#j*review

[daisyy345]

aah yes. my favorite hispanic and latina author Sarita Jota Martinez

[mst3kgifs]

We've been enlisted to do yet another Summer Blockbuster Review. The government wants us to inform the citizenry of their compulsory big expensive studio movie watching duties.

[ladybender]

Jesus oh my god...

Futurama's second episode of this season "Quids Game" was a punch in the guts. In a good way! It goes right on par with episodes like "Cold Warriors" and "Game of Tones": an exploration of Fry's childhood, this time through the lens of mean aliens making him relieve his 8th birthday party games - this time to the death!

I have a lot to say about this episode so buckle up!

Let's start off with some minor complains I have for this one, which are pacing, stakes, and Leela's characterization (in a particular scene).

The episode really flew by so fast, almost at a break-necking pace, and the games felt too short and jam-packed because of that. The emotional weight of the end of each game hits hard because with every one a beloved character dies. There managed to find the time to get the reaction for the major ones (Kif, Leela's parents and grandmother), which is great, but the episode moves so quickly and there is little more time to absorbed it all.

Though, about this issue, I wanna say that I often feel like episodes are either going by too fast or too slow the first time I watch them and it usually doesn't feel the same from a second watch onward. so this is really a minor one that might not even be an problem for me later on, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

moving on to stakes, with this I mean that I originally thought, before the episode aired, that the end goal of the death dame was that the winner would get a prize. A birthday gift for example, and it would have incentivized everyone to go on and even play dirty (which, in retrospect, seems like a really smart thing to put in! compare everyone trying to get an advantage to Fry absolutely refusing to cheat, and pack an even bigger punch with that ending). I suppose playing to survive is motivation enough, but I think it undermines the "wants" of most other characters, and since this was a big coral episode (which is absolutely a strength! I can only imagine how hard it must have been to put together, wow!) I would have loved to see them striving to win, guess what their “birthday wish” would have been, maybe even learn a few of them along the way.

The third iffy thing I want to mention is Leela in the scene in the kitchen. There are seven characters left in the competition and only four baseballs to find to win the round. Leela is panicking trying to find one and she begs fry to cheat and find it for her since he already played when he was a kid and knows the house. Now this conflict was SO good and ALMOST perfect, but whyyyy oh why was Leela so ready to leave Fry behind??? doesn't make sense to me??? I know she was scared and upset bc she had just lost her family and that probably pushed her to act irrationally, but I just can't see her only wanting to keep herself alive and not Fry, especially when an easier and stronger solution is RIGHT THERE.

Have Leela go to Fry already with one of the baseball (that she might have found in some crawled and ridiculous place, to show how desperate she is to win and survive. if you have the wish giving stakes it's even better because you can imagine she'd use her gift to bring her parents back). in the meantime, the other characters find two other balls so there is only one left, and NOW Leela begs Fry to cheat to find the last one and win with her. It's even more emotional, Leela tells him she doesn't want to lose him too but Fry categorically doesn't want to cheat, and in the end tells Leela to win without him, sacrificing himself for her. Bender finds the last ball in the fridge and the episode continues just like we saw (with Bender tossing the ball to someone else right before being pulverized lol. like I said, Bender should be cheating like MAD in these games, really drive home the concept).

I wanna make it clear that these complains don't really turn me off from the whole episode, they are just my free flow of thoughts on stuff that i thought could have been stronger.

But now for the meat. This episode was phenomenal!!! so much good Fry's family characterization and SO much to unpack for Fry as a character. Cody Ziglar has such a spot on take on Fry, it was so validating seeing this episode and putting together all the little pieces of Fry's psyche I’ve picking out for years now, converging into one.

It seems superficial at first glance, but this really runs deeper than it looks. Fry has always been earnest but insecure, proven and proven again in countless episodes. You expect a person goofy and easygoing like Fry to go ham at his birthday and celebrate with all the people he loves, but we find out Fry doesn't like his birthday and feels bad about being put at the center of attention, and it all goes deeper and more upsetting from there.

Adding to all of this and speaking about Fry’s parents, especially his mom, I wanna add that it’s such a realistic conflict it was painful to watch – she wanted to give her son the chance to be a winner, she had no idea how the situation would turn against him. Sometimes a good day of parenting could be the kid’s most terrible experience of his life, and that’s brutal but the parent meant well even if they ruined things for their kid. It’s so sad Fry never got to see how much his mom and dad did for him, and she wanted him to feel like a winner, but this isn’t a story with an easy resolution. It’s bittersweet and it's insane and this last scene ruined me fr, like just look at this what the hell

This exploration of Fry goes hand in hand with everything we know of him. it seamlessly adds another layer of understanding that I’m honestly not even sure I can unpack in a single post, because there is so much to say and draw conclusions from, starting from the very first episode and ending with Meanwhile. From his relationship with his parents and his brother, to his love life and friendships, from his view of himself as a loser to the way he's always striving to better himself while always staying true to himself, trying to achieve his goals the hard way instead of finding an easy way out. Think the why of Fry, Parasite Lost, TKOS, the sting, godfella, my three suns, BBS, cold warriors, and on and on and on. It’s building together a picture of Fry’s character that’s so complex and worth exploring.

With this episode we have a new fundamental facet of him, and for this alone it’s an amazing episode.

I’ll mail my therapy bill to the writers, thank you

And thank you for reading, let me know your thoughts and opinion, I wanna know what y’all thought about this episode

[drdtfuitgumies]

four people who i believe are the most likely to have played pokemon mystery dungeon: explorers of sky during their childhood, permanently altering their brain chemistry. source: trust me

[destinyc1020]

Review of R&J from a theater-goer 😃😁👏🏾

(May contain light spoilers)

[writersarea]

GOT A BOOK REC FOR MY ACES OUT THERE (especially my fellow white aces)

I heard about Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda Brown from tiktok, not gonna lie, and I knew I had to read it. I just finished it, and I loved it.

It has a fantastic discussion of asexuality, racism, and sexism (especially the intersection thereof). Sherronda is a wonderful writer and does a great job exploring not only their experience but discussing the history of black people’s sexuality and aceness in a way that is educational and very interesting to read.

It also has a timeline about asexuality dating back to 1855 which I have never seen one that dates back that far before. The amount of research that must have taken floors me, and I love it.

They also sprinkle in really cool tidbits throughout the book that I’m not going to spoil except for my favorite one. Apparently, ace people are 2.4-2.5 times more likely to be left handed than the general population. (And I’m a left handed ace)

I’m hoping to buy myself a copy soon so I can mark it up like I did my copy of Ace by Angela Chen. I checked this out from the library.

So go see if your local library has a copy or if you can buy a copy!

[literatureaesthetic]

house of flame and shadow ; sarah j maas

this is floating somewhere between a high 3, low 4 stars for me. there was a lot to love and a LOT that could have been (and should have been) executed better. overall, i liked how everything wrapped up and how each character arc was completed. i've always said that 'house of earth and blood' is my favourite sjm novel, and this finale, although nowhere near a perfect conclusion, definitely didn't let the characters or the series down.

saying that, i have issues with the amount of plot conveniences in here. certain scenes felt so ridiculous and out of the bounds of logic that i had to laugh. it was difficult to suspend disbelief at times

nonetheless, i love these characters, and i love this world. this book was pure entertainment; i had so much fun reading and discussing with online friends. is it flawed? absolutely. but it was still a solid conclusion to a series i've been reading and loving for years now!!

[autie-j]

I'll be honest, I didn't like Deadpool and Wolverine too much. My least favorite of the three Deadpool movies now. It was nice to see Hugh Jackman as Wolverine again but eh. It really feels like everything wrong with the MCU now. It would have been nice to have just had a straight forward Deadpool sequel without being tied to the MCU, because the mcu stuff was really dragging this movie down. I am so tired of multiverse stuff, it just does nothing for me. The second half of this movie was such a slog too, though it picks up a tiny bit in the final act. I'd give it a 5 or 6/10 max. More than anything it just made me wish that Disney never bought Fox so we could have more of the Fox Xmen movies. I miss when there was more variety in superhero movies instead of just everything being in one of two shared universes because these companies own everything

[bibisbooktalk]

I was listening to the ACOTAR audio book, and I realized that (apart from power and political crap) the whole issue happened because Amarantha wanted dick and Tamlin said no, so girly threw a tantrum and turned Prythian upside down.

[whilereadingandwalking]

In Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado, writers share superb personal essays about the power of video games and the impact of their stories, from Fallout 76 to The Last of Us to Clash of Clans. Writers talk about the power of embodiment, about what it means to live a life where the only way to go is forward, about problematic Aryan ideals sneaking into games, about Middle Eastern villains, about creating settlements and community and a home in a war-torn world, about health bars and redemption and escape.

My favorite essays spanned a wide range. "I Struggled a Long Time with Surviving" by Elissa Washuta talks about living with chronic illness, about an unsure diagnosis and medical dismissal and the in-game virus and its story twists of ambiguity and inevitability. In "I Was a Teenage Transgender Supersoldier," nat steele talks about what it meant to have a helmeted, anonymous protagonist in Halo, and how the unmasking took its power away. We talk about watching others play in Stephen Sexton's "No Traces," discuss debuffs and depression in Larissa Pham's "Status Effect," explore the comfort and productivity of a created home in J. Robert Lennon's "Ruined Ground," and close it all out with a superb essay by Hanif Abdurraqib on Red Dead Redemption, playing God, the afterlife, and what it means to be good.

The essays are strong, interesting, and appealing to video game superfans and fans of just good storytelling and its impact on people. Really great collection with some superb gems.

Content warnings for suicidal ideation, emotional/physical abuse, depression, death/grief.

[kryptonbabe]

Superman: Earth One (2010) by J. Michael Straczynski & Shane Davis: A Review

Clark Kent is a reserved young adult, he's leaving his familiar Smallville for Metropolis, looking to find himself, build a life. With an anguished demeanor and sad eyes he navigates the big city unscathed, but never satisfied. There's a veneer of trauma to the story, Clark talks more with his dead father, Jonathan, than to anyone alive in the book. While his parents are pumped to have a superhero son, Clark just wants to give his mother a good life, after his father's passing, and to belong somewhere, anywhere.

This had so much potential bringing this different perspective to the Superman mythos, exploring all these heavier feelings we are more used to seeing in the origins of characters like Batman or Hulk. The thing is that while Batman and Hulk earn their angst, Clark's behavior feels unjustified. It's never clear how his otherness can be an obstacle, his abilities are always described as achievements, he's easily accepted everywhere he goes. He could be depressed and that would be interesting (what to expect when the most powerful being on the planet is not evil, but isn't hopeful at all?), but that is never really mentioned.

Clark's feelings are exposed in dialogues and monologues, but his wallowing seems out of place, his father's death is not traumatic, he had a healthy relationship with his parents, he's a genius, he's super strong, he can make a lot of money really fast, but hmm, I guess everybody always asks where is Superman, but no one ever asks HOW is Superman. He's just sad, and we must embrace this.

There's also a kind of mall goth / 2010s emo to this art style and dialogue, the moodiness, the angst, the aversion to primary colors, the Welcome to the Black Parade palette of the underdeveloped villain. As an emo kid myself, I'd probably have a much better time reading this in 2012, when all was new and darkness was inherently exciting. But now, as an elderly decaying millennial emo, I just feel like I need more than aesthetics to make me interested in a story, invested in a character.

The freezing cold take of "Clark Kent is the costume of Superman" was already old in 2010, this view was popularized by the Kill Bill vol. 2 movie, released in 2004, and it's an oversimplified perception of the character, one that considers certain aspects of his history while ignoring several others, lacking the nuance a character as old as Superman deserves. It's jarring to hear this coming from Clark's mother, at this point in the story he is not Superman yet, he doesn't even know if he will someday choose to wear the cape. When Martha says "the mask is what you'll have to wear the rest of the time" she's disregarding Clark's humanity, the life he lived so far, the bonds he might develop when he's not in Smallville anymore. All of this belittled in front of the bigger goal: to turn Clark into a Superman.

In the flashbacks the couple seem slightly manipulative, Jonathan and Martha's only subject with Clark is about him becoming Superman, which might explain why the boy feels so on edge, as if deep down he's trying to run away from this fate of becoming an all achieving force of nature their parents want him to become. It's his parents who give him the Superman name, the costume and the idea to become a superhero. Clark has so little agency in this story, acting resigned, his intentions vague, it's frustrating.

On a positive note, I really liked the fact that Superman destroys a giant spaceship on board his baby ship, (even though, how exactly he stops a world invasion happening in multiple locations with multiple vessels by destroying only one single ship is never explained), overall the baby ship was a nice touch, the science fiction logic of it was very interesting too.

Superman Earth One felt like a very hopeless post-9/11 Superman story, surface level deep, moody and often bleak, without any of the positive emotional impact of the character. The art is nice though and emo Clark is cute. But I need to cheer up now. Thanks for reading this!

[mst3kgifs]

Really makes you think, doesn't it?

[sunhlland]

🥰

[godsfavdarling]

Here's my acosf review. If you enjoy sjm and acotar pls don't read.

Also, this isn't much of a review. I just had to get this out of me.

The review is: this shit stinks just like everybody's arousal in this fucking book. Imagine being able to smell everybody's sex stink all the time. Disgusting.

1. The book should be half as long.

2. It reads like a fanfic and as if it was written by a man at the same time, which is strange, but congrats Sarah! You must be the first to ever achieve that.

3. Nesta is the only thing I liked.

4. Why was this sooooo long?

5. Sarah, please, I'm begging you: stop writing smut and focus on writing a good story.

summary:

In this final (for now) continuation about our favourite group of friends, we get to follow Nesta, Feyre's sister, who's been a million times more interesting from the beginning. Nesta is in her spiraling crazy hoe bitch era and spends some of Rhysand's money, which he doesn't like even though he's the fairy version of Jeff Bezos. Nesta is told she can't be a little hoe anymore and is locked away in one of Rhysand's houses "for her own good."

You see, when Tamlin locked Feyre away in his mansion for her own good, he was a bad, bad fairy. But locking Nesta up is totally okay because they just love her. Thank God she has Cassian around, her pilates instructor, who makes sure she eats well and exercises every day before she goes to this huge af library to put books away. There, she meets some girls who've been through it and try to find peace in their work and community. But Nesta thinks they should start working out.

At last, Nesta has some friends who also love smut. Good for them. Nesta has to find some horcruxes or something to stop some people, something, something cauldron. Anyway, she meets some bad guy and pisses herself <3

Also, Feyre is pregnant, and Rhys is a piece of shit, but I guess he is our favorite book boyfriend, and he can do no wrong.

But who cares about the plot? Most of this book is Cassian's huge veiny schlong and balls hitting Nesta's bare skin. This is what we're here for. Good for them, I guess? I didn't need to know all that, but hey! There's 800 pages! So they had to fill those (just like Cassian fills Nesta every day) since the plot is just kind of there.

Nesta is the best character in these stupid books, and everybody else sucks. Maybe except Az or Elena or whatever her name is. I don't care about Cassian. But thank God he's there to eat our girl out and pound his waaaaaay too big (don't you dare forget how big his fairy dick is) schlong into her beautiful, dripping wet pussy.

At the end, three women who have been doing pilates classes for a few months win some Hunger Games against a bunch of men who have been preparing for this their entire lives. Some evil bitch gets killed in a second, and everybody lives happily ever after.

I am so tired.

[destinyc1020]

A great review. All praise to the cast as well👏🏾💫

https://www.tatler.com/article/romeo-and-juliet-tom-holland-francesca-amewudah-rivers-west-end

"Like a boxer entering the ring...."

Indeed... 👀

Wife beater on, muscles showing, tongue out... 🥵

Anyway...

You know what Anon, this review here seems just about as good as the other one from Variety imo. 🤷🏾‍♀️ They're pretty much saying the same thing? (Tom is a superstar, the stage direction and standing mics SUCK, Francesca is awesome, Tom's performance is emotional and gut-wrenching, there are tons of fans in the crowd outside waiting for Tom, etc)

In fact, I had to double check the author of this article to make sure it wasn't written by the same guy! Rofl 👀 😅 🤣

I think this review is mostly positive, but it seems the "negatives" really are Jamie and his set direction, his use of standing mics, the obscure and minimalistic stage set. 🥴

But overall, most cannot deny this...

[aq2003]

I've had a vague urge to get more into Shakespeare for years; what are the top 3-5 plays you'd recommend that AREN'T Hamlet or Much Ado? And what version of each is your favorite?

(sorry for omitting two god tier ones but I've already seen David Tennant in each of those and I surmise that you're insane about both so I'm looking for some new plays)

gonna be some basic bitch answers but here:

macbeth - the tragedy of macbeth (2021) movie adaptation starring denzel washington. this movie is fucking stunning and the way they did the witches was SO good. also i have the throne of blood (kurosawa's adaptation) also on my watchlist since i've heard REALLY good things about it

richard ii - 2013 rsc production w/ david tennant (link). he gives me catastrophic gender envy, i need to become more masculine to become more feminine etc. ben whishaw in the hollow crown series (link) is great too

romeo and juliet - romeo + juliet (1996) movie adaptation directed by baz luhrmann. this is like, the most well known romeo and juliet and you might've watched it already but i'm listing this anyway because there will never be a better mercutio and the way they did the setting is SO fucking funny and inspired

twelfth night - so far only saw this one Outside On The Grass Where They Performed This At My College but i liked it a lot... reccing the 2012 globe production with mark rylance (part 1 / part 2) (his hamlet was one of dt's favorites as an aspiring actor) (i'm putting my faith in letterboxd and david's taste for this one)

coriolanus - 2014 donmar production w/ tom hiddleston (on archive.org). this is directed by josie rourke, who also directed dt/ct's 2011 much ado! the staging and the effects are fucking awesomeeee (also peter de jersey and elliot levey are in this, i love them)

also shoutout to the ones i want to watch:

the 2016 production of a midsummer night's dream w/ ncuti gatwa (i have found nowhere to pirate it and i might just crack and pay the 10 dollars to watch it)

the 2015 production of the love's labour's lost w/ edward bennett (he played laertes in hamlet (2009) and he's REALLY underrated, i love his benedick SO FUCKING MUCH even if that production overall was a little dull)

either hollow crown's or greg doran's henry iv (it's two whole plays i need so much time to watch that. and ideally i want to watch both lol)

kurosawa's ran (1985), an adaptation of king lear set in 1500s japan

vishal bhardwaj's omkara (2006), an adaptation of othello set in india