#july 13 1991

[darlinhutchence]

some fun facts about michael hutchence: - hes superstitious and always put his left boot on first - hes got terrible eyesight and could never see the audience - "WOW TREES HAVE LEAVES FROM 100 FOOT" - hes an incredibly animated storyteller

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

How Russian colonialism took the Western anti-imperialist Left for a ride

Blindness to Russian colonialism distorts Westerners’ view of the Ukraine war

"Fucking shit Russian car," my driver spat as a Lada sedan passed us on the highway from Georgia's capital of Tbilisi to Stepantsminda during my trip there in 2019, shortly after our long conversation touched on Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia.

His momentary flash of anger was an eye-opening glimpse at the consequences of Russia's steadfast refusal to let go of the 14 nations whose independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union dictator Vladimir Putin infamously called "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" – not to mention the ethnic minorities still under Moscow's yoke – and its brutal punishment of Georgia and Ukraine for daring to seek a bright future outside of Russia's sunless orbit.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has cast a long-overdue spotlight on Russian imperialism and colonialism, yet many Westerners fail to grapple with how Russia's colonial legacy continues to this day and is part and parcel to its war against Ukraine and descent into fascism. Consequently, many end up whatabouting, excusing and even overtly sympathizing with an empire whose colonial practices mirror those of historical Western European empires in cruelty, chauvinism, thievery, exploitation, cultural erasure, racism and genocide and that is now ruthlessly attempting to conquer one of its neighbors.

Russia displayed that ruthlessness last week when it lobbed missiles at Odesa, damaging port and grain storage facilities as well as its historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

"They're interested in lands and influence and a buffer zone between them and the West, in sea access – but not in people and not in culture," said Ukrainian Parliament adviser Yuliia Shaipova who, together with her husband, Aspen Institute NextGen Transatlantic Initiative member Artem Shaipov, was at home in Odesa after hiding in a nearby bomb shelter.

Yet, Westerners safe from bombardment like long-shot third-party presidential candidate Cornel West continue to accommodate Russia. In a July 13 interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, West called Russia's invasion "criminal" but insisted it was "provoked by the expansion of NATO" and is a "proxy war between the American Empire and the Russian Federation," adding Neville Chamberlain-esque icing on the appeasement cake by proposing Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia.

The tell in West's remarks was calling the U.S. an empire but referring to Russia by its de jure name, implicitly erasing its imperial, colonial character. It's a common tendency among the segment of the left to which West belongs, one that Kazakhstan-born Pitzer College sociology professor Azamat Junisbai attributes to ignorance and a myopic, know-nothing focus on American imperialism to the exclusion of imperialism by other nations.

"They're kind of imperial about their anti-imperialism," Junisbai said. "There's something very provincial and strange about it where you literally do not know anything about what's happening beyond this one issue you care about."

While West and other leftists blame "NATO expansion" for provoking Russia, Junisbai compares NATO membership – which, after all, the former Warsaw Pact and Baltic countries all sought voluntarily – to a restraining order against an abusive partner.

"People don't recognize that there was an abusive relationship, that there was colonialism," he said, speculating that blindness to Russian colonialism could be due to a failure of Western education systems as well as Soviet propaganda and leftist valorization of the Soviet Union as a foe of Western imperialism. Another potential culprit is knee-jerk distrust toward American foreign policy popular among some leftists and alternative media that leads to a simplistic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" worldview.

"People, I think, just get so wedded to their vision of themselves as fighting 'The Man,' fighting the power that they are blinded and taken for a ride by Russia, in this case serving as useful idiots," Junisbai said.

Both Yuliia and Artem Shaipov pointed the finger at academic studies of Russia in the West that view it through Moscow's imperial lens. The two have published articles advocating for a "decolonization" of Russia studies and greater attention to how veneration of the "great Russian culture" – such as the genocide- and conquest-glorifying literature of Mikhail Lermontov and Alexander Pushkin – has provided a conduit for Russian imperialist ideology to sneak into the Western mind.

"Part of the reason is that it's Western academia that kind of perpetuates this imperial understanding of our region that benefits Russia's imperial policies," Shaipov said, pointing to how Western academic institutions place Ukraine and other post-Soviet nations under Russia's geopolitical umbrella of "Eurasia." "It speaks volumes about the reasons why still many people in the West see Ukraine and other independent states as the sphere of influence of Russia."

The resulting sympathy for Russia's imperial worldview finds expression among Western academics, media personalities and activists who deny Ukrainians' agency in repeating the Kremlin conspiracy theory that Ukraine's 2014 Revolution of Dignity was a "U.S.-backed coup" – as if Ukrainians couldn't have removed outrageously corrupt Kremlin stooge Viktor Yanukovych from office after his security forces murdered over 100 peaceful protesters without foreigners pulling the strings – or characterize former communist nations' NATO membership as provoking Russia rather than protecting them from it.

And it's a mindset rooted in over 400 years of imperialism and colonialism that caused atrocities as horrific as those of Spain or Britain.

Russia's conquest of Siberia starting in the 1580s, for instance, included the enslavement of indigenous peoples whom it forced to pay tribute in the form of furs known as yasak on pain of death, resulting in starvation as people struggled to meet yasak quotas instead of feeding themselves in a system some historians have compared to Belgian King Leopold II's enslavement of the Congo. Russian Cossack gangs raped and murdered while Orthodox missionaries stamped out native religions and alcoholism and smallpox decimated local populations. Today, indigenous people in Siberia and the Russian Far East frequently live in poverty while Moscow strips their lands' rich natural resources to line the pockets of oligarchs and fuel the glitz of cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, while their men disproportionately make up the cannon fodder that Russia sends to the Ukrainian front.

"If we take the Russia that is situated behind the Urals – the Central Asian part of Russia, the far East Asian parts of Russia, the [northernmost parts of Russia] – the cities are just being used for extractive purposes, so [the Russians] don't care even about their own people and minorities that are in Russia itself," Shaipova said, noting how nearly all of their enormous wealth goes to the Russian metropole. "So basically, take Norilsk or Irkutsk – those cities look like an atomic bomb has exploded there."

In the Caucasus, where Russia vied with the Ottoman and Persian empires for power, the Muslim Circassians, who had inhabited the area for millennia, resisted Russian domination. So in 1857, Tsar Alexander II ordered their expulsion to the Ottoman Empire under a proposal by Count Dmitri Milyutin, who said it would "cleanse the land of hostile elements" and open their farmland for Christian settlers. The result was the Circassian genocide in which nearly the entire Circassian population was killed or expelled to the Middle East, where most Circassians live today.

Junisbai's own life is a testament to Russia's thorough colonization of his country, which began in earnest in the 18th century after Russia conquered it. His mother tongue is Russian rather than Kazakh thanks to generations of Russification that made learning Russian essential to get ahead while casting indigenous languages by the wayside. That led to him being conditioned to look down on Kazakhs who could not speak Russian properly while growing up in Almaty, whose population during the Soviet era was about four-fifths Russian and had only two Kazakh-language schools in the early 1980s, while Kazakhs largely lived in rural areas. Meanwhile, his great-grandfather was a member of the Kazakh intelligentsia, for which the Soviets executed him at Omsk in 1935 during Stalin's purges. Consistent with Russia's pattern of extractive relationships with its colonies, Moscow picked Kazakhstan as the place to test nuclear weapons, Junisbai's mother growing up only a couple hundred miles from a testing site.

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine brought to the forefront the issues of language and Russian colonialism that Junisbai had been thinking about for a while. Today, he spells Kazakhstan's name as "Qazaqstan," reflecting the native pronunciation, rather than the more common Russian-based spelling.

"This invasion – just the scale of it and how blatantly imperialist it was – was a point of no return," he said, regarding how it got him thinking more about those issues. "Like how strange and horrible it is that I am stuck with Russian, and it's like having something stuck in my body, and I cannot remove it."

In contrast with its terrestrial empire building, Russia didn't have as much luck overseas, as its North American and Hawaiian colonies proved unsuccessful, along with its lesser-known attempt to partake in that most infamous example of European colonialism, the 19th-century Scramble for Africa.

Russia's covetousness toward Ukraine differs somewhat from its other colonization activities, but comes from the same underlying desire to subjugate. It stems from the popular myth that Russia is the legitimate heir to the medieval state of Kyivan Rus, centered on modern-day Kyiv, which Putin cited in a July 2021 pseudohistorical essay denying Ukraine's right to sovereignty, "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians." But as Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy points out in his new book, "The Russo-Ukrainian War," although the Grand Principality of Moscow – later called Muscovy – derived much of its culture from Kyivan Rus, 15th-century ruler Ivan the Great invented the myth of Muscovy's inextricable link to it by declaring himself the sole legitimate heir to the Kyivan princes in order to justify his conquest of the Republic of Novgorod.

"The independent Russian state, born of the struggle between Moscow and Novgorod, resulted from the victory of authoritarianism over democracy," Plokhy writes.

Shaipov said Muscovy inherited its political culture not from Europe, but from the Mongol Empire of which it had long been a vassal.

"This is their political tradition of authoritarianism, oppression and continuous imperial conquest," he said.

Ukrainians learned that the hard way in the mid-1600s when Ukrainian Cossacks rebelled against their Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth rulers and established an independent state, seeking protection from their Orthodox co-religionists in Muscovy. But after helping them achieve victory, their Muscovite allies sought to dominate them, leading to another Ukrainian Cossack rebellion in 1708 that soon allied with Sweden. Muscovy defeated them at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, and in 1721, under Tsar Peter I, Muscovy became the Russian Empire.

In other words, Russian claims of lordship over Ukraine are about as credible as if British leaders called decolonization a "geopolitical catastrophe" and then dredged up medieval manuscripts to make the case against Irish independence.

The Russian Empire collapsed with the 1917 October Revolution, but that tradition of authoritarianism, oppression and imperial conquest persisted as the empire got a new coat of paint, trading tsars for commissars and rebranding as the U.S.S.R.

Numerous nations under Russian rule for centuries declared independence – including Ukraine as well as Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, the Tatar-led Idel-Ural State and others. But the Bolsheviks quickly invaded nearly all of them, forcing them into the newly established Soviet Union, which reoccupied the Baltic nations after World War II, leaving only Finland independent. In Ukraine, Stalin caused the Holodomor, a genocidal famine that depopulated most of the country's east, allowing its resettlement by Russians. In 1944, he accused indigenous Crimeans – for whom even the term "Crimean Tatars," Shaipov noted, is a misnomer with colonialist undertones – of collaborating with the Nazis and deported them all, allowing Russians to become a majority in Crimea too.

Those malign political traditions continued after 1991 as Russia crushed the fledgling Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and Tatarstan and sponsored pro-Russia breakaway states in Moldova's Transnistria region and the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where Russia used false accusations of genocide as a pretext for its 2008 invasion, a tactic it would rehash in Ukraine six years later.

And they live on today in Russia's nationalist, imperialist, bloodthirsty and downright genocidal "Z" propaganda for domestic audiences.

Even Russian liberals remain far from untainted. While Westerners lionize Alexei Navalny as a freedom fighter, Junisbai highlighted his history of racism toward Central Asians.

"Navalny is not really well-liked in Central Asia because he's the person who contributed to hate crimes against Central Asians in Russia," Junisbai explained, lamenting how many Westerners continue to see that part of Navalny's past as marginal.

Navalny also drew scorn for a series of tweets on July 25 in which he called Russian war criminal Igor Girkin a "political prisoner" following his arrest for criticizing Putin.

Shaipov and Shaipova pointed to how Jan Rachinsky, the head of Memorial, rejected the idea of Russian repentance for waging war against Ukraine in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture last year.

"This understanding of themselves as an empire is part of their national identity, and this is also what concerns the so-called Russian liberals," Shaipova said.

At the same time, Junisbai said people inside Russia consistently fail to acknowledge their nation's colonial history.

"The surest way to offend a Russian person is to talk about colonialism or Russians as colonizers," he said

Instead, Russians overwhelmingly view themselves – in true colonialist form – as having civilized Central Asians, believing they were illiterate before Russia introduced Cyrillic, despite Junisbai's grandfather having written in Arabic script, and that if not for Russia they would still be riding horses and living in yurts.

"It's just like, 'we built your schools, we built your hospitals – how dare you be disrespectful, how dare you not appreciate us,'" he said.

This lack of self-awareness stands in stark contrast with European nations that decolonized and, although in fits and starts, today seek to atone for past injustices. In 2021, Germany formally apologized for genocide in Namibia in the early 1900s, while Queen Camilla declined to wear a crown at King Charles' coronation bearing the Kohinoor diamond, which Britain plundered when it ruled India.

Shaipov and Shaipova said Russia must also undergo decolonization, a process the world should not fear.

"In order for them to heal, they need to go through this healing process and repentance so that they can reconcile with neighboring countries and with the peoples that populate the Russian Federation," Shaipov said.

But Russia must first remove the Harry Potter-like invisibility cloak that has long allowed its colonial legacy to go unnoticed.

"Once you tear it off, then people can see the horribleness – like, how could people side with an abuser and against someone who's trying to take out a restraining order against this abuse," Junisbai said.

[pridequest64]

Klarion The Witch Boy Reading Order

This is, based of my research the complete reading list in release order for all Klarion Comics as of September 24th 2024. Release dates were used when available but compromises were made with cover date when necessary. If you see anything that is wrong or needs new additions feel free to let me know!

(Comic Vine was a massive help with this project)

1. The Demon 7- March 1973

2. The Demon 14- November 1st 1973

3. The Demon 15- December 1st 1973

4. Wonder Woman 280- June 1981

5. Wonder Woman 281- March 5th 1981

6. Wonder Woman 282- August 1981

7. The Demon 3- September 1990

8. The Demon 4- October 1990

9. The Demon 5- November 1990

10. The Demon 7- Janurary 1991

11. The Demon 8- February 1991

12. The Demon 9- March 1991

13. Books Of Magic 4- March 1991

14. The Demon 10- April 1991

15. The Demon 11- May 1991

16. The Demon 12- June 1991

17. The Demon 13- July 1991

18. The Demon 14 August 1991

19. The Demon 15- September 1991

20. War of the Gods 1- September 1st 1991

21. The Demon 17- November 1991

22. Conjurors 1- April 1999

23. Conjurors 2- May 1999

24. Conjurors 3- June 1999

25. Sins of Youth: Batboy and Robin- April 2000

26. Sins of Youth Secret Files- May 2000

27. Sins of Youth: The Secret/ Deadboy- May 2000

28. Sins of Youth: Aquaboy/Lagoon Man- May 2000

29. Young Justice: Sins of Youth 1- May 2000

30. Young Justice: Sins of Youth 2- May 2000

31. Young Justice 22- August 1st 2000

32. Seven Soldiers: Klarion 1- June 1st 2005

33. Seven Soldiers Klarion 2 August 1st 2005

34. Seven Soldiers Klarion 3- October 1st 2005

35. Seven Soldiers Klarion 4- December 1st 2005

36. Infinite Crisis 6- April 5th 2006

37. Infinite Crisis 7- May 3rd 2006

38. Robin 157- February 1st 2007

39. Robin 158- March 1st 2007

40. Countdown 34- September 5th 2007

41. Countdown 33- September 12th 2007

42. Countdown 32- September 19th 2007

43. Countdown 31- September 26th 2007

44. Countdown 30- October 3rd 2007

45. Justice League Of America 46- June 30th 2010

46. Justice League of America 47- July 28th 2010

47. DCU Halloween Special 2010- October 20th 2010

48. Batgirl 18- February 9th 2011

49. Superman/Batman 82- March 23rd 2011

50. Superman/Batman 83- April 20th 2011

51. Superman/Batman 84- May 18th 2011

52. The All New Batman: The Brave and the Bold 12- October 12th 2011

53. Batman: Li’l Gotham -8- September 8th 2013

54. Justice League Beyond 2.0 11- January 11th 2014

55. Batman Beyond Universe 6- January 22 2014

56. Justice League Beyond 2.0 12- January 25th 2014

57. Batman Beyond Universe 7- February 19th 2014

58. Justice League Beyond 2.0 13- February 8th 2014

59. Batman Beyond Universe 8- March 19th 2014

60. The Multiversity: The Society of super heroes: The conquerors of the counter world- September 17th 2014

61. Teen Titans: Futures End- September 17th 2014

62. Klarion 1- October 8th 2014

63. Injustice: Gods Among Us Year Three 2- October 22nd 2014

64. The Multiversity: The Just- October 22nd 2014

65. Injustice: Gods Among Us Year Three 3- November 5th 2014

66. Klarion 2- November 12th 2014

67. Injustice: Gods Among Us Year Three 4- November 19th 2014

68. Klarion 3- December 10th 2014

69. Injustice: Gods Among Us Year Three 6- December 24th 2014

70. Klarion 3- Janurary 14th 2015

71. The Multiversity Guidebook- January 28th 2015

72. Injustice: Gods Among Us Year three 9- February 11th 2015

73. Klarion 5- February 11th 2015

74. Klarion 6- March 11th 2015

75. Teen Titsns Annual 1- April 1st 2015

76. Multiversity 2- April 29th 2015

77. Teen Titans 9- June 24th 2015

78. Teen Titans 10- July 22nd 2015

79. Teen Titans 11- August 26th 2015

80. Secret Six 7- October 21st 2015

81. Teen Titans 13- November 11th 2015

82. Secret Six 8- November 18th 2015

83. Secret Six 10- January 20th 2016

84. Gotham Academy 17- April 13th 2016

85. Scooby-Doo Team-Up 19- October 26th 2016

86. Justice League 33 November 15th 2017

87. Justice League Dark 1- July 25th 2018

88. Sideways 7- August 8th 2018

89. Justice League Dark 2- August 22nd 2018

90. Catwoman/Tweety and Sylvester- August 29th 2018

91. Sideways 8- September 12th 2018

92. Raven: Daughter of Darkness 8- September 26th 2018

93. Raven: Daughter of Darkness 9- October 24th 2018

94. Sideways Annual- November 7th 2018

95. Suicide Squad Black Files 1- November 7th 2018

96. Raven: Daughter of Darkness 10- November 28th 2018

97. Sideways 10- November 21st 2018

98. Suicide Squad Black Files 2- December 5th 2018

99. Raven: Daughter of Darkness 11- January 2nd 2019

100. Suicide Squad Black Files- January 9th 2019

101. Raven: Daughter of Darkness 12- January 30th 2019

102. Suicide Squad Black Files 4- February 6th 2019

103. Justice League Dark 8- February 13th 2019

104. Suicide Squad Black Files 5- March 6th 2019

105. Justice League Dark 9- March 13th 2019

106. Suicide Squad Black Files 6- April 3rd 2019

107. Justice League Dark 10- April 24th 2019

108. DC’s Year of the Villain Special- May 1st 2019

109. Justice League Dark 11- May 22nd 2019

110. Justice League 26- June 19th 2019

111. Justice League Dark 14- August 28th 2019

112. Justice League 30- August 28th 2019

113. Justice League Dark 15- September 25th 2019

114. Justice League Dark 16- October 23rd 2019

115. Justice League Dark 17- November 27th 2019

116. Harley Quinn’s Villian of the year- December 11th 2019

117. Flash Forward 4- December 18th 2019

118. Justice League Dark 18- January 1st 2020

119. Justice League Dark 19-January 29th 2020

120. Zatana and the House of Secrets- February 2020

121. Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen 3- February 26th 2020

122. Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen 4- March 18th 2020

123. DC The Doomed and The Damned- October 13th 2020

124. DC’sVery Merry Multiverse- December 8th 2020

125. Wonder Woman Black & Gold 6- November 23rd 2021

126. Justice League Incarnate 2- December 21st 2021

127. DC VS Vampires 8- August 02 2022

128. The Flash 786- September 20th 2022

129. Batman VS Robin 2- October 11th 2022

130. Catwoman: Lonely City 4- October 25th 2022

131. Batman VS Robin 3- December 20th 2022

132. Lazarus Planet: Alpha- January 10 2023

133. Lazarus Planet: Omega- February 21st 2023

134. Superboy The Man Of Tomorrow 4- July 11th 2023

135. Speed Force 5- March 12th 2024

136. Outsiders 5- March 12th 2024

[grrrriotgirl]

Hole - live at Rathskellar Boston - july 13, 1991

Setlist:

Pretty On The Inside 6. Babydoll

Garbage Man 7. Dicknail

Berry

Mrs. Jones

Teenage Whore

[intriguingpeoplebyangelafloyd]

ALEX WINTER

ALEX WINTER

17 July 1965

THE LOST BOYS

            Alex Winter is a British-American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for playing Marko in The Lost Boys (1987), Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) & Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey 1991).

            Alexander Winter was born in London, England, his mother a New York dancer and his father founded the first modern-dance company in London during the 1960s. His father Ross Winter is an Australian who danced with his mother’s troupe. His father has English ancestry and his mother is Jewish, of Ukrainian descent. When he was five his family moved to Missouri, US and then moved to New York City in 1978; they lived in Montclair, New Jersey. Winter trained as a dancer as a child and started acting when he moved to New York, initially performing on Broadway. He attended New York University in 1983 where he met aspiring filmmaker Tom Stern; the two collaborated on making short films. Winter dropped out of film school and Stern and himself moved to Hollywood, where they continued making films and music videos. Winter looked for work as an actor, including gaining his role in The Lost Boys.  Winter was a film student when he auditioned for The Lost Boys, casting agent Marion Dougherty introduced Winter to Joel Schumacher and Richard Donner. He met the filmmakers whilst dressed in 80s punk rock style clothing, during filming they had him wear hair extensions.

            Winter has an interest in the internet which inspired him to make the documentaries Downloaded (2012) and the Deep Web (2015).

            Winter has been married twice and has three children. In 2018, Winter revealed when he was aged 13, an older man sexually assaulted him whilst he was acting on Broadway. He has spoken publicly how it has affected him and how he has suffered from PTSD since he was a teenager.

#alexwinter #thelostboys #thelostboys1987

[rotten7rat]

Batfamily Ages

Okay so I hate writing down characters ages, coz, well, they age. But generally when I think of just random little things happening in my own DC storylines Damian is around 13. So here are my Batfamily members ages according to that:

Alfred: 76 (August 16, 1943)

Bruce: 46 (February 19, 1973)

Barbara: 30 (September 23, 1989)

Dick: 28 (March 21, 1991)

Cassandra: 22 (January 26, 1997)

Jason: 22 (August 16, 1997)

Stephanie: 21 (August 11, 1998)

Tim: 20 (July 19, 1999)

Duke: 15 (August 13, 2004)

Damian: 13 (January 5, 2006)

[broadwaydivastournament]

And the Tony Award Goes to...

Six-Time Tony Winner Audra McDonald, reigning Queen of Broadway

In honor of the Tony nomination announcement today, it's about time I published this post I've had waiting for almost two months now. With 64 Divas in our tournament, they're practically drowning in Tonys. Collectively, 53 Divas have received one or more nominations across four eligible acting categories, and 31 have taken home the prize. And you'll never believe what tumblr's image limit is. 30.

As luck would have it, two Divas won Tonys in the same year and despite what might be the most dramatic height difference possible, Bebe Neuwirth and Janet McTeer were photographed together specifically so I could make this post work 27 years later. (Bebe in heels and Janet in flats, and still...)

Pictured (L to R): Andrea Martin (2013), Anika Noni Rose (2004), Bebe Neuwirth and Janet McTeer (1997)

Pictured (L to R): Bernadette Peters (2012), Beth Leavel (2006), Betty Buckley (1983)

Nominations: (excluding wins)

Nominations Overall: 125 Best Leading Actress in a Musical: 56 Best Featured Actress in a Musical: 36 Best Leading Actress in a Play: 13 Best Featured Actress in a Musical: 19 Producer: 1

Pictured (L to R): Cherry Jones (2004), Christine Baranski (1989), Debra Monk (1993)

Pictured (L to R): Donna Murphy (1996), Harriet Sansom Harris (2002), Heather Headley (2000)

Nominations: (including wins)

Nominations Overall: 175 Best Leading Actress in a Musical: 75 Best Featured Actress in a Musical: 50 Best Leading Actress in a Play: 18 Best Featured Actress in a Musical: 29 Producer: 3

Pictured (L to R): Jayne Houdyshell (2016), Joanna Gleason (1988), Judith Light (2012)

Pictured (L to R): Julie White (2007), Karen Ziemba (2000), Katie Finneran (2002)

Wins: (2024 pending)

Wins Overall: 50 Best Leading Actress in a Musical: 19 Best Featured Actress in a Musical: 14 Best Leading Actress in a Play: 5 Best Featured Actress in a Musical: 10 Producer: 2

Pictured (L to R): Katrina Lenk (2018), Kelli O'Hara (2015), LaChanze (2023)

Pictured (L to R): Laurie Metcalf (2018), Lea Salonga (1991), Lillias White (1997)

Special Tony Awards (non-competitive):

Special Tony Award (posthumous): Marin Mazzie (my beloved) Isabelle Stevenson Award: Bernadette Peters, Judith Light

Pictured (L to R): Patti LuPone (2008), Stephanie J. Block (2019), Tonya Pinkins (1992)

Pictured (L to R): Tyne Daly (1990), Victoria Clark (2023)

Most Frequent Nominee: (including wins)

Leading Actress in a Musical: Kelli O'Hara (7) Featured Actress in a Musical: Andrea Martin (5) Leading Actress in a Play: Cherry Jones/Laura Linney (5) Featured Actress in a Play: Jayne Houdyshell/Judith Light/Julie White (3)

No Diva has won more than twice in any performance category. This will not change with the current nominees this year.

Oldest Winners:

Leading Actress in a Musical: Victoria Clark (63) Featured Actress in a Musical: Patti LuPone (72) Leading Actress in a Play: Laurie Metcalf (62) Featured Actress in a Play: Judith Light (64)

Oldest Nominee: Mary Beth Peil (76)

[frankendykes-monster]

Countdown to Halloween 2024 ranked

54. The Willies (1990)

53. Hell High (1987)

52. Face of The Screaming Werewolf (1964)

51. Terrifier (2016)

50. The Last Halloween (1991)

49. Cathy's Curse (1977)

48. The Last Shark (1981)

47. Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire (2024)

46. Creepozoids (1987)

45. The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)

44. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (1974)

43. Man Beast (1956)

42. Tourist Trap (1979)

41. Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957)

40. Fiend (1980)

39. Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

38. Devil Girl From Mars (1954)

37. Halloween Hall o' Fame (1977)

36. Nightmare (1981)

35. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

34. Peeping Tom (1960)

33. Violent Shit (1989)

32. Invaders From Mars (1986)

31. Eggshells (1969)

30. Night of The Ghouls (1959)

29. Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973)

28. The Strange World of Planet X (1958)

27. The Colossus of New York (1958)

26. The Scooby-Doo Project (1999)

25. Night of The Living Doo (2001)

24. Scooby-Doo! and The Reluctant Werewolf (1988)

23. The Great Bear Scare (1983)

22. The Wasp Woman (1995)

21. The Cyclops (1957)

20. Frankenstein and The Monster from Hell (1974)

19. The Tingler (1959)

18. The Boogey Man (1980)

17. The Dragon Lives Again (1977)

16. Quatermass and The Pit (1967)

15. The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

14. Mad Love (1935)

13. The Alien Factor (1978)

12. The Walking Dead (1935)

11. Dr. Caligari (1989)

10. The Deadly Spawn (1983)

9. Invaders From Mars (1953)

8. Alucarda (1977)

7. Uzumaki (2024)

6. Sole Survivor (1984)

5. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

4. Shock Waves (1977)

3. Frankenhooker (1990)

2. Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1978)

1. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)

What a productive year. October lasts all of 30 seconds which is why I have to start watching these in July if I want to make any decent headway (31 films is not enough). I desperately tried to make this a year of "have not seens" after last year's top spots being flooded with films I already loved; we mostly did it, mostly. Another top heavy year with relatively few abysmal entries, let's get started.

The Willies is the grand shitshow for this year. It feels like it's an evolutionary precursor to something like Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of The Dark?, but it mostly plays to gross out rather than scares. I don't normally care for anthology horror films to begin so to start off a film with brief segments like a woman eating a deep fried rat or a little white dog being microwave exploded and then doing extended stories on monsters hiding in the school bathroom does not do it for me. The most minimal points possible for some decent lighting and special effects but they are not enough by any means to make this worth watching. Stay away.

Onto the 1980's horror: Hell High is what happens when a film crew asks "what if we put a woman into a situation and didn't stop". I want to call it misogynistic torture porn, but I don't want to devalue that phrase for when I use it for a film later on here, but suffice to say a woman is tortured. Emotionally. For very little reason. Universal was right to block The Last Shark from US theatrical distribution. Not because it's a very blatant Jaws ripoff and they wanted to protect their copyright, but because it's abysmal and nobody should have to pay money to see this. I think the stock footage of sharks juxtaposed with the unmoving props between shots is funny, and some of the soundtrack elevates the experience, like the high shrill drones when the shark attacks a helicopter. Creepozoids is an odd one because 1987 was a bit late for a Mad Max/Escape from New York/Alien knockoff but also too early for some Full Moon tier/softcore porn adjacent 1990's production, so it loses out on both fronts. Fiend I'm struggling to even recall, I feel like Don Dohler had one movie in him (see: his plethora of alien invasion films) and him trying to branch out did him no favors. Nightmare is one I want to enjoy because it's beautifully shot but I feel like I've seen one too many slasher adjacent films at this point that include plot points like the killer having a troubled relationship with his mother or him moonlighting as a regular guy (still better than Pieces mind you). Same with Violent Shit. I feel like my tastes are pretty attuned to films that are just gore effects showcases but this one doesn't have any zany concepts to justify or compliment it, so it just falls flat.

The Boogey Man belongs to that tirade of Halloween knockoffs that flooded theaters up till about 1984 or so, but it puts in some extra effort like having a ghost be the main antagonist and a symbolic interest in mirrors, which is much more than could be asked of films like Terror Train which came out the same year. Dr. Caligari is the obligatory "this is what Tim Burton thinks he's doing" film of this year; its sets and its performances are perfectly otherworldly to a humorous degree. It's something of a quasi-sequel to the 1920 film but its relationship with logic is attuned to such a frequency that it's not a hindrance. Very hard to objectively quantify, you're either in the target audience or you aren't, so of all films here take its tier placement the least seriously. The Deadly Spawn is such a gloriously gross film. The house it's shot in isn't supposed to be disgusting on purpose, it's just one of those century's old buildings where I feel like I'd revulse if I had to touch any surface, and that's before fleshy alien monsters break in and start shredding people to bits. Sole Survivor is one of those magical "missing link" horror films, we've finally found what comes between Carnival of Souls and Final Destination. The actual scares in this film are incredibly minimal as it prioritizes atmosphere that balances between comfort and unease, something incredibly rare for films of virtually any genre. Don't go in expecting ghosts and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Taking a brief-ish detour to the 1960's, Face of The Screaming Werewolf is one of those films I'm more angry at than anything because it's one of those films that's just the combined stray footage of multiple previous films. Rare for these to be produced in the western market (most of the examples I think of are from (south)east Asia) but it's infuriating nonetheless to see something only to discover it's a worse version of multiple better things you could be seeing. Peeping Tom is our "most overrated" entry winner, I don't know why so many people applaud this one, I feel like barely anything of substance happens to such a degree that any ounce of suspense you could draw from this just disappears, and what a shame with the concept at play here that feels as if it would take another decade for everyone else to catch up. Eggshells is the directorial debut of Tobe Hooper and while cohesive narrative is virtually nonexistent here, the amount of experimental editing keeps this going throughout the entire runtime, you can definitely see where The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came from down the line. I feel like I'm somewhat disappointed with Quatermass and The Pit (not sure what "The Pit" refers to now that I think of it) mostly becasue the first two Quatermass films are among the best 1950's science fiction films. All three are theatrical remakes of television mini-series and that's most felt here with how so much of the film takes place in the single location of an unearthed Martian ship in the heart of London. I do love that we have a science fiction film positing that humans are partly the genetic ancestors of aliens prior to people taking that seriously with books like Chariot of The Gods. The Brain That Wouldn't Die is magical, sometimes those oft hated 1950's/1960's science fiction films have something to give back to the rest of us. Here it's a man so obsessed with his own work that he sees his wife's death as an opportunity to try and kill other women so that he can use their bodies as grounds to bring her back. Which sounds like something else I watched...

...said film being Frankenhooker, which has largely the same plot but now functions as a dark comedy. God. I hate so much that the capitalist enclosure on the production and distribution of film prevented us from getting so much more from Frank Henenlotter. The man is one of the best to ever direct horror, and anyone who thinks this film or any of his other work are "bad movies" just flat out do not know what they're talking about. I think compared to Basket Case and Brain Damage however, Frankenhooker is the one that "keeps giving". You think you've seen everything the film has to offer and then something like a hotel room full of women combusts as they succumb to the effects of exploding crack or Elizabeth (the titular character) has her head punched back and starts spewing smoke and electricity everywhere. Film is a magical medium of art.

Terrifier is what I held onto "misogynistic torture porn" for. No narrative, no character work, just opportunities to show Art the Clown dismember and murder women in revolting ways. It's one of those films that vindicates everyone that doesn't like this genre and makes me wonder what I'm doing sitting side by side with people that like this shit. I think Art cutting off a woman's breasts and scalp and attaching them to his nude body to disguise himself as another prior female victim of his is when my mouth went agape and audibly asked what the fuck am I watching, cannot stress enough how much it takes to get that reaction out of me. There's an upfront showcase that Terrifier knows that it's trash and revels in it, I mean there's an early scene where we see Art has spelled out his name in his own shit, and I'm not sure how to interpret that other than I feel like I might be landing in a Duchamp's Urinal trap. For reasons that allude even me I am still eyeing the prospect of watching both sequels.

I think my overall reaction to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is one of "whatever". A passably bad film is a definite improvement from the abomination that was Godzilla vs. Kong but it's admittedly easy to rise up when you start from the bottom. Adam Wingard more or less sucked all the joy I could muster out of the Monsterverse, I truly do not care anymore. If anything can be gleaned from this film it's that this is a film made to reconfirm people's existing biases of "I hate the boring human scenes, I'm only watching this for the monsters." Kong is the best actor in this film because the special effects team have to have him actually emote in response to a given situation, which is more than could be asked of anyone actually on the set, apparently. It's a miracle that this came out in the shadow of Godzilla Minus One than on its own terms.

The glut of 1950's science fiction films are a perennial staple of the Halloween countdown but they don't have a huge showing this year. Man Beast is one I'm going to confuse with all the other yeti movies of the decade though having a main antagonist that's actually a human hybrid gets it some points for originality. Daughter of Dr. Jekyll infuriates me because women who become monsters in film never get to be "hideous" and "scary" like their male counterparts, I'm throwing tomatoes at this one. Devil Girl From Mars is mostly memorable for having a giant clunky robot a la Gort, but the actual titular antagonist doesn't "serve cunt" enough to warrant interest, she should have taken notes from The Astounding She-Monster. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is an honorable mention because it's a feature-length pastiche of the z-grade films of this era. I don't think it's particularly funny and I kind of wish they lampooned a "good" film of this type rather than make something that fits in line with the middling genre efforts. Night of The Ghouls is the last horror film directed by Ed Wood and I feel like I enjoy it slightly more than Plan 9 From Outer Space. It's far more competent in producing that lulling insomniac reaction than Wood's prior efforts but I still don't "get" the attention his work consistently gets. The Strange World of Planet X gets a special pass from me just because the finale has a bunch of giant bugs attacking stuff. Moving on.

The Colossus of New York is an oddball modern Frankenstein of sorts with a guy being transformed into a giant robot and struggling to maintain some attachment to his former life. It doesn't always work but once again giant clunky robots are giant clunky robots. I'm something of a Bert I. Gordon apologist so something like The Cyclops is going to hit harder for me than it does for most people. I just like people wandering around Bronson Cave and poor matte shots of giant animals moving in and out of frame, okay? The Tingler was the oddest revisit I've had in a while. I don't think I fully "get" William Castle's approach to film but what stuck out to me is how this one takes place in largely two locations and how Vincent Price's character is kind of the antagonist, experimenting on animals, himself, and other people (resulting in a murder) to get at the Tingler. Much like in House on Haunted Hill I'm not wholly sure how some of the spooky things in this film actually work and I don't think I'm meant to, adding to the bizarre nature of the entire series of affairs here.

Invaders From Mars...oh yes. One of the absolute best 1950's science fiction films is also the most lyrical and dreamlike. It reads at times like a Soviet parody of an American child's story would be like; a boy sees every institution designed to protect him as a child and as an American turn against him on account of some nefarious foreign invader, so his only course of action is to get the US military involved. It plays out so well because it's a POV piece from a young boy, which eases over any leaps in logic both in terms of form and content of this film. Which is more than can be said of the remake, part of the diminishing returns of Tobe Hooper's then contract with Cannon. The film largely follows the same plot structure but decenters the frame through which we see it unfold giving it a "the military is legit" vibe. It also is just a bit more mean-spirited in ways that are designed to taunt the audience versus the original film's more hardened edge to it. I think a great summation of the difference between the two is that the 1953 film had Martian bodyguards that are clearly guys in fuzzy green pajama suits, but they're more threatening than the ones in the 1986 film which are giant quadruped Stan Winston monsters. I digress. Had this come out 20 years later it would be classified as part of the wave of "why are they remaking everything?"

Speaking of remakes, briefly want to mention the 1995 Wasp Woman. It's The Wasp Woman for the 1990's, now with explosions and softcore sex scenes. I can't wholly defend the original 1959 film despite my affinity for it, so let's just say this one is of comparable quality.

The 1930's are a delightful treasure trove for horror but sadly we only have two up for offer. Mad Love makes me curious as to how other adaptations of The Hands of Orlac handle the material; I was convinced a guy got his head surgically reattached and with artificial hands to boot. Always good to see Colin Clive and Peter Lorre. The Walking Dead feels like a dry run for what Boris Karloff would do later that decade in the much better The Man They Could Not Hang, just with him as the victim here and not the mastermind. Truly some of his best work as an actor as he has to float through the world not being allowed to live or die, that shit sticks with you.

We watched a scant few Halloween specials proper, I always feel like I want to watch every Halloween special possible but sometimes the enthusiasm leaves me. The Last Halloween is trash, but that's on me for thinking something made for very small children would appeal to me as an adult. It crams far too much into its brief 22 minute runtime, so the only thing that manages to escape into the zone of interest is that the CGI aliens are actually very well done for a 1991 television production, had this been all about them (voiced by Hanna Barbara stalwarts such as Frank Welker and Don Messick, along with Paul Williams), this would have been far more tolerable. Halloween Hall o' Fame is the first of apparently several Disney television specials that repackaged their theatrical shorts inside a live-action framing device. It's quaint but this format would live and die by the quality of the shorts included; I'm not intimately familiar with Disney's back catalogue solely because they've barely released anything on home media but I absolutely adore the one where Pluto goes to Hell and is put in a kangaroo court with cats on the jury. I feel like the novelty of The Scooby-Doo Project and Night of The Living Doo have carried them along further than their actual quality have, stray artifacts from when Warner Bros was briefly testing to see if Scooby could be an adult property now, doomed to the same fate as Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. The latter of these two specials made me come to terms with the fact that David Cross was "a big deal" at some point. The Great Bear Scare is the winner here. How could you not like an animated special where bears have to stand up and be brave against an oncoming horde of Halloween monsters? What makes this an oddity (sort of an obligation for me and Halloween specials) is that this is animated 100% without in-betweens, so every character in every scene cross-dissolves in real time between their keyframes. Depending on who you are it could be ridiculously distracting or make you step back and appreciate how hard animation is.

Clearing out our remaining animated showings, I felt like I would really get back into Scooby-Doo and The Reluctant Werewolf. In the mid-late 2000's when Cartoon Network was desperately trying to excise showing anything from their backlogs, this is one of those films that was on repeat constantly as midday viewings especially over summer. It's just so far removed from what Scooby-Doo "proper" is that it's an enigma, I go to bat to defend each of the "red shirt Shaggy" movies but this is brain melting at times, there is no mystery to solve, monsters are real, Fred/Daphne/Velma are completely absent, half the film is dedicated to a drag race, it goes on and on and on that I feel numb after a bit. Uzumaki...it's good. I feel like the fact that this was in production hell for five years following the first trailer release made me stop caring so all the shenanigans regarding the reaction to the animation dropping off (the production team got screwed over, how the fuck do studios not have the money for FOUR EPISODES, David Zlasv strikes again) brushed off of me. Regardless of that I think the actual pacing would have restricted this given how much sequential material from the manga now has to occur concurrently. It gets by solely because it's Uzumaki and as such it channels such a foreboding sense of dread and despair that is unreal. This more than anything is the true epitome of cosmic horror because there is no "source" or "identity" behind the threat that is warping reality around you, there is nothing to oppose and be defiant against, which was true of the manga and it remains true here. Bravo.

The 1970's prove to be another sporadic decade for horror. Cathy's Curse proves that no matter how good technical effects are, do not watch any Carrie knockoffs. Blah. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks...you took a movie where a Frankenstein monster fights a caveman and made it boring, congratulations. In the interim between 2021's viewing of Curse of Frankenstein and now, I've made the effort to watch the entirety of the Hammer Frankenstein series. They make for a brilliant reinterpretation of the source material with Frankenstein effectively being antagonist: he kills consistently for his experiments, which often time warp and alter people's identities along with their bodies. The "holy triumvirate" of the series as referred to by me would be The Revenge of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Created Woman, and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, all for showcasing new stuff that can be done with the character and any prior influences such as the Universal films being absent. Then comes The Horror of Frankenstein, a soft remake of Curse of Frankenstein, with Terence Fischer and Peter Cushing both absent. It's a dry and tedious affair that just rehashes what Curse already did, just now with a black comedic angle and no real consequences for Frankenstein himself. It's easily the worst of the series and why I'm glad Hammer backtracked for Frankenstein and The Monster From Hell. This is probably the first instance in film history where a sequel has consciously ignored a preceding remake, and while it's not wholly original either, it's comfort food for fans of this series, and now employs a darker more claustrophobic setting in an ~insane asylum~. Not the best ending for the series, but Hammer, along with Toho and Ray Harryhausen's efforts with Columbia, sort of represented the "old" styles of horror that were pretty quickly being replaced as the decade went on. This film specifically came out the same year as the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it was a transitional period where what horror once was was cast away. Still not sure why the monster in this film looks like a Neanderthal man but that's just me.

Tourist Trap desperately tries to be one part Psycho and one part Texas Chainsaw, and it admittedly starts off with a nice hook of animatronic puppets being the main focus of the film, but it falls through the cracks and just becomes another random 1970's horror film. Vampyros Lesbos makes me realize that my infatuation with Zombi 3 last year did not mean I'm suddenly infatuated with Lucio Fulci's overall filmography, exceptions are not the rule. Come to think I don't think I've seen a single lesbian vampire film that I'm smitten with, how do you make this boring and not sexy at all, fuck you. Scream, Blacula, Scream is the obligatory Blacula cash-in sequel, nothing worthwhile to see here and none of the charm and significance of the first film is carried forward here, sigh. "DEDICATED TO THE MILLIONS THAT LOVE BRUCE LEE," The Dragon Lives Again is one of the plethora of films featuring Lee impersonators following his death, showing Lee in Hell as he has to find a way back to Earth while also fighting off The Godfather, Dracula, The Man with No Name, Emanuele, Zatoichi, and James Bond while allying himself with Popeye and Dr. Who. No I am not making any of this up, yes, this film was made with very little money so it sounds far more interesting than it actually ends up being, but it's a cute film, I can't be mad at a film made for me, nor can a movie showing Popeye eat spinach to fight mummies or Bruce Lee knocking out Dracula with his "third leg" be something you don't go out of your way to watch.

The Alien Factor is Don Dohler's first and best film. I love the fact that a dozen people made a small scale alien invasion/slasher film in their backyards with actually solid special effects for something that was probably made on the weekends. You can't hate this film, it's made from pure love for what was already decades old genre material. Had some of the script and acting been tightened up this could have become one of the more widely recognized independent films of the decade. Oh...Alucarda. I hate when they make a lesbian devil worshiper film between girls coming to terms with theirs sexual orientation and then they aren't the heroes of the story. We've come a long way since then.

Given that the Eggers film is still a few months out, I'd say Nosferatu the Vampyre is my preferred interpretation of the story (not my favorite Dracula adaptation overall mind you). Let me say that I think remaking Nosferatu is ridiculous solely because you're just doing Dracula, again, just with some stylistic details brought on from a specific prior Dracula. But this film goes all out. It's one of those times where I'm reminded of why slowly paced films with shots that last minutes at a time are so great. It relies very little on narrative (the extent/nature of Dracula's power of the geographic barriers between Wismar and Transylvania go unexplained) but you get so thoroughly sucked into the setting and the characters that you can't complain. This has undeniably the best portrayal of Mina in any Dracula film, she's effectively the protagonist by the second half and each of her encounters with Dracula are on her terms, he's effectively powerless against her even if she ensures they both die in the end. Also, rats. So many rats. Everywhere. The plague is in town.

Shock Waves is just great 1970's horror. Shoot on location, hold the camera in hand the entire time, do it cheap, have a dreamy distant narrator, and make it grisly. I do find the concept of Nazis engineering platoons of super soldiers and we only seeing just the one in this film is probably the scariest thing about it, it invites you to think about what else is happening out of sight. My favorite first watch of the year.

1978's Invasion of The Body Snatchers is also a phenomenal remake. This one is difficult for me to talk about because it just pushes all my buttons, I felt like I wanted to cry throughout the duration of this viewing, it is an incredibly mean film. Someone you know just one day turns on you, and then everyone else follows suit. You think you know your surroundings and your city but everything is flipped upside down and you can't even describe why. From the very start when you see the premature pods land on Earth it's made immediately clear that no one is making it out of here, it was too late as soon as it started.

But there can only be one #1, and this year it's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Another instance of "nothing is going to beat this" as soon as I rewatched it. I feel like I'm alone in considering this one of the absolute best in the series, I feel like between the espionage and exploration and blood and laser fights that this is just one of the films that reminds you of why we make and why we watch movies, you get to have some semblance of every possible human emotion watching this. There's not much more you can ask for.

[blackcur-rants]

Random silly headcanons about what the casting would be for a 1980s or 1990s version of “Hazbin Hotel” (This version probably comes out some time between 1987 and 1994, most likely in either 1989 or 1991 and most likely on 28 July 1989 at that, to be quite honest).

01. Jodie Foster as Charlie

02. Steve Martin as Lucifer

03. Robin Wright as Vaggie

04. Robin Williams as Angel Dust

05. Tim Curry as Alastor

06. Keith David as Husk

07. Michael Keaton as Vox

08. Mandy Patinkin as Stolas

09. William Atherton as Blitz

10. Joe Pesci as Fizzarolli

11. Danny de Vito as Moxxie

12. Karen Allen as Velvette

13. Christian Slater as Adam

14. Sigourney Weaver as Lute

15. Shelley Duvall as Niffty

16. Jamie Lee Curtis as Millie

17. Winona Ryder as Loona

18. Kate Winslet as Octavia

19. Ernie Hudson as Asmodeus

20. Robert de Niro as Mammon

21. Linda Hamilton as Carmilla

22. Bruce Campbell as Stryker

23. Kurt Russell as Vortex/Tex

24. Michael Crawford as Sir Pentious

25. Madeline Kahn as Rosie

26. Olivia Newton John as Cherri Bomb

27. Jack Nicholson as Valentino

28. James Earl Jones as Zestial

29. Judi Dench as Sera

30. Linzi Hateley as Emily

31. Martin Mull as Andrealphus

32. Elaine Paige as Stella

Christopher Guest as Paimon

Eddie Bracken as Cash Buckzo

Chris Sarandon as Vassago

Sean Young as Beelzebub

Miriam Margolyes as Mimzie

Jean Marsh as Mrs Mayberry

Pam Ferris as Martha

John Hurt as Lyle Lipton

@cynicalclassicist @carcosa-commune @disregardcanon @lady-asteria @dachi-chan25

@helluvatired @lorethebookworm

[punster-2319]

WALT DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIOS (WDAS) RANKING (as of July 2024)

Image source

Well since I’ve been making a lot of ranking posts these past few months, ranking all 62 Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) movies was inevitable. Some spots are obvious, while others may be controversial, but hey it’s my subjective ranking:

1. Aladdin (1992)

2. The Lion King (1994)

3. The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)

4. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

5. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

6. Encanto (2021)

7. The Little Mermaid (1989)

8. Alice in Wonderland (1951)

9. Hercules (1997)

10. Pinocchio (1940)

11. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

12. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

13. The Fox and the Hound (1981)

14. Moana (2016)

15. Mulan (1998)

16. Tarzan (1999)

17. Fantasia (1940)

18. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

19. Lilo and Stitch (2002)

20. Robin Hood (1973)

21. Melody Time (1948)

22. The Princess and the Frog (2009)

23. The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

24. Tangled (2010)

25. Winnie the Pooh (2011)

26. Atlantis the Lost Empire (2001)

27. Treasure Planet (2002)

28. Zootopia (2016)

29. Peter Pan (1953)

30. The Jungle Book (1967)

31. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

32. Oliver and Company (1988)

33. The Aristocats (1970)

34. The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

35. Pocahontas (1995)

36. Lady and the Tramp (1955)

37. Sleeping Beauty (1959)

38. The Sword in the Stone (1963)

39. Wish (2023)

40. Big Hero 6 (2014)

41. Cinderella (1950)

42. Dumbo (1941)

43. Bambi (1942)

44. Frozen (2013)

45. Frozen 2 (2019)

46. Fantasia 2000 (2000)

47. Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

48. The Three Caballeros (1945)

49. Saludos Amigos (1943)

50. Meet the Robinsons (2007)

51. Home on the Range (2004)

52. The Rescuers (1977)

53. The Black Cauldron (1985)

54. Brother Bear (2003)

55. Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

56. Make Mine Music (1946)

57. Strange World (2022)

58. Bolt (2008)

59. Wreck-it Ralph (2012)

60. Dinosaur (2000)

61. Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

62. Chicken Little (2005)

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE (AND LEAST FAVORITE) WDAS MOVIES?

[darlinhutchence]

WISHING THE HAPPIEST OF ANNIVERSARIES TO INXS' LIVE BABY LIVE WEMBLEY SHOW IN 1991.

[warpedpuppeteer]

Okay so I know timelines don't make sense when it comes to 911. But based on Buck Begins, it looks like Buck was definitely born in 1991 (or even before). It's mentioned that it's 2020 in season 4 and Buck says it's been 29 years of secrecy so counting back he's probably born in 1991. The only reason I'm going back a year too is because based on him falling off the bike and his room, it doesn't look like a 5 year old's room. His speech pattern and the way it's decorated makes it seem like he's a bit older. Also he mentions applying for the football club in 2004, I tried to do some research (fellow americans pls lmk) and it looks like PA does have middle school football (generally, it seems more common in high school and I feel like it makes more sense since I think his parents would have gone insane if he tried out in middle school but that's my personal opinion on the characters). Based on the looks of the actor he looks 13/14 so that tracks. We know Daniel got sick right after the photo so 1988. And I think it says July. So assuming they tried some treatments for a year or so and then tried for Buck, then it's more likely for Buck to be born in 1990 or 1991. Maddie mentions Daniel died while Buck's 1 and was too young to remember. In my head it kind of makes sense if Buck was born in maybe mid/late 1990 because I doubt they'd do the transplant as he's fresh out of the womb in 1991? So they'd probably wait a bit, do the transplant, it fails and then Daniel passes. Maddie says Daniel had 3 years of treatments before he passed, so he either passed in 1991 (if we count from 1988) or 1992 (if we count from 1989). So this defo puts Buck's birth year in either 1990/1991 rather than 1991/1992.

In conclusion, this sent me on a stupid spiral (very buck of me) and I don't know if it's right or not but hey, older Buck truthers RISE!

[pridequest64]

Anarky Reading Order

This is, based of my research the complete reading list in release order for all Anarly Comics as of October 1st 2024. Release dates were used when available but compromises were made with cover date when necessary. If you see anything that is wrong or needs new additions feel free to let me know!

(Comic Vine was a massive help in this Project!)

1. Detective Comics #608 November 1989

2. Detective Comics #609 December 1989

3. Detective Comics #620 August 1990

4. Batman #456 September 18th 1990

5. Detective Comics #627 March 1991

6. Batman Annual #15 April 18th 1991

7. Robin Annual #1 July 23rd 1992

8. Superman & Batman Magazine #1 Q3 1993

9. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #16

10. September 1993

11. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #17 September 1993

12. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #18 October 1993

13. Green Arrow #89 August 1994

14. Batman: Shadow of the Bat Annual #2 September 1994

15. The Batman Adventures #31 April 1995

16. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #40 May 16th 1995

17. The Batman Chronicles #1 May 30th 1995

18. The Batman Adventures #36 October 1st 1995

19. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #41 June 20th 1996

20. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #50 May 1st 1996

21. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #66 September 1st 1997

22. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #67 October 1st 1997

23. Batman: Shadow of the Bat #73 April 1998

24. DCU Heroes Secret Files February 1999

25. Anarky #1 May 1999

26. Anarky #2 June 1999

27. Anarky #3 July 1999

28. Anarky #4 August 1999

29. Anarky #5 September 1999

30. Anarky #6 October 1999

31. Anarky #7 November 1999

32. Anarky #8 December 1999

33. Sins of Youth: JLA, Jr. May 2000

34. Young Justice: Sins of Youth #1 May 2000

35. Young Justice: Sins of Youth #2 May 2000

36. Green Arrow #51 August 2005

37. Robin #181 December 17th 2008

38. Robin #182 January 21st 2009

39. Robin #183 April 1st 2009

40. Red Robin #3 August 12th 2009

41. Red Robin #13 June 3rd 2010

42. Red Robin #15 August 4th 2010

43. Red Robin #16 September 9th 2010

44. Red Robin #17 November 10th 2010

45. Red Robin #18 December 8th 2010

46. Red Robin #19 January 12th 2011

47. Red Robin #20 February 9th 2011

48. Red Robin #21 March 16th 2011

49. Red Robin #22 April 13th 2011

50. Red Robin #23 May 11th 2011

51. Red Robin #24 June 8th 2011

52. Beware the Batman #1 October 23rd 2013

53. Green Lantern Corps #25 November 13th 2013

54. Detective Comics #38 Janurary 7th 2015

55. Detective Comics #39 February 4th 2015

56. Detective Comics #40 March 4th 2015

57. Detective Comics: Endgame March 11th 2015

58. Detective Comics #957 May 24th 2017

59. Detective Comics #963 August 23rd 2017

60. Detective Comics #964 September 13th 2017

61. Detective Comics #966 October 11th 2017

62. Detective Comics #968 November 22nd 2017

63. Detective Comics #970 December 13th 2017

64. Detective Comics #971 December 27th 2017

65. Detective Comics #972 January 10th 2018

66. Detective Comics #973 January 24th 2018

67. Batman: Prelude to the Wedding: Red Hood vs. Anarky June 20th 2018

68. Harley Quinn #61 May 1st 2019

69. Harley Quinn #62 June 5th 2019

70. The Imfected: The Commissioner December 18th 2019

71. DC Nation Presents DC Future State November 24th 2020

72. Future State: The Next Batman #1 Janurary 5th 2021

73. I Am Batman #1 September 14th 2021

74. I Am Batman #2 October 12th 2021

75. Robins #4 February 15th 2022

76. Detective Comics #1054 February 22nd 2022

77. Batman: Urban Legends #22 December 20th 2022

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift’s third re-recorded album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), has earned over 575,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first four days of release (July 7-10), according to initial reports to Luminate — marking the biggest week for any album in 2023. Of that sum, album sales comprise over 400,000 copies – the largest sales week for an album this year, too.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is a re-recorded version of Swift’s 2010 No. 1 Billboard 200 studio album Speak Now. The 22-track re-recorded edition includes new recordings of the original album’s 14 standard tracks, along with bonus cuts and previously unreleased “From the Vault” recordings. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) follows Swift’s re-recorded Red and Fearless albums, released in 2021. Both debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

If Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) debuts at No. 1 on the July 22-dated Billboard 200 chart (which reflects the tracking week ending July 13), Swift’s count of No. 1 albums will rise to 12, surpassing Barbra Streisand (with 11 leaders) for the most No. 1 albums among female artists. Swift would also tie Drake for the third-most No. 1s among all acts, with only The Beatles (19) and Jay-Z (14) ahead of them. (The Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956.) The top 10 of the July 22-dated Billboard 200 chart is scheduled to be announced on Sunday, July 16.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.

2023’s previous largest week, by equivalent album units earned, was tallied by Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which launched with 501,000 units in the week ending March 9, as reflected on the Billboard 200 chart dated March 18. The year’s largest sales week was held by the debut frame of Stray Kids’ 5-STAR with 235,000 copies sold in the week ending June 8, as reflected on the June 17-dated charts.

Sales: With over 400,000 sold in only four days, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) already has the largest sales week for any album since Swift’s own last studio album, Midnights, debuted with 1.14 million copies sold last year (week ending Oct. 27, 2022; as reflected on the Nov. 5-dated Billboard charts).

Vinyl sales comprise over half of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’s sales – as the three-LP set has sold over 225,000 copies on wax. The latter marks the second-largest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era (since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991). It is second only to the first week of Midnights’ vinyl LP, with 575,000 sold in its opening frame. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is available in three color variants on vinyl – orchid marbled, violet marbled and a Target-exclusive lilac marbled color.

The remainder of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) sales is comprised of CDs, digital album download purchases and cassette tape sales.

Streaming: The collected 22 songs on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) generated more than 200 million on-demand official streams in the U.S. July 7-10, according to Luminate. The most-streamed tune on the album, by audio on-demand official streams, is the “from the vault” cut “I Can See You (Taylor’s Version),” with over 13 million on-demand official audio streams in those four tracking days.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

Not sure if you're actually interested in talking more about this, but I'm jumping in anyway because I relate so hard to being confused about the spiderverse timeline. Not only did everything about the society and Miguel happen fast, but a bunch of other stuff don't add up either? Like.

The first film takes place in early December 2018 according to Miles' test (if we can trust that? It does snow several times) and Peter's headstone, and Across takes place less than a year and a half later... or in July 2023 according to the bodega's security cameras?

Also, the news anchor says Peter was 26 when he died, but the headstone says 1991-2018. Then his birthday was in mid to late December? And he died right before it? That's sad. Oh! Speaking of birthdays: Miles asks why he can't go back to Brooklyn middle school. Soo... he's 13 (which the art book claimed, I think??) and skipped a grade? Is his birthday also late in the year? It has to be imminent if he can be 15 in a year and four months.

And Mayday! Babies typically start crawling at 7-10 months. 9 months of pregnancy + 7 months of living baby = 16 months, or a year and four months! MJ must've gotten pregnant immediately after she and Peter B reconciled. That's effecient of them, but I guess she'd waited long enough.

If we disregard the security cams, it's actually April-ish 2020. How long has Gwen been with the society? She says "a few months", yeah? If that's the truth, it must be between two and five months, because Jess' belly was noticeably big in the prologue, but she's yet to give birth by the end. So! Gwen joined in December or January? Maybe February? That's winter. Is it common to be dressed in shorts, tights, and sweater but no coat in New York during winter? Because that's how she's dressed. And the people around her are wearing t-shirts.

Gwen and Hobie has been on "a couple dozen" missions together. That's at least 24, if he meant that literally. Nearly one every day for one month. But it can't have been continuous because he's got shit to deal with in his own dimension in between. How do they manage their time? Do they have a schedule? And this has less to do with the timeline and is really something that just hit me:

Did Miguel deliberately gather all those spider-people to intimidate Miles with? Because HQ is teeming with spider-people doing mostly nothing (and that's only in the lobby). Don't they have villains to catch at home? I'm picturing Miguel sending a mass dm to everyone about how he needs them to come in and act natural – they have a 15 year old that has to be put in his place!

All this to say: I don't think you're dense about this. I think it's the writers that can't math.

BRUH ACTUALLY DEADASS

HOW LONG HAS JESSICA BEEN PREGNANT??????

Because her pregnancy and Gwen's time there PLUS pavitr joining in under six months is SO JARRING AND CONFUSING.

I assumed Gwen was with them for like 6 months, but that seems way too long so maybe 3? And we can (generously) say Jess was maybe 5-6 months pregnant? So okay, she's about to give birth.

And as someone who lives in NY, nah Winter here is a good 40F(4C) here or lower - even spring you have to wear a hoodie and it's like 60F(15C) until July so I don't know when they recruited her tbh

But for some reason I always assumed that Gwen joined before Pavi did, but I guess not?? But Pavi had only been Spider-man for six months? So did they recruit him right away or was HE the 'new guy' before Miles???? And why would they recruit him right away?

Yeah and with Hobie's work schedule - like I'm assuming they don't go on missions only together because she knows Pavi and LOTS of the other Peters, so either shes going on other missions with other people too- meaning Gwen has done a couple dozen with Hobie and THEN some, or she has a lot of time between missions to meet a lot of Peters around campus.

But then that adds up to like 50 something missions. Unless anamolies are happening every single day, that's still 10 weeks, five days a week - at the least.

And they have training rooms!! So i'm assuming Gwen didn't start going on missions right away with the way Miguel was treating her - so what the hell?????

It's like....

If MJ got pregnant right away, at the same time Miguel got the watch - how long did it take him to meet Peter B.??? Was Peter B the first one he met? And how long did he know Peter B before he lost his daughter? Mind you - all in under a year or so. How long was he with his daughter?????

This makes NO SENSE. NO SENSE WHATSOEVER

And also to answer your last point:

Personally I think, yes Miguel actually made a concentrated effort to do that.

I wrote about it in my Hobie dialogue break-down - but the entire Spider Society scene was propaganda meant to intimidate Miles. Hobie even points this out, telling Miles 'propaganda bro'.

Their watches can take them anywhere - Jess goes to the bridge in Mumbattan. But when they need to see Miguel, they make Miles look at the all (trained) Spider-people. Then they take him to the prison area, then the go home machine. They could've just teleported into Miguel's lair, but instead Miguel made them do this whole tour (things Hobie and Gwen have seen), before meeting Miguel.

In my opinion Miguel absolutely planned that, theres no other reason for them to have been there and for the three of them to have to walk through all of that.

They even make them go to the food court for Miguels empanada like how petty can Miguel be lol He literally just wanted to scare Miles

[4ltexc0m]

Ninjago birthday hcs bc I'm was bored last night (also I had no idea what to put at Zane and pixal😭)

Kai - 18 April 1991 (29)

Jay - 13 July 1995 (25)

Cole - 7 January 1993 (27)

Lloyd - 23 august 2001 (mentally 17) (23)

Nya - 1 march 1995 (25)

Skylor - 13 June 1993 (27)

Vania - 14 February 2000 (24)

Harumi - 24 February 2002 (22)

Arin - 20 December 2010 (14)

Sora - 20 September 2009 (15)

Wyldfyre - 2 august 2011 (13)