of this season left me a bit disappointed with this one and the ramifications that spread outward from it, both forward and back. It lessened my appreciation of the prior episode and it made me feel like there was something missing from the episodes that followed. Again, this turning of Ashi from Aku to Jack, her emotional transformation, and the resultant relationship between Jack and Ashi was all incredibly important to the season’s ultimate plot, and having an episode that’s half exposition and half nearly meaningless action took a lot away from all that, at least for me.

And, yes, I felt that a lot of this episode felt kind of insubstantial. Once we get to the village with the dying villagers and abducted children, it basically turns into a generic villain-of-the-week plot where we don’t really learn anything new or interesting about the characters, the characters themselves don’t really undergo any interesting changes or experiences, and the plot itself is just not really all that captivating. Jack has that moment at the end where all the children seemingly die and he finally gives into the mysterious horseback rider in the distance, but it all feels a little cheap. After all, those children didn’t actually die, for one. And for another, Jack didn’t even cause their seeming death, which is obvious. It’s not as though he finally gave into his anger and started beating the kids up, and then they all collapsed and Jack was like “oh, no! I killed them all! I must accept my punishment!”

You could argue that it was more guilt from not being able to save them rather than from causing their deaths directly, but I would argue that this is in direct contradiction to the seminal lesson he learned only two episodes ago—it is the decisions you make and the actions that follow that define who you are. Jack knows this now. He decided to help the villagers and save those children. He decided not to harm them and do whatever he could to survive and help. They SEEMINGLY died anyway, but if he really understood this lesson, and it was pretty clearly conveyed that he did, while he may not be totally absolved of guilt, he definitely isn’t at a tipping point where he should now face the music and kill himself.

But perhaps that isn’t really the problem. Maybe the real problem here is that, I mean, come on, it’s all just a misunderstanding. Jack left two minutes too early to see that the kids were actually fine and for Ashi to explain to him what happened. Whatever character development (or regression) that follows is merely the result of an overly convenient plot device and not because of any natural causality. I might be sounding a bit harsh, but this is exactly the sort of character drama that I hate. I hate drama that is caused not by problems with the characters and the consequences of their inherent flaws and deliberate actions, but drama that happens because it’s necessitated by the story to promote conflict.

This episode was quite underwhelming for me as it was half heavy-handed explanation and half mindless, predictable action. It lacked the emotional punch of the first several episodes and really left me wanting more.

When Ashi was left at the end to go save Jack, it was also the first time where I really felt that more should’ve been done to establish a more meaningful or at least complex relationship between her and Jack. Sure, Ashi now had to save Jack, but is there really enough of a connection there to make it a journey I’m going to be invested in? After all, their relationship is presently defined by nothing other than a single one-sided connection Ashi made via flashback and Jack lecturing Ashi about how wrong she is and how bad Aku is. I would have to watch the next episode to see for myself whether that would be enough.

PART 2 TOMORROW.

[hazemehab]

Experimenting with Freudian Concepts

This might well be gathered under a category of the use and abuse of Freud, but it’s also an experiment, and akin to all experiments, there’s play involved. Like a child who doesn’t know about architecture or its principles, or mechanics of any kind, yet attempts - in enjoyment - to build and rebuild structures and castles of different forms, me too, like a child, would attempt to toy with these concepts without any claim whatsoever of being rigorous, consistent, or authoritative in any way. Maybe whoever reads this should regard it as a piece of literature - in the very limited, very narrow sense - perhaps, a mental exercise, or just scattered premature remarks of random thoughts.

Now, let us tackle an issue that has proved to be irritating for me, for the past six years, I think. The inability to write about it, in fear of lacking enough knowledge or understanding, in fear of being too harsh, and even in fear of being so mercilessly ridiculed - there’s always fear involved - regardless of the fact that for the past couple of years * three I guess * I have lost the appetite to write, sadly enough - perhaps were among the reasons behind such an inability, although I have discussed it over and over with many close friends of mine. But in favouring speech over writing at the time - which may be warmer, more human, more alive than the cold act of writing - wasn’t I as well afraid unconsciously of having the exact same issue that I’m fiercely attacking and criticizing? Wasn’t I, too, afraid of being insignificant, the same way the event appears “not” to be, while accusing those who embrace the issue’s core ideas as insignificant? 

Write it down and we will see.

The setting of our scene is as follows, an event that took place, an opening not experienced before in our lifetime - thus an event - and the violent shutting down of such an opening. 

Grace has left this soil, vowing not to return back, and an enigmatic will - wills? - is tirelessly trying to wipe out its traces left behind, its marked footprints in this soil as if this terrain was never crossed before - but is that so?

The tune of defeat was in the air, there’s a love for drama, one that was actually instilled in us, everywhere, all the time, for more than one hundred years, thanks to mass media advancements. Everything is dramatic, tragic even, but not much of everything is really tragic. A great deal of this sense of the tragic - and the comic, and the tragicomic, too, you name it - is theatrical. There’s a difference between reading Oedipus Rex or Hamlet for the first time, and then watching it years later - in its same standard classical guise, unchanged - after hearing about it millions of times, reading about it, contacting its metaphors everywhere, hearing their references uttered in every occasion, watching it again and again and again that it seems endless. To be or not to be, kill the father, mother is married, blind yourself, and wander aimlessly, etc.

Watching it years later, you are almost if not fully dissociated - unless adaptation is involved, as in every interpretation - the feelings it instills are not thrilling anymore, it’s repetitive but fearing that you might be missing on something, you might have lost the old thrill - the text, the performance hasn’t changed, so it’s you who must have changed! - you start to exaggerate, you recall, you wish to claim the sense of the tragic again, you want catharsis to take place again.

And we also have love for mimesis. 

There’s a love for mimicking what has taken place, re-enacting - and revisiting crime scenes either done by us or towards us - The rituals of losing a beloved one, the rituals of being rejected in a job admission, and the rituals of writing down. The same goes for a trend, maybe social media made it easier for us to notice a phenomenon that is “trends” which are rapidly changing - not only to notice it but to live it, and in most cases to live by it - but there were always generational trends of behaviour, expressing oneself, the role and importance and aims of writing, writing styles, and thinking about writing and styles. That was always the case, was always there in newspapers, school textbooks, political speeches, tv programs, propaganda slogans, novels, folk songs, and of course, cinema.

The tragic is a hero, a revolutionary, a martyr. He has to be defeated at the end, we all know that and we witness it without any change of his fate, we love him, we sympathize with him, but we want him to die at the end. If not dead, he wouldn’t be tragic anymore, if not defeated, he wouldn’t be commemorated and admired, he would be a comic, mostly a fraud, but always an actor, a violation of the unwritten contract we signed with the institution of the dramatic in our social life. Adel Emam as an “actor” - and you go to see his movies based on the desire to watch him, not the characters that he plays - and a comic, is allowed to triumph at the end, tragedy is permitted here if the comic protagonist would triumph and avert a tragic fate. The comic is allowed tragedy as long as he wins at the end, and the tragic is allowed comedy as long as he is defeated in the end - even if the ending is on a high note, you know that what follows from there, what you haven’t seen, will never see, and is yet to come, is tragic.

No writer - taking seriousness seriously, which is probably the unconscious sarcastic comment on his mediocrity - who wishes to be significant, would like to see himself as a comic. The “serious” writer is always tragic, he might be humorous, sarcastic, cynical to the extreme, but he would always maintain his tragedy, his suffering, and his defeat(s) which would take the place of satisfaction and fulfillment, for the tragic is always defeated, and the “serious” writer\thinker\whatever deserves to be defeated, and defeated badly, an epic defeat in an apocalyptic fantastic war - not a battle - but war, “The” war.

There’s always an enemy for the tragic, and as his significance grows, his enemy has to be of greater power and might. Sure, there are enemies for the comic and the dramatic, melodramatic, and to everyone and nearly to everything, there’s always an enemy but no conception of what an enemy is, perhaps. And sure, in a state of conflict and enmity, you try to anticipate your opponent, taking steps ahead of him if you have enough power and resources. The greater the danger is, the greater are your precautions and pre-emptive blows. But the tragic diverts this common state into another path. The tragic is in war with everything and is losing on every front, the enemies are gigantic dragons - and dragons had a long and peculiar history of enmity and friendship - thousand years old; the state, the culture, history, tradition, religion, nature, capitalism, language, being, and of course, himself. Himself paradoxically enough, is stronger than himself thus defeating him each time - but aren’t we all? And even better, are we?

But the defeats are constant, he would only indulge in what he would call “small victories,” minor satisfactions for the Id that would only maintain his existential narrative of him still being alive, and still, writing - if you’re defeated on every front, constantly, you should by now be either dead or captive, enslaved perhaps, and wouldn’t be interesting? The idea that you’re actually captivated by those who defeated you, and like a slave in ancient greece - since tragedy was greek - you indulge yourself with your small victories, enchanted by their dazzling light of achieving both satisfactions of a tragic writer, pleasure and death? And who would captivate you, if not your most powerful enemy? If you’re your greatest enemy since you’re of the greatest significance as a tragic, wouldn’t it mean that you’re held captive by yourself? And wouldn’t these “small” victories be big enough for you if it weren’t for the tragic narcissist that you are?

What should it look like, then? A revolution, as much as it is loved, it has to be defeated in the eyes of the tragic writer. It has to die, and we have to keep mourning it in order to be immortal, in order to be truly tragic deserving a place in some pantheon downtown. An overwhelming opening that is the event cannot be tolerated, apprehended or embraced by the tragic, a secret death wish was there for the beloved one - revolution - and as a proper tragic hero would always do, his love object is personified, it grows, it acts, it suffers, and it is killed violently. It dies and it’s in its death that a tragic writer discovers his relief - maybe because it also acted as a super-ego he couldn’t tolerate? Was it too much for him - and disturbed by such relief, irritated, it’s now revealed that he actually hated it, thus regret begins. Significant enough as he sees himself, he didn’t just witness its death, he must have taken part in it, his participation must have been there in the act of killing, therefore the mourning that would last forever, a mourning that would be the emblem a tragic writer would carry, as a sign of his status as a tragic.

But it’s not enough, it’s no longer enough. There is a need, always a need for rational representation of the issue at hand, there must be some consistent narrative there, and the tragic writer would spare no time in composing a grand symphony in order for him and for others to sing along it. It’s no longer sufficient for the “serious” writer to compose a simply structured folk song about loss and alienation and the overwhelming capacity of his enemy and the overwhelming love for his lost beloved. No, it has to be a symphony, a grand structure of four movements, an overly complicated and pretentious counterpoint, but with an accessible and flattened sense of polyphony and orchestration, for both he wants to appeal to a larger audience, not only tragic writers as himself, not only writers other than himself, but also tragic subjects, and so a distance has to be maintained, a certain proximity. He has to be pretentious and complicated but not as much as to alienate his audience - already a vulnerable audience, like most of not all of our generation, and vulnerability to the tragic as such, since we seem to have witnessed enough of it, even born in its shadowy consequences - those whom he wishes to accompany him in singing the symphony of mourning. The other reason is that he simply doesn’t understand neither music nor harmony - even the principles - well enough, so when it comes to a colourful and rich sense of polyphony, he would fail to arrange it even if he wishes to. The theatricality of his sense of the tragic is evident as he would struggle more and more to identify with the tragic, sees himself as a serious tragic figure, painting himself talking to skulls, but he is willing only to pay half the price, counting on his seemingly - real before his eyes - tragedy to pay for the rest and to compensate for any lack of a real will to know, for any lack of a real will to really understand.

Satisfied with his narrative - about himself and others, where he’s paradoxically blamed and at the same time cannot be blamed, for his end is already destined - he would happily and sadly declare the defeat of a revolution - and along with it himself - in the most eloquent and pretentious way that time and space could permit. Using his long cultivated skills of writing as a tragic writer par excellence, making use of whatever half-baked understandings of what he reads, quick analogical associations that’s utterly nonsensical and embarrassing but shiny and promising with something more - which is never there - and taking only what serves his narcissistic tragic narrative, what’s left behind is always more important. What really happened? And what was really said by those whom you amputated their jargon for your failing epic of defeat?

And yet, there’s a “thing” here. The tragic writer, in carrying out his projection, is haunted by the dead - loved\hated - ones, and the haunting is not due to guilt - alone? - at this time, it’s due to violation. Violating the dead, hostile feelings brought about by his half-witted mediocre attempts in declaring its death - and the way he does so - appears on the surface again. The hostility we have against the deceased beloved ones - the ghosts of now - is seen as pointed towards us rather than emerging from us. And here, the tragic writer is mirroring the “oppressor,” for there is an oppressor - the tragic writer is not entirely delusional - there is an oppressor who mirrors the tragic writer’s attitude, but exactly like a mirror reflection, your right hand’s reflection is not in the right if viewed from the opposite side. For the oppressor there are things - a lot of things - that have reverse positions, but these things themselves remain the same. It’s the same opening, anyway. 

For the tragic writer here, who claims phony mastery of knowledge of what he’s talking about and of his narrative - to the extent of denying such mastery - his feelings and attitudes and reactions are what they are, but it’s his assessment that is off target. The thing he loved and hated simultaneously - for various reasons as I might have said, and additionally there might be others linked to his very authority and mastery that was threatened by such an opening, much like the oppressor but in different sense and over a different audience, but I’m tired of writing now and I have to end this paragraph - is not lost. It’s not an object that can be lost. It’s not a person that can be defeated, a plant to be decomposed, a machine to be destroyed - metaphors are interesting, though - and it’s not a treasure to be buried or hidden for now only to be discovered by generations later. It’s - and here it would be a bold claim, perhaps - an opening that came to do away with everything and nothing in particular, it’s a process that no one can initiate or claim to take a hold on, not to mention to kill, to stop, or to defeat, or represent. The tragic writer’s perceptual faith is what had to be done away with, it’s as if he thought that his daughter who is dead so he would go through all that, while in real life she isn’t dead, and when she suddenly comes back one day - in real life and not as a ghost - he would discover that she’s been his mother all along from the beginning and that he doesn’t have a sister to begin with.

Now, I wonder,  who’s personifying events?

[lets-carameth]

Part of our ongoing Doc Nights collection, AND WITH HIM CAME THE WEST screens July 17 at 7:30 PM at the AFS Cinema with director Mike Plante in individual. Purchase tickets. Plante may even be a part of us the following night time for a Moviemaker Dialogue on brief movies.

The gunfight at the OK Corral was a legend made famous by Hollywood studio westerns over many many years, from John Ford’s MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) all the option to George Cosmatos’ ‘90s blockbuster, TOMBSTONE. In his provocative documentary, filmmaker Mike Plante examines the Hollywood legacy of Wyatt Earp by way of the many movies that rewrote history to immortalize him. Plante shall be in attendance for the screening on July 17 and in addition take part in a Moviemaker Dialogue at Austin Public on July 18.

Here he shares his thoughts on what impressed him to make the movie and some of the questions it poses:

What’s it about the story of Wyatt Earp that inspired you to make this film?

I grew up in western Colorado, so apart from seeing western films and reading tons of books about the “real” wild west, I used to be all the time operating round ghost towns. It was enjoyable as a kid, however unusual too. Going to a totally shaped city that was super wealthy for a number of years that had collapsed right into a shell was surreal. It was additionally lovely, and sad and damaged—a mysterious comic ebook come to life.

As an adult I noticed how insane these frontier towns have been. The immense circumstances that everybody had to overcome, the harsh places, the mountains, the deserts. The group that had to come together to survive. I additionally realized the brutal politics of manifest future. The difficult historical past of the people concerned, both good and dangerous. The truth is way extra fascinating than the mythology.

In the late ‘80s I moved to Tucson, Arizona, and lived there for a decade. Tombstone is nearby and I turned more serious about that specific town history. There were not that many duel-style gunfights in the west, most have been myths, so the OK Corral caught out much more.

After I discovered that Wyatt lived lengthy enough to go to Hollywood and go to film sets, this specific story turned much more surreal. Tons of western characters reinvented themselves in their very own lifetime—however for Earp to go to filmmakers in Hollywood and ask them to make a film about him, to help type his legacy, that’s subsequent degree.

Have been there specific films you watched rising up that influenced your understanding of the Wyatt Earp story better than others?

I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s so the western was not a well-liked genre at that second. It was western characters in outer area as an alternative. I noticed the older Earp movies on TV. I favored them however they felt like a bygone era that was utterly faraway from trendy occasions, closer to King Arthur than Al Capone.

The previous films really blended together over time—one of the ways films create American mythology. You start to assume that this many films on one subject couldn’t probably misinform you, which is absurd. And then the revisionist ​DOC is from 1971 however was never talked about, I by no means saw it on TV. One thing like ​MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER​ (1971) is unimaginable, not a few historical individual yet so sensible and deep. But I by no means saw it on TV. We didn’t have a revival movie theater on the town, and these weren’t the huge VHS tapes of the second.

There have been a couple of non-Earp westerns that basically influenced me in terms of their fashion, films that felt absolutely true and very important although they weren’t sensible. The spaghetti westerns ​ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968) and ​MY NAME IS NOBODY (1973) are still superb to me. They paid off in phrases of overboard action and large story, but they’ve received complicated characters in the center of them.

In ​ONCE,​ Henry Fonda is heroic and delightful however a horrible villain. Claudia Cardinale is a robust feminine lead preventing for her land, this ain’t a 1930s western. ​NOBODY is a satire however succeeds in the similar method, with Fonda (in his final western) even stating, “there were never any good ol’ days.” It’s with these movies that I began to assume perhaps the west was far more superior, bizarre, and messy, and that folks of their day have been very trendy.

When ​THE LONG RIDERS (1980) got here out, I was obsessed with it. Again, a contemporary movie with trendy digital camera and modifying, with characters extra nuanced into a gray hat, fairly than a white-hat black-hat simplicity. But this time the characters had the names of real individuals (the James-Youthful gang). What I needed as a child was not clean propaganda, however messy realism. What did it seem like to be in the similar place as these individuals? Including all the mundane moments. That movie is nearly a musical, the soundtrack is just not booming however true to life, full with a marriage dance and characters enjoying instruments.

So then once I saw the Earp movies again as an grownup, ​GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL (1957) for example, they felt unusual. The type was great—Technicolor-delicious—but the appearing was really stilted and the story was so jumbled. There’s some fascinating stuff, like how the town had gun control and some awesome gambling scenes. But there’s rather a lot of pressured romance and no dangerous language. The fun elements have been enjoyable, but the G-rated-ness made you marvel what happened in real life.

As a movie fan doing historical analysis for years, I began to piece together the scenes and the lasting impact films have had on history. Once I began seeing unimaginable found-footage films, like Craig Baldwin’s ​TRIBULATION 99 ​(1992) and Naomi Uman’s REMOVED (1999), or even Cindy Sherman’s images, I received a blueprint for the concepts. I’m working in the vein of Thom Anderson’s LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF ​(2003), simply ‘Wyatt Earp Plays Himself.’

By the means, I don’t assume I’m anyplace close to the degree of these filmmakers! I’m just standing on shoulders.

Why do you assume Hollywood has returned repeatedly to the retelling of Earp, Tombstone, and the gunfight at the OK Corral?

Money. That’s the primary aim of studios, Hollywood is a business. Westerns fall in and out of reputation, however they will all the time relate to the present occasions in a method or another, and action movies make lots of cash. This story made cash earlier than, it will probably once more.

However you may also look to people who really believed in the story and the complexity, who then had enough pull in the business to get a movie made, like Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner. They appear to know the trendy connections between at this time and the wild west, not only in social issues however in the sort of people who reinvent themselves into legends.

And it’s in all probability a helluva lots of fun to make a western.

All through it, the movie explores the blurring of strains between reality and fiction. In the end, is that distinction essential, or does it not matter?

I feel it issues. We need to consider in historical past. I feel it starts to matter more as a result of individuals run with what they need to consider, and that’s what I’m making an attempt to explore.

Even when an elevator doesn’t put the quantity 13 on the buttons… there’s nonetheless a 13th flooring. Why can we do this to society? I’m actually curious about how that blurring occurs and how it’s typically simply accepted. People need to feel protected on this large planet and we create issues to be comforted.

The mythology of the past could be extremely inventive and inspirational. I feel most people know that once you examine the previous, there is a layer of interpretation concerned. From the author sharing the info to the individual reading it. So, you determine what is trustworthy when it’s worthwhile to, and what’s just enjoyable and entertaining. And that’s why professional journalists and critical historians and librarians actually matter.

In the film, I give my take on what happened, however I don’t inform the viewers what to think about the occasions or how the films have warped historical past. This can be a poem about Wyatt Earp, not an encyclopedia. I’m supplying you with the info and we should always all have a dialogue about it. The actual danger is just not talking about history.

At the similar time, let’s have fun. I typically marvel if individuals with opposing opinions would get alongside once they realized that they all consider in UFOs.

The film also takes us by means of the very beginning of movie and its evolution as a way of storytelling – in this occasion the story of an actual historical individual. What do you assume is the subsequent wave of Westerns and filmmaking know-how and why is it essential that moviegoers proceed to be all in favour of historical past?

We like to recollect our personal lives as film scenes so it’s not a surprise to keep making these connections to historical past as entertainment. Some historic figures are so nuts, so fun, it makes a terrific film. Let’s snort and cry and study together, that’s what each films and historical past are for.

The western is such an everlasting genre and filmmakers retains pushing the limits of drama, comedy and action. I love to see crossovers with different genres. The Zellner Brothers’ ​DAMSEL (2018) is nice, principally a romantic dark-comedy in the west. The ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINE collection by Tsui Hark must be counted among the great westerns. Or just extra stories with unique characters, like Kelly Reichardt’s ​MEEK’S CUTOFF (2010). And I’m undoubtedly not the first to explore the western in a documentary—everybody ought to be watching Neil Diamond’s ​REEL INJUN (2009). Nor am I the first to do a remix, like the superb brief by Peter Tscherkassky, ​INSTRUCTIONS FOR A LIGHT AND SOUND MACHINE​ (2005).

We’d like the dystopian western. The technological advancement of the previous west was ridiculous, fueled by the gold rush. Like ​THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995) by Jeunet and Caro—you possibly can’t even tell if that’s the previous or the future, it’s so magical.

And why no more bombastic spaghetti westerns?? Just don’t use real historic names and make it bizarre.

The post Austin Film Society Interview with Mike Plante, Director of New Wyatt Earp Doc ‘And With Him Came the West’ appeared first on Black Dot Mobile.

[omgxfireicewolfx-blog]

Part of our ongoing Doc Nights collection, AND WITH HIM CAME THE WEST screens July 17 at 7:30 PM at the AFS Cinema with director Mike Plante in individual. Purchase tickets. Plante may even be a part of us the following night time for a Moviemaker Dialogue on brief movies.

The gunfight at the OK Corral was a legend made famous by Hollywood studio westerns over many many years, from John Ford’s MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) all the option to George Cosmatos’ ‘90s blockbuster, TOMBSTONE. In his provocative documentary, filmmaker Mike Plante examines the Hollywood legacy of Wyatt Earp by way of the many movies that rewrote history to immortalize him. Plante shall be in attendance for the screening on July 17 and in addition take part in a Moviemaker Dialogue at Austin Public on July 18.

Here he shares his thoughts on what impressed him to make the movie and some of the questions it poses:

What’s it about the story of Wyatt Earp that inspired you to make this film?

I grew up in western Colorado, so apart from seeing western films and reading tons of books about the “real” wild west, I used to be all the time operating round ghost towns. It was enjoyable as a kid, however unusual too. Going to a totally shaped city that was super wealthy for a number of years that had collapsed right into a shell was surreal. It was additionally lovely, and sad and damaged—a mysterious comic ebook come to life.

As an adult I noticed how insane these frontier towns have been. The immense circumstances that everybody had to overcome, the harsh places, the mountains, the deserts. The group that had to come together to survive. I additionally realized the brutal politics of manifest future. The difficult historical past of the people concerned, both good and dangerous. The truth is way extra fascinating than the mythology.

In the late ‘80s I moved to Tucson, Arizona, and lived there for a decade. Tombstone is nearby and I turned more serious about that specific town history. There were not that many duel-style gunfights in the west, most have been myths, so the OK Corral caught out much more.

After I discovered that Wyatt lived lengthy enough to go to Hollywood and go to film sets, this specific story turned much more surreal. Tons of western characters reinvented themselves in their very own lifetime—however for Earp to go to filmmakers in Hollywood and ask them to make a film about him, to help type his legacy, that’s subsequent degree.

Have been there specific films you watched rising up that influenced your understanding of the Wyatt Earp story better than others?

I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s so the western was not a well-liked genre at that second. It was western characters in outer area as an alternative. I noticed the older Earp movies on TV. I favored them however they felt like a bygone era that was utterly faraway from trendy occasions, closer to King Arthur than Al Capone.

The previous films really blended together over time—one of the ways films create American mythology. You start to assume that this many films on one subject couldn’t probably misinform you, which is absurd. And then the revisionist ​DOC is from 1971 however was never talked about, I by no means saw it on TV. One thing like ​MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER​ (1971) is unimaginable, not a few historical individual yet so sensible and deep. But I by no means saw it on TV. We didn’t have a revival movie theater on the town, and these weren’t the huge VHS tapes of the second.

There have been a couple of non-Earp westerns that basically influenced me in terms of their fashion, films that felt absolutely true and very important although they weren’t sensible. The spaghetti westerns ​ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968) and ​MY NAME IS NOBODY (1973) are still superb to me. They paid off in phrases of overboard action and large story, but they’ve received complicated characters in the center of them.

In ​ONCE,​ Henry Fonda is heroic and delightful however a horrible villain. Claudia Cardinale is a robust feminine lead preventing for her land, this ain’t a 1930s western. ​NOBODY is a satire however succeeds in the similar method, with Fonda (in his final western) even stating, “there were never any good ol’ days.” It’s with these movies that I began to assume perhaps the west was far more superior, bizarre, and messy, and that folks of their day have been very trendy.

When ​THE LONG RIDERS (1980) got here out, I was obsessed with it. Again, a contemporary movie with trendy digital camera and modifying, with characters extra nuanced into a gray hat, fairly than a white-hat black-hat simplicity. But this time the characters had the names of real individuals (the James-Youthful gang). What I needed as a child was not clean propaganda, however messy realism. What did it seem like to be in the similar place as these individuals? Including all the mundane moments. That movie is nearly a musical, the soundtrack is just not booming however true to life, full with a marriage dance and characters enjoying instruments.

So then once I saw the Earp movies again as an grownup, ​GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL (1957) for example, they felt unusual. The type was great—Technicolor-delicious—but the appearing was really stilted and the story was so jumbled. There’s some fascinating stuff, like how the town had gun control and some awesome gambling scenes. But there’s rather a lot of pressured romance and no dangerous language. The fun elements have been enjoyable, but the G-rated-ness made you marvel what happened in real life.

As a movie fan doing historical analysis for years, I began to piece together the scenes and the lasting impact films have had on history. Once I began seeing unimaginable found-footage films, like Craig Baldwin’s ​TRIBULATION 99 ​(1992) and Naomi Uman’s REMOVED (1999), or even Cindy Sherman’s images, I received a blueprint for the concepts. I’m working in the vein of Thom Anderson’s LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF ​(2003), simply ‘Wyatt Earp Plays Himself.’

By the means, I don’t assume I’m anyplace close to the degree of these filmmakers! I’m just standing on shoulders.

Why do you assume Hollywood has returned repeatedly to the retelling of Earp, Tombstone, and the gunfight at the OK Corral?

Money. That’s the primary aim of studios, Hollywood is a business. Westerns fall in and out of reputation, however they will all the time relate to the present occasions in a method or another, and action movies make lots of cash. This story made cash earlier than, it will probably once more.

However you may also look to people who really believed in the story and the complexity, who then had enough pull in the business to get a movie made, like Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner. They appear to know the trendy connections between at this time and the wild west, not only in social issues however in the sort of people who reinvent themselves into legends.

And it’s in all probability a helluva lots of fun to make a western.

All through it, the movie explores the blurring of strains between reality and fiction. In the end, is that distinction essential, or does it not matter?

I feel it issues. We need to consider in historical past. I feel it starts to matter more as a result of individuals run with what they need to consider, and that’s what I’m making an attempt to explore.

Even when an elevator doesn’t put the quantity 13 on the buttons… there’s nonetheless a 13th flooring. Why can we do this to society? I’m actually curious about how that blurring occurs and how it’s typically simply accepted. People need to feel protected on this large planet and we create issues to be comforted.

The mythology of the past could be extremely inventive and inspirational. I feel most people know that once you examine the previous, there is a layer of interpretation concerned. From the author sharing the info to the individual reading it. So, you determine what is trustworthy when it’s worthwhile to, and what’s just enjoyable and entertaining. And that’s why professional journalists and critical historians and librarians actually matter.

In the film, I give my take on what happened, however I don’t inform the viewers what to think about the occasions or how the films have warped historical past. This can be a poem about Wyatt Earp, not an encyclopedia. I’m supplying you with the info and we should always all have a dialogue about it. The actual danger is just not talking about history.

At the similar time, let’s have fun. I typically marvel if individuals with opposing opinions would get alongside once they realized that they all consider in UFOs.

The film also takes us by means of the very beginning of movie and its evolution as a way of storytelling – in this occasion the story of an actual historical individual. What do you assume is the subsequent wave of Westerns and filmmaking know-how and why is it essential that moviegoers proceed to be all in favour of historical past?

We like to recollect our personal lives as film scenes so it’s not a surprise to keep making these connections to historical past as entertainment. Some historic figures are so nuts, so fun, it makes a terrific film. Let’s snort and cry and study together, that’s what each films and historical past are for.

The western is such an everlasting genre and filmmakers retains pushing the limits of drama, comedy and action. I love to see crossovers with different genres. The Zellner Brothers’ ​DAMSEL (2018) is nice, principally a romantic dark-comedy in the west. The ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINE collection by Tsui Hark must be counted among the great westerns. Or just extra stories with unique characters, like Kelly Reichardt’s ​MEEK’S CUTOFF (2010). And I’m undoubtedly not the first to explore the western in a documentary—everybody ought to be watching Neil Diamond’s ​REEL INJUN (2009). Nor am I the first to do a remix, like the superb brief by Peter Tscherkassky, ​INSTRUCTIONS FOR A LIGHT AND SOUND MACHINE​ (2005).

We’d like the dystopian western. The technological advancement of the previous west was ridiculous, fueled by the gold rush. Like ​THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995) by Jeunet and Caro—you possibly can’t even tell if that’s the previous or the future, it’s so magical.

And why no more bombastic spaghetti westerns?? Just don’t use real historic names and make it bizarre.

The post Austin Film Society Interview with Mike Plante, Director of New Wyatt Earp Doc ‘And With Him Came the West’ appeared first on Black Dot Mobile.

[iinsatiablezus]

Part of our ongoing Doc Nights collection, AND WITH HIM CAME THE WEST screens July 17 at 7:30 PM at the AFS Cinema with director Mike Plante in individual. Purchase tickets. Plante may even be a part of us the following night time for a Moviemaker Dialogue on brief movies.

The gunfight at the OK Corral was a legend made famous by Hollywood studio westerns over many many years, from John Ford’s MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) all the option to George Cosmatos’ ‘90s blockbuster, TOMBSTONE. In his provocative documentary, filmmaker Mike Plante examines the Hollywood legacy of Wyatt Earp by way of the many movies that rewrote history to immortalize him. Plante shall be in attendance for the screening on July 17 and in addition take part in a Moviemaker Dialogue at Austin Public on July 18.

Here he shares his thoughts on what impressed him to make the movie and some of the questions it poses:

What’s it about the story of Wyatt Earp that inspired you to make this film?

I grew up in western Colorado, so apart from seeing western films and reading tons of books about the “real” wild west, I used to be all the time operating round ghost towns. It was enjoyable as a kid, however unusual too. Going to a totally shaped city that was super wealthy for a number of years that had collapsed right into a shell was surreal. It was additionally lovely, and sad and damaged—a mysterious comic ebook come to life.

As an adult I noticed how insane these frontier towns have been. The immense circumstances that everybody had to overcome, the harsh places, the mountains, the deserts. The group that had to come together to survive. I additionally realized the brutal politics of manifest future. The difficult historical past of the people concerned, both good and dangerous. The truth is way extra fascinating than the mythology.

In the late ‘80s I moved to Tucson, Arizona, and lived there for a decade. Tombstone is nearby and I turned more serious about that specific town history. There were not that many duel-style gunfights in the west, most have been myths, so the OK Corral caught out much more.

After I discovered that Wyatt lived lengthy enough to go to Hollywood and go to film sets, this specific story turned much more surreal. Tons of western characters reinvented themselves in their very own lifetime—however for Earp to go to filmmakers in Hollywood and ask them to make a film about him, to help type his legacy, that’s subsequent degree.

Have been there specific films you watched rising up that influenced your understanding of the Wyatt Earp story better than others?

I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s so the western was not a well-liked genre at that second. It was western characters in outer area as an alternative. I noticed the older Earp movies on TV. I favored them however they felt like a bygone era that was utterly faraway from trendy occasions, closer to King Arthur than Al Capone.

The previous films really blended together over time—one of the ways films create American mythology. You start to assume that this many films on one subject couldn’t probably misinform you, which is absurd. And then the revisionist ​DOC is from 1971 however was never talked about, I by no means saw it on TV. One thing like ​MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER​ (1971) is unimaginable, not a few historical individual yet so sensible and deep. But I by no means saw it on TV. We didn’t have a revival movie theater on the town, and these weren’t the huge VHS tapes of the second.

There have been a couple of non-Earp westerns that basically influenced me in terms of their fashion, films that felt absolutely true and very important although they weren’t sensible. The spaghetti westerns ​ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968) and ​MY NAME IS NOBODY (1973) are still superb to me. They paid off in phrases of overboard action and large story, but they’ve received complicated characters in the center of them.

In ​ONCE,​ Henry Fonda is heroic and delightful however a horrible villain. Claudia Cardinale is a robust feminine lead preventing for her land, this ain’t a 1930s western. ​NOBODY is a satire however succeeds in the similar method, with Fonda (in his final western) even stating, “there were never any good ol’ days.” It’s with these movies that I began to assume perhaps the west was far more superior, bizarre, and messy, and that folks of their day have been very trendy.

When ​THE LONG RIDERS (1980) got here out, I was obsessed with it. Again, a contemporary movie with trendy digital camera and modifying, with characters extra nuanced into a gray hat, fairly than a white-hat black-hat simplicity. But this time the characters had the names of real individuals (the James-Youthful gang). What I needed as a child was not clean propaganda, however messy realism. What did it seem like to be in the similar place as these individuals? Including all the mundane moments. That movie is nearly a musical, the soundtrack is just not booming however true to life, full with a marriage dance and characters enjoying instruments.

So then once I saw the Earp movies again as an grownup, ​GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL (1957) for example, they felt unusual. The type was great—Technicolor-delicious—but the appearing was really stilted and the story was so jumbled. There’s some fascinating stuff, like how the town had gun control and some awesome gambling scenes. But there’s rather a lot of pressured romance and no dangerous language. The fun elements have been enjoyable, but the G-rated-ness made you marvel what happened in real life.

As a movie fan doing historical analysis for years, I began to piece together the scenes and the lasting impact films have had on history. Once I began seeing unimaginable found-footage films, like Craig Baldwin’s ​TRIBULATION 99 ​(1992) and Naomi Uman’s REMOVED (1999), or even Cindy Sherman’s images, I received a blueprint for the concepts. I’m working in the vein of Thom Anderson’s LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF ​(2003), simply ‘Wyatt Earp Plays Himself.’

By the means, I don’t assume I’m anyplace close to the degree of these filmmakers! I’m just standing on shoulders.

Why do you assume Hollywood has returned repeatedly to the retelling of Earp, Tombstone, and the gunfight at the OK Corral?

Money. That’s the primary aim of studios, Hollywood is a business. Westerns fall in and out of reputation, however they will all the time relate to the present occasions in a method or another, and action movies make lots of cash. This story made cash earlier than, it will probably once more.

However you may also look to people who really believed in the story and the complexity, who then had enough pull in the business to get a movie made, like Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner. They appear to know the trendy connections between at this time and the wild west, not only in social issues however in the sort of people who reinvent themselves into legends.

And it’s in all probability a helluva lots of fun to make a western.

All through it, the movie explores the blurring of strains between reality and fiction. In the end, is that distinction essential, or does it not matter?

I feel it issues. We need to consider in historical past. I feel it starts to matter more as a result of individuals run with what they need to consider, and that’s what I’m making an attempt to explore.

Even when an elevator doesn’t put the quantity 13 on the buttons… there’s nonetheless a 13th flooring. Why can we do this to society? I’m actually curious about how that blurring occurs and how it’s typically simply accepted. People need to feel protected on this large planet and we create issues to be comforted.

The mythology of the past could be extremely inventive and inspirational. I feel most people know that once you examine the previous, there is a layer of interpretation concerned. From the author sharing the info to the individual reading it. So, you determine what is trustworthy when it’s worthwhile to, and what’s just enjoyable and entertaining. And that’s why professional journalists and critical historians and librarians actually matter.

In the film, I give my take on what happened, however I don’t inform the viewers what to think about the occasions or how the films have warped historical past. This can be a poem about Wyatt Earp, not an encyclopedia. I’m supplying you with the info and we should always all have a dialogue about it. The actual danger is just not talking about history.

At the similar time, let’s have fun. I typically marvel if individuals with opposing opinions would get alongside once they realized that they all consider in UFOs.

The film also takes us by means of the very beginning of movie and its evolution as a way of storytelling – in this occasion the story of an actual historical individual. What do you assume is the subsequent wave of Westerns and filmmaking know-how and why is it essential that moviegoers proceed to be all in favour of historical past?

We like to recollect our personal lives as film scenes so it’s not a surprise to keep making these connections to historical past as entertainment. Some historic figures are so nuts, so fun, it makes a terrific film. Let’s snort and cry and study together, that’s what each films and historical past are for.

The western is such an everlasting genre and filmmakers retains pushing the limits of drama, comedy and action. I love to see crossovers with different genres. The Zellner Brothers’ ​DAMSEL (2018) is nice, principally a romantic dark-comedy in the west. The ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINE collection by Tsui Hark must be counted among the great westerns. Or just extra stories with unique characters, like Kelly Reichardt’s ​MEEK’S CUTOFF (2010). And I’m undoubtedly not the first to explore the western in a documentary—everybody ought to be watching Neil Diamond’s ​REEL INJUN (2009). Nor am I the first to do a remix, like the superb brief by Peter Tscherkassky, ​INSTRUCTIONS FOR A LIGHT AND SOUND MACHINE​ (2005).

We’d like the dystopian western. The technological advancement of the previous west was ridiculous, fueled by the gold rush. Like ​THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995) by Jeunet and Caro—you possibly can’t even tell if that’s the previous or the future, it’s so magical.

And why no more bombastic spaghetti westerns?? Just don’t use real historic names and make it bizarre.

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