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dossi-io · 3 years

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An introduction to DeVita

Do you want to learn all about the AOMG artist DeVita? This article will cover everything you need to know about the third female member to join the labels roster.

The content of this article is also available in video format, embedded at the bottom of this article.

Prelude

In early April of 2020, the Korean hip-hop label AOMG ambiguously announced that a new artist was signing onto the label. This label was grounded by the Korean-American triple-threat; Jay Park, who’s also one of its executives. This is a label with a very organic feel and artist-oriented nature, which stands out compared to many other music labels.

On April 3rd, the label’s official Instagram account posted a video. It was titled, “Who’s The Next AOMG?” where fellow AOMG members talked about this upcoming recruit. They sprinkled small hints and details by sharing their thoughts on the artist without mentioning who.

Around the world, fans immediately began speculating on who this could be. The major consensus was that it had to be the solo artist Lee Hi, due to reporting like this: “AOMG responds ‘nothing is confirmed’ to reports of Lee Hi signing on with the label”

A few other names got thrown in fan speculations like Hanbin (B.I), previous member of IKON, Jvcki Wai, and MOON (문) aka Moon Sujin. This despite a few of these already being signed to other labels.

On April 6th, three days later, the account was updated with a part two. This time dropping more hints, which would exclude many names from fan speculations.

On the 7th of April, the label’s official Instagram account posted a short teaser. The video sported an 80’s retrofuturistic setting, with a woman turned from the camera, dressed in all black, rocking braids, and some glistening high-heels. As it seemed to be a female, some were now certain that it had to be Lee Hi. A small few actually guessed correctly that the one who would be joining AOMG would be Ms DeVita.

Finally on April 9th, it was official! She debuted with the music video, from which the teaser clips was taken from, EVITA!, which accompanied the release of her EP, CRÈME.

What does the name DeVita mean?

The name DeVita, draws inspiration and meaning from two things. Firstly, Eva Perón – also known as Evita – who was Argentina’s former First Lady. When Chloe was learning about Eva’s life, it inspired her to combine “Devil” and “Evita”, thus creating “DeVita”. The name signifies the duality of how both Eva Perón and DeVita could be perceived. Either being a devil, or an angel depending on the eye of the beholder. Secondly, Salvatore Di Vita, a character from Cinema Paradiso, was also a source of inspiration.

An introduction to DeVita

Chloe Cho – now known under the artist name DeVita – was born and raised in South Korea, until the age of eleven. In 2009, she moved to Chicago, where she would learn English.

In 2013, she went back to Korea and participated in the third season of the show; K-pop Star. A talent show, where the “big three” (the three largest music labels in Korea) hosts auditions to find the next big k-pop star. However she didn’t win, therefore neither got signed.

Later on, she returned to Chicago and graduated high school. After reflecting on what she wanted to do next, she decided to make music. In 2014, her pursuit to become an artist brought her to the talent show Kollaboration. On this show, she performed covers and actually ended up being a finalist. Despite her talents, she did not triumph as the winner of the show.

Not letting these losses stop her, she started releasing music on Soundcloud. The earliest release I could find, Halfway Love (Ruff), was from 2016. Her catalogue consisted of both covers and original music.

One day, Kirin, an artist and CEO of the music label 8balltown Records, was introduced to DeVita’s music. He liked what he heard and the two linked up. In May of 2018, WEKEYZ, one of 8balltown’s producer duos released a track titled Sugar. This track featured both DeVita, and the AOMG rapper Ugly Duck. This was the beginning of many collaborations to come.

On August 28th of 2018, just a few months later, AOMG released Sugar (Puff Daehee Mix).

This was a remix done by Puff Daehee, the alter ego of Kirin. Along with this track, it was accompanied by a music video starring Kirin, DeVita, and Ugly Duck. For most people, this was their first time seeing DeVita.

DeVita continued doing features on many songs by Korean artists while creating a little buzz for herself. There’s one notable feature, which could be seen as an important milestone in her career. That is her feature on the track Noise, from AOMG artist Woo Won Jae’s project, titled af.

In a tweet a few days after the release of CRÈME, she shared the significance of this moment.

“I was still making minimum wage working at a restaurant back when Noise dropped- I wrote my part during my shift on the back of this receipt paper. This was about a year and a half ago. A little bit after that I got a call from Pumpkin at 3am Chicago time. He said Jay wanted to meet in Philly in 4 hours. They put me on a plane and the rest is history.”

The phone call she mentioned in her tweet, about Jay wanting to meet, must have been made around September 2018. Jay was performing in Philadelphia at the time. The moment they met in Philadelphia was actually captured through a photo of the two. However, this picture ended up getting removed later on.

Fast forward a few months and Jay had just released his Ask About Me EP. The project focused on a western audience, so he went to the States on a promo run. During his visit, he also met up with DeVita once again, as can be seen here.

Finally, on April 9th, her being signed to AOMG was officially announced and she debuted with her EP titled CRÈME. Her joining AOMG, looked like something that happened pretty naturally. The vast majority of artists she had collaborated on tracks with happened to be AOMG members. Getting comfortable with the AOMG family, likely made the decision to join crystal clear.

Artistically

Just a quick look at her body of work thus far, a majority of it is in English. However, she has no issues singing in Korean, as proven by her feature on Code Kunst’s; Let u in. The tone in her voice has this sort of mixture of many singers, a melting pot of sorts. It reminds me of Audrey Nuna, SAAY, H.E.R, some vocal riffs from Dinah Jane, and at times, just a tiny bit of Ariana Grande.

As an artist, she’s still in the early stages of carving out her own unique sound and style. There’s incredible potential here, but her distinct identity is not completely there yet. I see before me a caterpillar that within a couple years, will transform into a butterfly, with its own identifiable pattern to spread its wings out on.

From what she’s shown so far, I would say she seems most comfortable doing R&B and soul music. However, beyond a quick description I prefer to refrain from categorizing her. Mostly because artists generally feel limited when categorized. More importantly, because we have no idea what she has in store for the future.

Debut EP: CRÈME

CRÈME is DeVita’s “crème de la crème”. She constantly modified the tracklist to present her debut project in a way that held her personal standard; essentially presenting us her best tracks. The result is CRÈME, which consists of five tracks, with a runtime of fourteen minutes altogether.

This EP showcases the fact that she is a competent songwriter, able to write some soulful, emotional ballads. It is completely in English and all the tracks are written by her, telling both life stories of her own and that of others. A majority of the production was handled by her “musical soulmate”; TE RIM, but other notable names, like Code Kunst show up as well.

Tracks:

Movies, introduces the project in a very gentle manner. In the track, DeVita paints a picture of a criminal couple, getting a rush, by committing crimes together. The lyrics feel inspired by movies like Bonnie and Clyde. My initial thoughts were that, for some ears, it could possibly be “too” calm as an opener. It doesn’t demand attention the way EVITA! does. Simply put, it’s not a bad track. I would just have put this track later on in the EP.

EVITA!, is something different compared to what I hear from others in the K-R&B lane. I love the 80’s aesthetic in both the track and music video. Sonically, the nostalgic saxophone riffs, warm lush synth pads, thumping bass line, results in a trip back to the 80s. With this recipe, topped with DeVita’s “current” contemporary soul and R&B voice makes for an interesting combination. The music video had that futuristic 80’s look with the neon colors, and I loved how the guns she played around with looked a lot like the “Needlers” from the Halo franchise. The title is once again just like DeVita’s name, an ode to the controversial Eva Perón. The instrumental was originally used by TE RIM, the producer of the track in 2017. His version has the same title as DeVita’s version and I recommend giving that one a listen as well, as it has a different feel to it. This track was definitely one of the highlights of the EP.

All About You, is a simple yet beautiful piano love ballad. Originating from her own tales of love, her vocals effortlessly capture what she felt during these moments.

1974 Live, is yet another ballad, but this time, with a calm guitar backing, playing a poppier R&B chord progression. DeVita’s voice is given a lot of space to be in the center of the track. As soon as I heard this track I became curious. What was the significance of this year, which would have her title the track as such? My questions were left unanswered… until the EP had marinated a while, when she tweeted: “1974 Live is about Christine Chubbuck”. In case you’re unfamiliar, Christine Chubbuck was a television news reporter, who made history in 1974. She was the first person to commit suicide live on air. According to her mother Christine’s suicide would on paper be due to an unfullfilling personal life. All throughout her life, she had experienced unreciprocated love. With this information tying back to the track, it becomes a lot less ambiguous and reveals a more cohesive narrative.

Show Me, is the final track of the EP, featuring immaculate production from the talented CODE KUNST. The sound is very moody, which fits her voice like a glove. This is my favorite performance on the entire EP, both lyrically and vocally. The lyrics present someone who’s fed up dealing with men, who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. Now she’s looking for love with someone who’s honest and “real”.

With the project being a year old now, it has already gotten her nominated for both Rookie of the Year along with EVITA being nominated for Best R&B & Soul Track in the 18th iteration of the Korean Music Awards.

A majority of listeners seemed to enjoy the project. Many seem to be in love with her voice judging by the endless amounts of praise she has received, often described as painfully addicting, soothing, smooth, and so on.

I also asked a friend who’s a huge fan of Korean music, especially the hiphop and r&b scene to share her thoughts on the project. Here’s what she said:

"This whole project is empowering, in particular the tracks Show Me and EVITA! DeVita being a new artist, managed to impress me and many more listeners through this EP. As mentioned earlier, empowering lyrics with unique melodies and beats. Especially with the track EVITA! The fact that 1974 Live and EVITA! was referring to, two historically important women, is something that I love. This is one of my favorite EP:s of 2020 and DeVita is now included in my list of favorite artists." @Haonsmom

From what I’ve seen, only a few have been vocal about not really being too fond of the project. Some were left a bit disappointed, as they were expecting more hip-hop and R&B from an AOMG artist. The lack of “danceable” tracks was also a concern to some. Despite these criticisms, one thing was always mentioned; the girl has a beautiful voice and is obviously talented.

After listening to this EP, I hear a lot of potential. Being an EP with just five tracks, it definitely avoids overstaying its welcome. It’s brief enough to allow a listen through the entire project, no matter what you’re doing. My favorite tracks would have to be Show Me and EVITA!, but I found the whole project to be enjoyable. This EP is sprinkled with lovely vocal performances and simple but captivating production. I do still stand by my opinion that Movies would have fit better later in the tracklist if you’re chasing that mainstream ear.

I think the way EVITA! kicks you in the face, demanding attention, would’ve been a better fit as the opening track. In contrast to the other tracks, the energy level is unique, making the placement feel odd as the rest of the tracks have a chill vibe. All in all, this project gave me a taste of the “crème” but left me with a curious yearning for what this chef will whip up for dessert.

Bright future ahead

The addition of more female artists to the AOMG roster was much needed. Hoody was the first and only female member for about four years. This was the case up until late 2019, where she was then joined by sogumm, who had just won AOMG’s audition program called SignHere. Now funnily enough after DeVita, Lee Hi actually did end up officially signing with AOMG on July 22, last year.

Based on what I’ve heard during Devita’s Kollaboration days, she has improved immensely. This topped with her leaving the impression of someone passionate about their craft, bodes well for what's to come. She seems to be someone who'll constantly evolve.

Following an artist, at the early stages of their career, is something that I always find exciting. With such a lovely debut, I cannot wait to see what the future has in store for DeVita.

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Credits:

The first image in article: Original photo, pre-edit from @jinveun

Gif from the Sugar Puff Daehee MV: @moxiepoints

#devita #krnb #jay park #aomg #h1ghrmusic #8balltown #kpop #review #korea #uglyduck #chloe devita #chloe cho #kirin #evita!#crème #moon sujin #khh #korean hip hop #krap

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buzzdixonwriter · 3 years

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The Purple Monster Strikes

Recently in an online discussion of 1950s sci-fi films, the old Republic serial The Purple Monster Strikes came up.

Why is came up I’ll mention later, but first let’s note it:

was made in 1945

was the last 15 chapter Republic serial

is awful

Not eyeball gouging / brain melting / soul scorching awful the way The Lost City or Gene Autry And The Phantom Empire or Captain Video are awful, but awful enough…

…yet at the same time, worthy of comment (as we’ll soon note).

1945 is a crucial year. Despite the Nazis last ditch Battle of the Bulge, WWII is clearly winding down to an Allied victory in both Europe and the Pacific.

American audiences feel tired of the war wand want something else in their entertainment, even low brow / low rent entertainment like movie serials.

Republic produced three serials that year: Federal Operator 99 proved surprisingly good, Manhunt Of Mystery Island (their next to last 15 chapter serial) tried some new ideas that while interesting didn’t prove interesting enough to be tried again, and The Purple Monster Strikes brought interplanetary thrills back to the theaters, only this time instead of visiting Mars, Mars (at least two of ‘em) came to Earth.

As noted in my overview of Federal Operator 99, Republic serials of that year looked…inexpensive.*

This is especially true of The Purple Monster Strikes which really needed a bigger budget, a better script, and adequate production time for the type of story it was trying to tell.

That story?

In a nutshell: The Purple Monster is a one-Martian invasion come to steal the secret of the “jet plane” (the script uses the term interchangeably with “rocketship”) from Earth and take it to Mars where it can be mass produced and used to attack our world (Why? WTF knows or cares?). To achieve this The Purple Monster bumps off the scientist in charge of the project, physically possesses his corpse by turning into a ghost-like entity, and tries to kill a nosy investigator and the late scientist’s niece. In the end The Purple Monster tries to escape Earth only to get blowed up real good (Did I mention this is silly, stooped, and trite? I did? Good).

So why am I interested in The Purple Monster Strikes? Well, for two reasons, the second and more important one we’ll save for the end, the first is that when watched with fully informed eyes, it’s a testament to the single greatest contribution the serials made to filmmaking: The production board.

Lemme ‘splain what that is.

In the old days of movie making it was a folder with slots for narrow strips of colored cardboard to be slid in. The strips were color coded for interior or exterior scenes, night or day, specific locations, second unit or special effects, etc.

These strips were grouped together on the production board so all the exterior day shots at one location could be filmed back-to-back, followed by all the night shots there before moving on to a new location.

The colored carboard strips were further broken down to match production numbers in the shooting script (“Scene 37: The bandits take the town”), key props and costumes, stunt work, but most importantly actors / characters in the scene.

You want all your most important / expensive / difficult stuff grouped together…but you also need to figure out what you didn’t need so you could pare down your budget.

For example, if you need someone to play a policeman in Scene 1 and in Scene 12 but those scenes are shot two seeks apart, maybe it’s cheaper to have two different actors playing two different policemen for one day each than keep one actor on call for two weeks.

Likewise, if you’ve got an actor in a key supporting role, put all his scenes together.

This necessitates shooting out of sequence, but shooting out of sequence is now pretty much the industry norm for any filmed or taped production.

The serials invented the production board and the rest of the industry speedily glommed onto it.

Once you know what to look for in The Purple Monster Strikes, you can pretty much break down which scenes were shot when.

Case in point: Masked heroes and villains aside, serial characters rarely change costume except to match stock footage from earlier productions. It’s not especially notable for male characters but females typically wear The Same Damn Dress in Every Damn Scene.

So when heroine Linda Sterling gets dunked in a water tank midway through The Purple Monster Strikes, you can bet that was her last day of filming since they were no longer worried about ruining her costume.

Likewise when a female reinforcement from Mars arrives, the exact same location right down to the same car parked in the same spot are used even though the female Martian doesn’t arrive until 2/3rds of the way into the story.

You wouldn’t notice this week to week in a movie theater, but they’re painfully obvious when bingewatching.

Case in point: There are never more than four characters onscreen at any time; this was all the production could afford on any given day. If a fifth character showed up, one of the others needed to be knocked unconscious (if they were lucky) shot and fall off camera (if they were unlucky), or disintegrated (if they were really unlucky).

For example, the hero and heroine could be talking to a scientist (day 1 / shot 1) when three baddies show up at the door (day 2 / shot 1). The first baddie shoots the scientist, who falls off camera then enters the frame and knocks out the heroine, who conveniently falls behind a counter (day 1 / shot 2). The other two baddies enter and a huge brawl erupts (day 2 / shot 2). The heroine revives (day 1 / shot 3) and shouts a warning at the hero. The hero blasts a minor baddie who falls off camera as the other two baddies flee the scene (day 2 / shot 3), then the heroine rejoins the hero (day 1 / shot 4).

Binge watching also reveals a lot of sets and props reused again and again. The same footstool is used as a weapon more than once, a prop valve in one chapter serves an entirely different function in another, and while serials frequently reused stock special effects shots, The Purple Monster Strikes doesn’t just use the same exploding car shot twice in the same serial, not just twice in the same chapter, but twice in the same car chase!

(Speaking of which, whenever they get in Linda Sterling’s car you know the odds are 50-50 it’s going off a cliff in a big flaming fireball. The Purple Monster Strikes has her going through so many identical make automobiles you’d think she owned stock in a car dealership.)

Anybody familiar with Republic serials is going to find a lot of reused sets and props here. Having seen Manhunt Of Mystery Island recently, I immediately recognized their ubiquitous warehouse set, the Republic Studios loading dock doubles as two different factory exteriors, and having lived in Chatsworth several years I can practically name each and every rock in the exterior scenes.**

On the plus side, bonus points for some impressive looking props, including a rocket test engine that provides the explosive cliffhanger for the first chapter, a double-barrel disintegrator that looks like a giant set of binoculars (I wonder if it was originally a military surplus training aid), and a spaceship seen under construction for most of the serial that proves to be the most striking design the redoubtable Lydecker brothers ever created (a pity it’s glimpsed only briefly before being blown up in the last chapter; Republic should have reused it for their later sci-fi serials instead of the dull unimaginative designs they went with).

Fun factoid: Mi amigo Donald F. Glut, filmmaker / NYTimes bestselling author / film historian, knew The Purple Monster hizzownsef, Roy Barcroft, and reports Barcroft had the wardrobe department sew a secret pocket in his costume for his cigarettes!

Speaking of Barcroft, he’s the best thing in this serial and he ain’t that good. A perennial bad guy in serials and B-Westerns, he normally turned in a satisfying performance, but the script for The Purple Monster Strikes gives him nothing to work with.

I mentioned previously how Federal Operator 99’s script works more often than not and gives its characters something the actors can work with, but The Purple Monster Strikes? Nada.

Every line is a clunky flat declarative sentence exposition dump of the “I’ll take this strange medallion we discovered to Harvey the metallurgist to analyze” variety.

Even Linda Sterling can’t do anything with this though she tries to find an appropriate facial expression for whatever scene she’s thrown in.

As for nominal star Dennis Moore, I won’t say he’s wooden but in one of the innumerable fight scenes Barcroft hurls a coatrack at him and for that brief moment the coatrack delivers a far more memorable performance.

Sidebar on the fight scenes: They are choreographed expertly, among some of the best Republic ever staged, but directors Spencer Gordon Bennet and Fred C. Brannon -- both serial veterans who could do much, much better -- really dropped the ball in shooting them. They’re shot almost entirely in wide angle longshots using slightly sped up photography instead of intercutting to keep the pacing fast.

The rest of the cast consists mostly of stuntmen carefully enunciating their one line before the fists start flying, or older male actors who deliver surprisingly good performances compared to everyone else.

But that script -- oh, lordie, that script! This was made in 1945 and they’ve got a damn organ grinder in it! Organ grinders vanished from the public sphere with the damn of movies; by the 1940s they were found only in comic books and animated cartoons; in other words, kid stuff.***

It’s clear the writers on The Purple Monster Strikes (Royal Cole, Albert DeMond, Basil Dickey, Lynn Perkins, Joseph Poland, and Barney Sarecky) considered this mere juvenile pablum, not worthy of even the smattering of sophistication they sprinkled on Federal Operator 99.

An adult can watch Federal Operator 99 and at least feel the story makes some kind of sense and the characters, however imperfectly enacted, at least offer adult motives and behaviors, but The Purple Monster Strikes is just insulting to the intelligence (I mean, they call the female Martian invader Marsha. Seriously?).

Okay, so why do I think this is worth writing about?

Because The Purple Monster Strikes is the bridge between WWII and the Cold War.

Most of the major tropes of 1950s sci-fi are reactions to Cold War anxieties, and those anxieties are transplanted WWII anxieties.

Before WWII, American moneyed interests waged a relentless PR campaign against communism, socialism, and labor unions (sound familiar?).

Forced to make peace with the Soviets during WWII, these moneyed interests -- now heavily invested in what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex -- bit their lips as US pop culture portrayed the Russians as gallant allies against fascism (and they were; credit where credit is due).

As soon as the war ended, however, and in fact, even a little before the end (see The Best Years Of Our Lives; great movie), they were already recasting the Russians as treacherous authoritarian atheists out to conquer the world.

As noted earlier, American audiences felt weary of a relentless diet of war related entertainment and in the waning days of the war turned eagerly to non-war related stories.

Likewise studios, not wanting to get caught with rapidly dating WWII related material nobody wanted to see began actively developing different kinds of stories.

After four years of intense anxiety, the country needed to come down but couldn’t go cold turkey. Science fiction (and hardboiled mysteries and spy thrillers) provided safe decompression.

1945 marks a significant sea change in Republic serial production. Sci-fi would become a more predominant theme, infiltrating other genres such as the ever popular masked mastermind (viz. The Crimson Ghost).

Federal Operator 99 would be the last highwater mark for more plausible serial stories, but crime and undercover espionage remained serial staples to the bitter end.

Only Manhunt Of Mystery Island seemed a misfire and even in that case it only meant the masked mastermind returned to more traditional origins instead of the inventive backstory created for Captain Mephisto.

What The Purple Monster Strikes did was take a very familiar set of WWII cliches and stereotypes then recast them in a (relatively) safe science fictional context.

The closest prototype to The Purple Monster Strikes is Republic’s G-Men Vs. The Black Dragon, as racially offensive as you could hope to imagine, and turn the inscrutable “yellow” villains into malevolent purple ones (later green when colorization was added).

By making the literally other worldly alien the “other”, 1950s sci-fi sidestepped the worst implications of their own themes:

Invasion

Subversion

Fifth columns

Loss of soul / identity / individuality (personified in bodily possession by alien intellects)

Paranoia

The Purple Monster Strikes lacks the wit and wherewithal to fully exploit these ideas, but it sure could hold them up for everyone to get a quick glimpse.

As childish and as inane as the plot may be, by the end when hero and heroine realize there is literally no one they can trust, The Purple Monster Strikes dropped a depth charge into preteen psyches fated to go off six years later with the arrival of The Thing From Another World and countless other sci-fi films and TV episodes afterwards.

Did The Purple Monster Strikes create this trend? No, of course not – but as Stephen King pointed out in Danse Macabre regarding the incredibly inane The Horror Of Party Beach’s selection of nuclear waste dumping as their raison d'être for their monsters:

“I’m sure it was one of the least important points in their preproduction discussions and for that reason it becomes very important.”

King’s point is by not giving the matter much thought, The Horror Of Party Beach’s producers simply tapped into a subconscious gestalt already running through the culture and said, “Yeah, nuclear waste, wuddup widdat?”

Likewise, The Purple Monster Strikes’ producers / directors / writers didn’t sit themselves down to analyze Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four but rather picked up on the forever war current already moving through the American body politic.

War without end, war without ceasing.

And if we can’t define an enemy by name or place, so much the better! The war on crime, the war on poverty, the war on drugs…

The war on terror.

The forever war thrives on the faceless unknowable enemy with the unknown but clearly malevolent anti-American agenda.

“Them”…against…U.S.

As an artistic achievement, The Purple Monster Strikes is sadly lacking in nearly all aspects, but as a cultural artifact, it’s still a clear warning.

Only not about “them” but about…us.

* read “cheap”

** Republic’s low budget backed them into an overlapping series of sci-fi serials, loosely referred to as the Rocket Man / Martian invasion serials by fans. The Purple Monster Strikes’ costume was reused for Flying Disc Man From Mars (which featured a semi-circular flying wing already featured in Spy Smasher and King Of The Mounties) and again for Zombies Of The Stratosphere, but between those two serials the wholly unrelated King Of The Rocket Men was released. Zombies… is a sequel to both Flying Disc Man… and King Of The Rocket Men but Radar Men From The Moon introduces a new character -- Commando Cody -- who wears the same rocket pack as the heroes of King… and Zombies… but faces a lunar, not Martian menace then he spins off to become Commando Cody: Sky Marshall Of The Universe in a quasi-serial (i.e., no cliff-hangers, each chapter a complete adventure) fighting a third alien invasion!

*** Or the works of Bertolt Brecht, but that ain’t what Republic’s going for here.

#Roy Barcroft #The Purple Monster Strikes #serial #sci-fi movies #1950s science fiction movies #Cold War

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Nightmare Time Episode 1 Review: The Hatchetfield Ape-Man/Watcher World

I take a look at the first episode of Starkid’s new show Nightmare Time! Starkid, returns for a zoomcast, bringing back the casts of both Hatchefield plays for an anthology series of science fiction double feature picture shows! This week’s tales of terror:

The Hatchefield Ape-Man: A british heiress gets romanced by a shaved bigfoot with the help of everyone’s favorite kooky college professor. Forgotten fiances, murder and described nudity naturally insue.

Watcher World: Bill and Alice return as Bill drags his daughter to a kitschy theme park for a day of family fun, which Alice enjoys and is as respectful about as much as you’d expect. As you’d also expect given Bill’s general luck, things take a turn for the Shining real quick. Spoilers and full review under the cut.

Well this was a nice suprise. With the ongoing pandemic I genuinely did not think Starkid would be back anytime soon. Having just gotten back into them this years after several years of forgetting they existed via the Hatchetfield plays, I was pretty bummed, if understanding. So last week’s announcment of not only this series but a full scripted series from their sister production company the tin bros was a HUGE shot of happy I needed in this troubling times. Still need to watch spies are forver love the soundtrack nto important.

Point is the Lang Brothers and their merry band of actors found a way to continue on via format I didn’t realize existed outside of table reads but is a nice way to do things: The Zoomcast, basically a podcast done live on zoom, with the actors in plainclothes for the most part, with one person, in this case Nick Lang, reading out descriptions of what’s going on. Being a starkid production this also has musical director Matt Bohm playing accompaniment and pretaped if still via the actor’s own camera musical numbers. Overall while i’ts an understandably cheap production, only what costumes the actors have on hand and most props mimed, it WORKS, allowing for way more elaborate set pieces than the stage would allow and is anchored by Lang’s impeccable descriptions and the cast’s amazing as always acting really making the stories pop. So things worked on a technical level despite having the barest of bones to work with. But did it work on a story level? Well yes, but if I ended my reviews with just that i’d have less than the 3 or 4 fans I do have, so without further ado, it’s nightmare time! The Intro:

Now normally in my reviews I don’t talk about the intro because I come in mid way or because I just didn’t think to. This is an exception since

A) I should be doing that anyway or at least when I cover a show’s first episode since intro’s are sometimes one of the most memorable parts of a show

B) It’s a full musical number that’s been stuck in my head since the trailer for this series and has now set up an apartment there. C) This series is a musical, if not to the same degree as the two plays before it, so it’d be weird NOT to talk about it’s signature song.

So with that out of the way the intro.. is fucking impressive. Seriously taking disparate videos with probably as much as the directions “Sing this part of the song and be kind of creepy or alluring or whatever” and making it really flow? Good work, both to the starkids for bringing their a game to it as always and to Nick and Matt really did a good job editing this together, musically and visually to be an abolute jawdrop. And somehow finding utterly stunning stock image animations that none of us realized were stock footage but still fit the tone perfectly. Just great stuff. Some stray notes: Mariah is absolutely stunning in both voice and apperance in this, John Matheson’s bit as paul was great, and Jeff Blim of course got a great bit with his always astounding hair blowing in the breeze with him at full high pitch. Just an utterly great intro, and for Starkid’s first series in over a decade, and really ever but semantics, they really brought it. Good stuff. Onto the actual episode content.

The Hatchetfield Ape-Man: Lucy, a british heiress played by Angela Giarratana, was saved by the legendary “Hatchefield Ape-Man”.. who apparently has a hyphen like spider-men because while sasquatches can do that. Point is she’s come back every year in the hopes of reuniting with her savior but has so far failed. But as Lucy prepares to leave from this year’s failed expedition, an old friend finally gives her what she needs... old friend to us to her she’s just some grey haired lunatic who showed up out of the mist. Which while accurate, dosen’t quite quantify everyone’s favorite playwright/college professor/murderous psychopath/composer.

Yes at long last Professor Hidgens has returned! I honestly didn’t expect the anthology to bring in such a huge fan faviorite so soon. I mean I expected returning characters, mostly because the project allows old faviorites to come back for their own stories or for the stars of the musicals to get a chance at a much happier ending... there’s a lot of potetial there. That and let’s face it “Jane’s a Car” is a pretty dead giveaway it’s going to be about Tom’s dead wife and Tim’s dead mother coming back in horrible mash up of christine and my mother the car. Maybe. I could be wrong. I also doubt many of you know what my mother the car is and to that I say it’s an old sitcom i’m honestly suprised I know exists and know nothing about other than the title and it being about a son’s mom’s ghost possesing his car apparently. Well that and it was the basis for this.

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Point is, while I expected some returns, I wasn’t expecting one this large and this bombastic so soon, but BOY was it welcome. So getting back on track after all that, HIdgens seemingly takes Lucy to meet her ape man, who goes by the name Klonk, played by everyone’s faviorite sexy caveman Joey Richter. Also it’s adorable he and Lauren share a streaming screen. I know practicality and all that but their engagment is genuinely a sweet thing to hear about at a time when the world’s going down the toilet fast. Fun Fact: I pegged the Ape-Man was either going to be Jeff or Joey, leaning towards Jeff, though given my love of Joey I wasn’t disapointed with him, especially with the twist... but I was EXASTIC to learn the answer was basically “Both.. kinda?”. But yeah Lucy soon bonds with the ape man, with HIdgens encouraging her since it’s more than he’s gotten out of Klonk in 11 months of looking after the guy, and this way they can get him to learn enough to decide what he wants for himself.

So a few months, and some romantic bonding between woman and ape-man, pass but a wrench is thrown into Klonk’s wooing and attempt to tell lucy he loves her: Jonathan, Lucy’s just now mentioned fiance and royal dickhead played by Kurt Mega. And credit where it’s do whlie he clearly didn’t have to dress up, he did have a nice 50′s monster movie british person suit he put on. Lucy is now conlficted and what not even though Jonathan is kind of an asshole who just wants to drag her back home. And i’ts not like Lucy didn’t keep in touch: she sent him texts and probably called, so i’ts not like he didn’t know she was here. He’s also a hunter for extra dick points as if he needed them. Naturally when meeting his romantic rival he’s a dick.. but raises some valid questions: While Hidgens claim he shaved Konk due to lesions, there’s no mark of lesisons or the shaving. But his natural dickheadedness shines through and Jonathan talks about shooting Klonk before lucy takes his ring off and throws it and Jonathan goes after her. Annnnd yeah turns out the disposable dickhead fiance for once is RIGHT. In a twist I did not remotley see coming but damn if it wasn’t clever, Klonk.. is Ted from TGWDLM and the plan was to seduce lucy with this con, marry her and then bump her off. It’s a hell of a twist and cleverly hidden since Joey’s such a starkid mainstay, it’s not a huge suprise he was Klonk and thus easily hid the fact he was also Ted. It’s clever stuff and pivots the story nicely.

Ted is naturally a douchey as ever, going along with Hidgen’s plan to have him marry lucy then kill her and take her dough for themselves.. and unsuprisingly, so Hidgens can get Workin Boys off the ground. Granted there are easier ways to do this with the same scooby doo scheme: Just have HIdgens plan working boys casually, have Klonk really love it and being the sweetheart she is LUcy would fiance the thing just to make them both happy. I mean he can still marry her and ted can still have direct acess to her money if they want, it’s just an easier way that dosen’t shine supscion on the caveman who looks exactly like a local douchebag who everyone he’s met would testify against him. I mean would Paul and Bill REALLY be that suprised that Ted did this?

Exactly. Then again neither of our “heroes’ Here is very bright, and this scheme only works because Lucy is clearly very sweet, very naive, and very much wants a romantic evening with an ape man after all this time and effort searching, so she wants to believe him. So the fact the best they could come up with is something out of Scooby Doo is unsuprisng but still great. However things take a turn for the

Pretty quick as Hidgens takes disposable british douche fiance hunting.. then kills the guy after freely admiting he’s a fraud in what’s an INCREDIBLY chilling scene. Seriously it’s amazing how Robert takes a character as loveably redicilous, even his evil and murderous plan during TGWDLM was still hilariously rediclous, and makes him UTTERLY TERRIFYING. Even when dropping my fair lady refrences. Amazing stuff. So the next day, after Konk “asks” what an engagment is and what not, we then get Lucy wondering just WHERE jonathan is and we get the second biggest laugh of the night as Hidgens gives us the iconic line of “Oh he left... said something about you being crazy and going back to london and basically to go fuck yourself. “. Naturally Lucy has followup questions and goes to find out while Ted, also naturally, isn’t exactly pleased when he finds out his partner in crime did a murder on someone.

Ted may be a sleazy dickhead.. but even he sees maybe murdering a rich british person who just came here, went basically ONLY to this one location, and whose probably got many people who will misss him, one of whom is their primary target, is kinda dumb. Then again this is a plan that hinges on someone who could easily be identified, as he has or at least probably had an office job and three coworkers who know him, assuming a false identity to marry someone for their money. But again we’re dealing with a guy who thinks working boys is marketable to anyone who isn’t a starkid, and a moron who soon says he does his best thinking while erect. They only got this far because their target REALLY wants to fuck a sasquatch, is sweet but naive and well Ted IS still joey richter, and no longer has the porn stache so there you go. Ted decides to cut Hidgens out of things.. partly because you know, he killed a person, and partly because instead of killing Lucy, Ted realized he honeslty has a LOT to gain by simply marrying her and staying married. He gains a hot rich wife (his word’s not mine, but angie is genuinely beautiful so fair point), a mansion, and while Hidgens points out the obvious, he has to stay Konk.. that’s actually appealing to Ted as he feels better as Konk, not just because he impresses an attractive woman for doing basic stuff, but because he feels better as Konk. This is.. an intresting turn for Ted i genuinely like. It shows that Ted may, as much as he presents with bluster and ego, actually LIKE the kind of shithead he knows he is. I mean looking at his life he has two workmates who calling them friends is a bit of a stretch, and one who he’s having an affair with but seems detemrined to make her doomed marriage to an even bigger asshole work. He really dosen’t have much as ted so it’s easy to see why being Konk is better: He’s a better person as him who actually has someone who cares about him. Naturally Hidgens takes this as well as you’d expect and when Ted/Konk tries proposing he goes with the logical option for taking the fourtune for himself:

Yes really. Hidgens strips naked, and swings his arms around like an orangutan to try and convince Lucy he’s the real hatchetfield apeman. Sadly this dosen’t mean we get a shirtless robert manion as he needs to keep the turtleneck on for later, but the mental image.. I had to pause the video for a good minute to laugh over it. Just everything about it from it somehow being a dumber plan than his scheme this episode, to the orangutan swaying to just.. everything. It’s fucking genius. But Higdens has more than a mighty penis to compete with Ted.. he reveals ted’s phone and Ted ends up revealing himsef by telling Hidgens to go fuck himself. Naturally Lucy is distraught and tries to leave and the professor pulls out his shotgun to threaten her into financing his musical because of course it’s about workin boys. Lucy tries to run, Hidgens tries to shoot.. and ted , doing the first good thing in his entire life, takes the bullet. Lucy gets ted out of there then locks the door behind them, and we get the SCARIEST bit in this segment as Hidgens leans into the camera, simulating the peep hole of the vault door to the ape man inclosure and begs her to let him out. It’s some real Jack Nicholson in the Shining stuff and it’s utterly terrifying, but it’s also an amazing bit of acting. Nice job Rob. So ted bleeds out, as much as Lucy wants to save him he knows he’s not going to make it and prefers to die as Konk, finally happy with himself. And I just realized everyone at Paul’s job is horribly miserable. I mean good god, Paul himself has serious depression issues judging by “Let it Out”, Ted clearly hates himself, Charlotte is in a horrible marriage and Bill just got out of one and has a strained realtionship with his daughter we’ll get into more in a bit. I mean honestly, Mr. Davidson is the only one of them who really dosen’t need therapy.. he just needs to tell his wife he wants her to choke him while he jerks off. For as ungodly hilarious as that line is he’s probably the most well adjusted person there. Go figure.

Naturally being already insane, Hidgens breaks out, still naked mind, and chases after Lucy. Also noticable is apparently some people thought hidgens was manipulated by the blue shit hive mind in TGWDLM. Which.. no. I do love the guy dont’ get me wrong.. but it was very obvious both from the way his musical number was done compared to the rest of the ones in the musical, and his actions that was entirely him, and his playing the music was so he could join, especially since we don’t see the hive mind use any mind manupluation on anyone else. Regular manipulation sure as seen with you tied up my heart and not your seed, manipulating charoltte into freeing her asshole husband so he could infect her and torturing bill for funsies. Just something to get out of the way. Point is he was always crazy we just now have him chasing an innocentish woman with his dong hanging out to prove it. He eventually catches her as Lucy catches herself in one of his bear traps when she hits the woods, because he had those for some reason.. and he has a resonable way out: Just give her the 30,000 dollars he needs for his musical. Thing is she dosen’t have the money.. or hardly any. She spent all of it trying to find the ape man and was marrying jonathan for his money and him for her title. And while it is a bit skeezy, it’s very clear both were using each other and likely knew it, and Lucy still comes out the most moral of our cast here.. granted it’s not a big stretch as hidgens is criminally insane, ted’s a skeeze and Jonathan.. well he’s just a diiiiiiccckkkk. It’s not hard is what i’m saying.. much like hidgen’s dick flopping around in the rain. But yeah he dosen’t take it well, Lucy goes up a tree, which is apparently something Becky did once. But before Lucy can die at the hands of a naked thespian, the REAL Ape-Man shows up and tears Hidgen’s arms off, taking lucy in his own arms afterwords and revealing he remembers her. The two hit it off instantly, it turns out his name is chumby in an excellent gag as that was what Hidgens wanted his fake ape man to be named but Ted froze, and go off into the night together. Awww.. what if a naked ape man played by my boy jeff blim and a british person can’t work who can?

We then close out the segment with a cameo appearance by Jamie Lynn Beatty, who while not part of the cast for this double feature, does get a fun showtune about the ape man. Also fun fact that i found out here on tumblr: That costume is from something Jamie did in HIGH SCHOOL. As in well over a decade ago. Like holy shit, good for her. She looks great in it. But yeah it’s a fun song and a nice way to close it out. Final Thoughts on the Hatchetfield Ape-Man: This was a great way to start things off. This one was more in line with starkids pre-hatchetfield work, a goofy story with some hidden depth inside. And like the guy who didn’t like musicals it was utterly terrifying in spots so yeah good stuff ,utterly hilarous and a great way to bring back some old faviorites while giving us a neat new protaganist. Good stuff.

Watcher World:

Now from a mostly comedy with a horrifying ending to just.. pure unfiltered horror and depression! It’s Watcher World! Bill and Alice are back! And given I love Mariah Rose Faith and Corey Dorris, I was exastic to find this was what the second segment was about.. mostly because I had no idea Starkid had teasers for the episodes on their instagram, or I would’ve known Hidgens was coming. I wouldn’t of known he’d be stark naked for the last third of his story but still, pleasant surprise.

So Bill and Alice are spending the day at Watcher World, a run down amusement park on the edge of town. It’s Alice’s last weekend before College so Bill’s trying to reconnect with her by cramming a good old fashioned family vacation down her throat. Alice is less than enthused, both because she clearly resents her dad in general, and because Deb is throwing a huge rager on the same night. My honest interpretation of that is that Deb fully inteded for her girlfriend to come but Bill sprung this on Alice at the last minute and being pretty oblivious and hating Deb, either didn’t care about taking alice from one last night with her friends and girlfriend or didn’t generally think that through. I mean don’t get me wrong normally i’d side with a parent not wanting their daughter to attend a huge teen rager on their last weekend together.. but it’s also Alice’s last weekend in town for some time, and it’s likely a saturday.. so he has another day, and presumibly had friday before this and while things with his ex wife are tense, fighting for an extra day with her would be understandable and i’ts not like Alice, even if she hates Bill, would really fight him on getting an extra day in the town she didn’t want to leave.

But that’s what I really like about this one that it’s layered. While Alice is slightly more in the right, she’s still shutting her dad out, refusing to let him follow her on instagram (though he does agree with her keeping it private as he dosen’t want Ted perving on her, which tracks, or Ted’s brother doing it which.. wait what?), and being on her phone the whole time to very clearly spite him and rub how much she dosen’t want to be there in her dad’s face. She dosen’t WANT to be at watcher world but instead of trying to talk to her Dad just wants to complain and apparenlty has on all their vacations.. it’s easy to see why Bill is annoyed by his daughter at times and thinks he has to FORCE HER to have fun with him, because otherwise she’d gladly ignore him for their entire weekends together for Deb. She’s so determined to punish her dad for the divorce, that she refuses to see on some level he IS trying, and is just sad about her leaving, and possibly leaving him forever and alone with nothing else in his life but his buddy Paul, whose getting married next week so that’s probably not helping. On the other hand the reason I say Alice is more in the right is that well.. Bill’s a grown ass men. And while, speaking for himself, grown ass men don’t always make the right decisions, and not speaking for myself neither do fathers... Alice’s acting out is understandable coming from an 18 year old whose been through hell over the last year, having her parents divorce being forced to move, loosing her friends. Bill however just kind of uses her age and angst as an excuse to undermine and belittle her feelings. Because he doesn’t like deb for the very stupid reasons of she does pot, instead of assuring her that Deb wouldn’t cheat on Alice with Deb’s former crush Zigg, starkid’s first non binary character in a nice show that Nick Lang wasn’t just covering his ass when he said there’d be more representation in starkid, which in his defense I didn’t doubt him on but it’s still nice he did so at the earliest opportunity and very clearly plans to use Zigg if he can find a nonbinary actor for them.

But yeah instead of assuring his daughter, Bill is just like “well sometimes relationships don’t work out” which while true is clearly his self serving way of trying to get Alice to break up with someone he dosen’t like. INstead of supporting her in her dreams of writing plays, one of which was good enough to get her a scholarship, he tries to act like she has no plans for her future and get her to be a doctor for more security, even though having a secure job has done.. no one at his office including him favors. I mean again, the most stable and happy person at the office is the guy in charge, and even he can’t tell his wife he wants her to choke him out at night. He wants her to choke him, he wants her to choke him while he jerks off, he wants her to choookeeee himmm while heeeee jerrrkssss offfff.

While part of this seems to be that Deb plans to be a starving artist who can mooch off her parents in a pinch, Alice GENUINELY seems to have a full plan for her life. I do get his worrying about her future.. but she’s a smart kid. A bit of a brat but she knows what she wants clealry and clearly has talent. He’s just projecting his own fears on her. He also refuses to accept any responsibility in the divorce.. his hating his ex wife IS valid, as she took his daughter away, uprooted her life a year before graduation and spends gobs of money on impressive outings, the latter two seemingly just to spite him when honestly, it’d of made more sense for Alice to stay with Bill for the year before she graduates and been better for her. However, Bill still doesn’t take responsibly that he too is shoving fun down her throat to try and win her over, hates her girlfriend and refuses to treat her with any respect, and really DOSEN’T know Alice all that well. As we learn during their fun day she has anxiety, and he never knew about it. And the divorce isn’t really an excuse when he had years before that. It’s the real problem of their relationship: Bill feels ENTITLED to a good father daughter relationship, but isn’t working at it and blames his ex wife or Alice for it instead of himself. While Alice isn’t an innocent as i’ve made clear, putting up walls and not telling dad things, given bill ignores her when she DOES try to tell him about her life, it’s easy to see she’s just given up. If he won’t listen why bother. Which yeah i’ve found myself there with my own dad from time to time. Bill’s not a bad person, he genuinely loves Alice, as he says “to the moon and back”, but it’s very clear from this outing he still loves the little girl who loved him unconditionally and not the complicated and mopey adult sh’es become, and dosen’t WANT to adapt to that and fears once she leaves for college she’ll avoid him for good, which isn’t unfounded. It’s a good, complex rich dynamic. Naturally with.. all this I covered up front instead of sprinkling it throughout, the day doesn’t go great, with Alice utterly miserable most of the time, and ending up in a goofy novelty t-shirt due to a log ride. She also has an unsettling encounter with park mascot Blinky, our newest adorable abomination, who not only shows up the moment she does something bad on camera but also stares at her ass, which.. Paul you mind coming back for a second?

Thank you. They end up at the Watch Party, a cheesy kids show musical because Bill apparently equates this with his daughter loving musicals. I mean granted cheesy kids stage shows can be rad just listen to this.

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But I get Alice’s annoyance here. Thus we get the return of the sniggles, who apparently serve whatever eldrich deity is around this week and our first song of this segment, The Blinky Song. Which is catchy as hell as well as hilariously dark (”I’m so hungry”), and uses the stock footage well, as I could buy a cheap theme park ran by an eldtirch eye goblin using stock footage. But yeah it establishes Blinky as always watching and kinda fucked up. Also the sniggles are now clearly the smurgs with Angie’s now being named Sniglette, Jeff being papa Sniggle and James being Snigglotts. However Sniglette considers leaving with another song with a long string of words. Then, things get.. dark as the rest of the sniggles don’t want her to leave and try and mob her, and then Papa Sniggle accidently wings her with a mallet and apparenlty injures the actual performer, before everyone’s ushered out and the usher pretends nothing happened. Good mind screw horror stuff.

Alice and Bill then bicker a bit with my above point being made as Alice TRIES to get Bill to accept some respoinablity but he refuses and blames her mom. It’s now time for the Tear-Jerker, the reason they came. Bill’s buddy Paul says someone died. They also find three other people waiting in line and when one goes to the bathroom the other two start making out which.. yeah, dosen’t help Alice’s worry Deb’s going to cheat on her. So she takes the first single rider pass she can, with Bill worming his way in as to not let her get away. The two naturally end up fighting on the Tear-Jerker before it stops up high, and ends up stalled, with the gloriously returning Nerdy Kid played by Joey from Black Friday being as helpful as usual. Seriously bless them for bringing him back. Man in a Hurry also showed up again, bless him too. Alice picks this time to reveal her fear of heights and anxiety, and an approaching storm isn’t helping. So Bill.. steps up. He helps ease Alice down taking her phone for her, if loosing it due tot he rain and helping her stay calm. It’s a REALLY nice portrayal of an anxiety attack, with Mariah herself apparently having them and thus portraying it really well. As someone who has them myself it really hits home and Bills calm attempts to help her are really heartwarming, getting her to describe her musical for him and the two bonding. It’s genuinely sweet. But.. it can’t last, as Alice freaks out about her phone and Bill for once is in the right, as .. he was you know.. trying to save his daughter having a panic attack, and really stepped up given he was obnovious she had anxiety in the first place, and managed it well. He then gives the utterly heart stomping line “I love you to the moon and back, but sometime’s it’s really hard to like you. “

Just damn. So Alice runs off and both find their way to the fairway. Bill tries winning a doll for Alice, getting into a test of strength where he fails repedatly and is constantly mocked by the barker, played by James Tolbert who also played Blinky..

That should be Tolbert’s twitter handle. Anyway point is, Bill keeps trying even as he wracks up 400 dollars in credit card debt, for a 49.95 doll, before eventually the barker and hte crowd’s jeers get to be too much and he does smack it hard, thinking of all of his pent up rage towards alice.. just as the bell at the top takes the shape of alice’s head and explodes. Bill is naturally horrified by this by the barker assures he loves him.. and that he should totally hobble his daughter misery style to make her not leave him and use the mallet for it. Meanwhile Alice is at the shooting Gallery not wanting the blinky doll she wins, just blowing off steam when she runs into an old crone played by Lauren Lopez. But this Crone has her phone... which suspiciously has a ton of instagram photos of Deb and Zigg making out while sharing a toke. Granted Deb COULD’VE cheated, but given Alice is insecure, and her phone was given back to her by a witch working for an eye goblin.. yeah maybe just maybe Deb was loyal, and if she wasn’t wouldn’t be dumb enough to put it on instagram. But given Alice is already worked up it’s easy enough for her to beliive that her relationships in danger and if she gets there in time she can stop it and oh look her gun is now a real gun and can help her get the keys. So yeah it’s time for a creepy as hell Shining-esque showdown, but if both sides were possesed instead of one. It’s.. a CHILLING as hell scene, not helped by Alice wielding a gun again as both fight. I was gripped the entire time and don’t have much to say utter than HOLY SHIT THIS WAS AS TERRIFYING AS IT WAS RIVITING.

But a crowd gathers as the fight continues.. all with purple eyes which ave been seen on and off, watchers with a thousand eyes.. and with Blinky, now revealed NOT to be a costume probably, above them all. We also get one hell of a line. “This is an amusement park but not for YOUR amusement.”

So yeah I love this sequence.. and Blinky as a villain. While it’s vague if he and Blinky are the same entity.. I’m going with not. It’s not a stretch that like Cthulu, Wiggly has brothers in the black and white, with their own motives, methods and ability to get into our world. Unlike Wiggly.. Blinky’s already here and has no real ambition other than to find people to mentally tear apart and set loose on one another for his own amusement. He doesn’t have grand plans of burning the world.. he just wants to be entertained. It’s an interesting and chilling motive and I hope we see him again eventually. I also believe those at the park are trapped there bound after their own day there and trapped doing whatever Wiggly needs. Except maybe squeaky voiced teen. He probably just complains about cleaning up so much blood. But yeah Blinky is very happy as the fight escalates into the hall of mirrors and Alice looses her gun.. with Bill now poised to strike down his daughter as the mirror reflects the various workers at the park, all encouraging him to kill her... it’s utterly terrifying as Bill’s eyes take on a purple tint.. and we get a POWERFUL use of the score and the “why does it hurt to love you’ bit from TGWDLM.. as Bill sees himself and what he’s about to do, sees his daughter understandably having a panic attack.. and calms her, his eyes returning and the two reconciling. Of course Blinky isn’t happy about this “sappy bullshit” and brings htem into his domain, charging at them. But kinda missing that giving a pissed off teenager a rifle she knows how to use when you have a giant target for a face isn’t a good idea and she shoots him, with him bleeding a flood of purple goo that sends them out. While I doubt Winky’s dead, he is done with them. Our story concludes on a sweeet note as the two find their car, and they finally make as tep forward, Bill having seen almost too late how selfish and controlling he was being and accepting his daughter on her phone.. and Alice realizing her need to open up and after checking Instagram, likely finding out those photo’s weren’t real, she throws her phone in the back.. but not before accepting her dad’s request, letting him in. Sure the road ahead is rough.. but the two have made a good first step towards repairing things and loving one another again in a healthy manner. and all it took was bill nearly murdering her and allice shooting an eye goblin int he face and getting covered in his blood. Cue the credits, a beautiful song called “One Thousand Eyes” with Jeff Blim fucking nailing it. A great way to send off this bit. Final Thoughts: This was the best one of the two. While Ape Man is really good too, this one took the darker tone of black friday, but with a tighter narrative. By focusing on a smaller cast, the darker elements really played better and the conclusion felt more satisfying.. though it helped that BOTH of these tails ended without everyone dying, and while I doubt EVERY story will have a happy ending, it makes things more interesting knowing that the heroes can get a happy ending this time around instead of an apocalypse.

Overall Thoughts: This double feature was great, I’ll be getting a ticket to the next one if I can afford it, and if not i’ll see it presumably in December or next year when it comes on YouTube. Really excellent stuff. So this was a first for me but if you’d like to see more starkid stuff from me, let me know in the comments or my askbox, commission me to review one of the musicals via dm, and if you liked how I did this review follow this blog for weekly ducktales and loud house coverage, and amphibia coverage when that returns, among more fun reviews. And until next time.. don’t blink. Play us out Jeff.

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I really hope this is the ending theme for the series.

#nightmare time #hatchetfield #the hatchetfield ape man #watcher world #ted #professor henry hidgens #Bill Woodward #Alice Woodward #Lucy Stockworth #halloween #halloween havoc #paul matthews #jeff blim #team starkid #starkid

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the-awful-falafel · 4 years

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Rick and Morty - S4E6 "Never Ricking Morty" Podcast Summary/Breakdown

So y'all probably expected this based on how often I've been talking about these official companion podcasts. I recommend listening to them yourself either on the official Adult Swim YT channel or the official website, but I thought I'd go ahead and make bullet point breakdown of some key points for this particular podcast, because trivia and behind-the-scenes knowledge really appeal to me. And this episode is pretty divisive in the fanbase, so I think this podcast will assuage some fears even if you still personally dislike it in the end.

For some reason, the title of the podcast calls this S4E7 instead of episode 6. It wasn’t commented upon, so I assume either it was a typo or it was 7 in the production order and got swapped shortly before release.

The interviewed staff involved in this episode were Carlos Ortega (character design lead), Erica Hayes (director), James McDermott (art director), and Jeff Loveness (writer)

The idea of this episode was conceived in October/November 2018 as a "one-up" of anthologies and clip shows. They didn't want to do a straight anthology because many other TV shows had already done that, so they tried to go more experimental and bold and basically went balls-deep with the metanarrative as a result

It was a substitute for Interdimensional Cable (which they were going to do instead but it fell through for unknown reasons)

"We had to go so far up our own ass, because if we didn't go far enough, people would be mad that we didn't."

The writers intentionally mocked themselves as much as the fans, pretty much, and it was meant to be all in good fun

The artists really enjoy designing all the weird aliens in the show, as well as getting to reuse/repurpose them when applicable. Apparently next episode (Promortyus) is going to be reusing a lot of designs for something (but they obviously can't say due to spoilers)

Compared to other episodes, "Never Ricking Morty" went pretty smoothly once it got to the art stage. That doesn't mean it was easy, but there weren't a ton of revisions they had to do

There was a joking spoiler about Rick becoming pregnant later this season. At least I think it's joking.

While writing this episode, the writers came up with a huge whiteboard list of complaints about the show, misconceptions about the show, etc. to consult for the meta jokes. Loveness later clarified that it wasn't quite about attacking "complaining" though, and it wasn't meant to be mean-spirited

The Bechdel test skit came from them realizing they hadn't done much with Beth and Summer this season, which definitely can be considered a flaw. Therefore, as part of their self-mockery, the writers decided to force them crudely into the episode as a joke, while also making fun of men who write women characters poorly and reductively.

The Jesus Christ / Rick suddenly being Christian part was written in response to the writers asking themselves "what would kill Rick and Morty as a show?"

Jeff Loveness said this in the "Inside Never Ricking Morty" video as well, but he really loved the "old man is really ripped and ready to kick your ass" trope and is partially responsible for it becoming a running gag this episode along with "cum gutters". Apparently cum gutters return in season 5 (also said jokingly, so who knows)

One of the Q&A callers called multiple times, with different phone numbers, and kept asking about potential crossovers for some reason

"A lot of people are saying that the show is fucking with their fans. Is that accurate?" "I think some of those fans deserve to be fucked with a little bit."

They point out how some fans feel entitled to the idea they should be pleased by the show all the time, and the writers feel like the show should ideally surprise the viewers in a good way, but you still may not like every episode and that's alright

At the same time, the episode wasn't meant as an attack on the fans, it was more of a "we'll do this our way, be experimental, and push the envelope of what we can do" message they were sending. Jeff Loveness promises that there's "good stuff coming up" that he thinks the fans will be happy with, presumably in late Season 4 or even Season 5

"Just because we showed it this way and you'll probably never see it this way again, that doesn't mean we're dropping these storylines completely." There you go, everyone! The ongoing story threads are still happening at some point, and the message of the episode wasn't about dropping continuity or mocking people for caring about it. Although if you were hoping for resolutions similar to what was shown in this episode (Evil Morty w/ a giant army, Tammy VS Summer with lightsabers), those scenarios are almost certainly not going to happen canonically based on this statement. Let's hope that what they do come up with is both unexpected and awesome.

The episode is intended to be non-canonical, similar to past once-a-season clip show episodes like Interdimensional Cable

Story Lord was inspired by characters like Mysterio and Q, and the writers created him late in development as a type of villain they hadn't done before. Dan Harmon also put a lot of self-mockery into the character with how much he loved narrative structure and the story circle. The character artists even initially asked if Harmon could be the design for the character but that received an immediate "no", as it was perceived as being too on-the-nose.

Jeff Loveness was surprised the Rick/Birdperson musical made it to the final episode since it seemed like the sort of thing that would be cut or lost in development. He was also surprised the Jesus thing stayed in mostly untouched

The Story Train was intended to be an actually purchasable product by the time the episode aired-- the writers were emphatically excited about that being the culmination of the joke in the writers room-- and they were surprised that it didn't go through by the time the episode aired. They guess it's due to the coronavirus pandemic interrupting merchandising plans, but they're ultimately unsure because the decision isn't discussed with them

The artists do receive some limitations on how much gore they're allowed to depict, but they can show as much blood as they want, so for the most part they can still be creative with gruesome violence (like the Tickets Please guy ripping in half in this episode)

The artists are credited for elevating most of the fight scenes in the show, sometimes with only vague script direction which they use to be very creative

In response to a viewer calling in and asking the question about whether Pickle Rick will return: "I think there's a conversation to be had about: do we want these things to return or it better to do a one-off story?" So my take on this is that not literally everything will factor into the continuity-- they put thought into what ideas have more long-running potential and they build those up. Which is kind of obvious but the question was silly anyway. (They're still ambiguous about whether or not Pickle Rick will come back, by the way)

They aren't going to do an outright Star Wars parody in Rick and Morty because other shows have already done that, but they can still parody what Star Wars represents rather than doing a "branded commercial" for it. Apparently there is a lot of that specifically coming up this season (although indirect in the way they're describing). I assume this is referring to the upcoming "Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri" episode, so I’m curious about how they’ll reference Star Wars in that one.

The COVID-19 reference this episode was thrown in last minute, presumably with just alternative dubbing and changing the lip sync animation. They say that sometimes episodes are still being worked on up until the moment they release on television. Referring to a previous episode as an example, the character of Shadowjacker from the dragon episode was thrown in last-minute

With the exception of James McDermott, most of the staff interviewed had no control or participation over the commercial product placement work, such as the Wendy's/Pringles commercials. They don't mind them for the most part and find them funny

The writers try to avoid being too topical because the scripts take so long to turn into animation that any references will become outdated by the time it releases. Therefore, they try to be "timely" in the sense that they're writing about things that are happening in the world, but in a more abstract/thematic sense. Jeff Loveness implies that the next episode Promortyus will have a lot of that

In response to another viewer Q&A: There is no Rick and Morty movie currently planned. They wouldn't mind one, but nothing is really in development at the moment

The staff say they're excited for the next batch of episodes and seem pretty proud of their work on this season

They don't plan on making a Rick and Morty musical episode at the moment, as they feel like other shows like South Park and the Simpson have done it excellently and don't feel like they're capable of doing it better. The Rick/Birdperson bit in this episode was the most we're going to get

The code inside the broken-off throttle lever was intended to just be a bar code decal (to show it's a toy) and doesn't actually mean anything. James McDermott jokingly said it's "where the bodies are buried"

The Rick army / Evil Morty scene was huge from an animation standpoint and they almost couldn't do it due to how ambitious the shot was. They were going for a "Lords of the Rings", faux series-finale vibe, where they "give the fans what they THINK they want". Justin Roiland insisted they do it

There are definitely more big animation setpieces planned for the future

And that’s it! I’ll probably do more of these for the future episode podcasts, if anyone is still interested.

#rick and morty #never ricking morty #companion podcast #q & a

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iandeleonwrites · 4 years

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Ian’s Case: A Personal Statement for Grad School Admission

Personal Statement, Ian Deleón

“He felt something strike his chest, and that his body was being thrown swiftly through the air, on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his limbs were gently relaxed.”

It was more than a decade ago when I first read those words. Written by the American author Willa Cather, Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament has always felt to me like an intimate account of my own life penned by a woman one hundred years in the past.

That is a feeling which makes me proud; that my personal whims, fears, and desires, could find their echo long ago in a story about a young man and his pursuit of a meaningful life. Because of it, I felt a pleasing sense of historicity at a time when I was struggling so much with my own.

I grew up in Miami Beach. Literally not more than a block away from water for most of my life. My father had emigrated from Cuba with his family in 1980. My mother had come on a work visa from Brazil a few years later. They met on the beach, had an affair, and I came into the world in May of 1987.

My life was marked with in betweenness from the very beginning. My parents’ relationship did not last long, so I grew up traveling between houses. I had two families. I was American, but I was also Cuban and Brazilian. I even have a Brazilian passport. I spoke three languages fluently, but I couldn’t dance salsa or samba. I felt at home with the working class immigrants and people of color in my neighborhoods, but I often had to work hard to prove I wasn’t just some gringo with a knack for foreign tongues.

[A quick note on Paul’s Case––If it happens that the reader is not familiar with the short story, let me briefly summarize it here: A disenchanted youth in turn of the century Pittsburgh feels increasingly alienated from his schoolmates, his teachers and his family. His only comfort is his position as an usher at Carnegie Hall, where he loses himself in the glamour of the art life. Having no drive or desire to become an artist, however, the dandy Paul makes a spur of the moment criminal decision and elopes to New York City. There, he is able to live out his fantasies in a financial masquerade for about a week’s time, until the authorities back home finger him for monetary theft. Learning that his father is en route to the city to collect him, Paul travels to the countryside and flings himself in front of a speeding train, musing about the elegant brevity of winter flowers.]

When I first encountered Cather’s short story I was blown away by the parallels I saw between my own life and Paul’s. In 2005, fresh out of high school, I was living mostly with my father as my mother had relocated to faraway West Palm Beach. I was an usher at the local concert hall, a job I cherished enough to volunteer my time for free. I became entranced by the world of classical music, opera, theater, and spectacle––often showing up for work early and roaming the performance spaces, probing high and low like some kind of millenial phantom.

In school, however, I had no direction, no plan. I had good enough grades, but no real motivation, and worst of all, I thought, no discernible talent. I probably resented my father for not being cultured enough to teach me about music, theater, and the arts. No one in my family had ever even been to a museum, or sat before a chamber orchestra. And it didn’t seem to matter to them either, they could somehow live blissfully without it.

Well I couldn’t. I began to mimic the fervor with which Paul immersed himself in that world, while also exhibiting the same panic at the thought of not being able to sustain my treasured experiences without a marketable contribution to them. But here is where Paul and I take divergent paths.

I was attending the Miami Dade Honors College, breezing my way towards an associate’s degree. I took classes in Oceanography, Sociology, Creative Writing, Acting and African Drumming. I was experimenting and falling in love with everything.

But it was my Creative Writing professor, Michael Hettich, who really encouraged the development of my nascent writing talent. Up until that point my ideas only found their expression through class assignments, particularly book reports and essays on historical events. My sister had always felt I had a way with words, but I just attributed this to growing up in a multicultural environment amongst a diversity of native languages.

As a result of that encouragement I began to write poetry, little songs and treatments for film ideas based on the short stories we were talking about in class. Somehow, thanks to those lines of poetry and a few amateur photographic self portraits, I was admitted to the Massachusetts College of Art & Design for my BFA program.

There, I attended classes in Printmaking, Paper Making, Performance Art, Video Editing, and Glass Blowing. I was immersed in culture, attending lectures and workshops, adding new words to my vocabulary: “New Media” and “gestalt”. I saw my first snowfall. I had the dubious honor of appearing at once not Hispanic and yet different enough. I was overwhelmed. I felt increasingly disenchanted and out of place in New England, yet my work flourished and grew stronger.

It was during this time that I developed a passion for live performance and engagement with an audience. I also worked with multi-channel video and sculptural installations. Always, I commented on my family history, grappling with it, the emigrations and immigrations. I even returned to those early short stories from Miami Dade, one time doing an interpretive movement piece based on The Yellow Wallpaper. Most often I talked about my father. He was even in a few of my projects. He was a good sport, though we still had the occasional heated political disagreement. We never held any grudges, and made up again rather quickly. It would always be that way, intense periods of warming and cooling. A tropical temperament, I suppose.

I continued to take film-related classes in Boston, but my interests gradually became highly abstracted, subtle, and decidedly avant-garde. I had no desire to work in a coherently narrative medium. This would eventually change, but for now, I let my ambitions and aspirations take me where they would.

I returned home to Miami for a spell after graduation. I traveled the world for five months after that. I moved back to Boston for another couple of years, because it was comfortable I suppose, though I was fed up with the weather.

Finally, I wound up in NYC. Classic story: I followed a charming young woman, another performance artist as luck would have it, a writer too, and a bit of an outsider. We were quickly engaged and on the first anniversary of our meet cute we were married on a gorgeous piece of land in upstate new york, owned by an older performance-loving couple from the city. Piece of land doesn’t quite do it justice, we’re talking massive tracts, hidden acres of forest, sudden lakes, fertile fields, and precocious wildlife. As they say in the movies, it really is all about location, location, location.

Nearly all of our significant personal and professional achievements in the subsequent years have centered around this bucolic homestead. After meeting, courting, researching and eventually getting married there, we soon decided we would stage our most ambitious project to date in this magical space––we would shoot...a movie.

We hit upon the curious story of an eighteenth century woman in England called Mary Toft. Dear Mary became famous for a months-long ruse that involved her supposed birthing of rabbits, and sometimes cats. The small town hoax ballooned into a national controversy when it was eventually exposed by some of the king’s physicians. My wife and I were completely enthralled by this story and its contemporary implications. Was Mary wholly complicit in the mischievous acts, or was she herself a sort of duped victim...of systematic abuse at the hands of her family, her husband, her country?

We soon found a way to adapt and give this tale a modern twist that recast Mary as a woman of color alone in the woods navigating a host of creepy men, a miscarriage, and a supernatural rabbit.

Over the course of nine months, our idea gestated and began taking the form of a short film screenplay. This was something neither of us had done or been adequately trained to do before. But we knew we wanted it to be special, it was our passion project. We knew we didn’t want it to look amateurish––we were too old for that. So we took out a loan, hired an amazing camera crew, and in three consecutive days in the summer of 2017 we filmed our story, Velvet Cry. It was the most difficult thing either of us had undertaken...including planning our nuptial ceremony around our difficult families.

It was an incredible experience––intoxicating––also quite maddening and stressful. But it was all worth it. Because of our work schedules, it took us another year to finish post production on the film, but throughout that process, I knew I had found my calling. I would be a writer, and I would be a Director.

Perhaps I had been too afraid to dream the big dream before. Perhaps I had lacked the confidence, or simply, the life experience to tackle the complexity of human emotions, narratives, and interactions––but no longer. This is what I wanted to do and I had to find a way to get better at doing it.

In the intervening months, I have set myself on a course to develop my writing abilities as quickly as I could in anticipation of this application process. I know I have some latent talent, but it has been a long time since I’ve been in an academic setting, and in any case, I have never really attempted to craft drama on this scale before.

I’ve read many books, listened to countless interviews, attended online classes, and most importantly, written my heart out since relocating down the coast to the small college town of Gainesville in Central Florida with my wife in June of 2018. It was through a trip to her alma mater of Hollins University that we learned about the co-ed graduate program in screenwriting a few months ago. After all the debt I accrued in New England, I didn’t think I would ever go back to college, though I greatly enjoyed the experience. But what we learned about the program filled me with confidence and a desire to share in the wonderful legacy of this school that my wife is always gushing about.

Our Skype conversation with Tim Albaugh proved to be the deciding factor. I knew instantly that I wanted to be a part of anything that he was involved with, and I had the feeling that my ideas would truly be nurtured and harnessed into a craft––something tangible I could be proud of and use to propel my career.

I continue to mine my childhood and adolescence in Miami for critical stories and characters, situations that shed light on my own personal experience of life. I’ve found myself coming back to Paul’s Case. No longer caught up in the character’s stagnant, brooding longings for a grander life, I’m now able to revisit the story, appreciating the young man’s anxieties while evaluating how it all went so fatally wrong for Paul. There was no reason to despair, no cause for lost hope. I would take the necessary steps to become the artist I already know myself to be. The screenplay I am submitting as my writing sample is a new adaptation of this story, making Paul my own, and giving him a little bit of that South Florida flavor.

I will close by reiterating how I have visited Hollins, and heard many a positive review from the powerful women I know who have attended college there. As a graduate student, I know Hollins can help me to become a screenwriter, to become a filmmaker. This is the only graduate program to which I am applying––I have a very good feeling about all this.

I want to be a Hollins girl.

#college essay #paul's case #queer writing #hollins university

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theseerasures · 5 years

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Is it just me or does frozen (esp the first one) really really not shy away from angst and trauma? I mean. The closest thing I can think of is Rapunzel’s mini breakdown after leaving the tower, but it was very very short-lived and played for laughs. Or Quasimodo’s singing along self-depreciatingly is painful, yet isnt as explored as the angst-fest we got with Elsa somehow?) Big hero 6’s death scene had huge impact on the kid but was then shelved as the movie went on

i mean i feel like it’s mostly a matter of tonal consistency rather than shying or not shying away

all three of the movies you mentioned arguably went Harder in the trauma: the abusive relationship between Rapunzel and Gothel was SO realistic that i still can’t listen to Mother Knows Best without wanting to rip my skin off, the treatment of Quasimodo during the Feast of Fools was horrific (and y’know. all of Frollo), and i wouldn’t say Big Hero 6 shelved Hiro’s grief at all, since it’s his primary motivation for most of the movie, to the point where he was willing to do some murder.

the problem is that they also threw in a bunch of stuff to distract us from the bottomless pit of despair in those movies, likely BECAUSE they went so hard in the angst that the creators had a self-conscious “shit this is a kids movie” moment. Tangled has a great example of an abusive parent, but it’s at heart a romantic comedy with some fantasy action thrown in; Hunchback had deep, rich social justice themes but also had…the gargoyles (Lindsay Ellis has a great video about this, btw); Big Hero 6 invested so much into Hiro’s grief that everyone else just became distracting window dressing.

Frozen on the other hand stuck to its guns on what it was going to be about, and pretty much every element of the movie was molded into something that could support that. this is why i like Olaf in the movies but find him completely UNBEARABLE in any other content–in the movies, his existence and personality have the context to make his character work. it’s an incredibly efficient movie; nothing feels wasted, and everything feeds into the same place at the end (except the trolls, but that’s why everyone hates them).

and part of the reason they were able to stick to their guns is because…well, Frozen isn’t actually a very complicated movie. obviously i don’t mean that in a pejorative sense–just that Frozen explores trauma while applying a pretty light touch over the specificities of what could cause it. there are elements of abuse/neglect, ostracism, and death of loved ones in the movie, but none of that is really fleshed out or explicitly addressed because what the creators were going for is a more general exploration of how traumatized/mentally ill people might behave and eventually recover.

you can see this in how Anna and Elsa developed over the production period. it’s really clear in Life’s Too Short, for example, that both sisters had more flaws and more anger and resentment toward each other, that at their worst Anna was a presumptuous blockhead and Elsa an arrogant narcissist and they blamed each other because they didn’t have anyone else in the world, but all of that was left on the cutting room floor. they started out as good people who didn’t blame anyone for why they were Like That, and not once did one of them deliberately hurt the other. the focus was on how they could become healthier instead of, i dunno, learning that refusing to thaw Arendelle doesn’t actually count as self care. the mental health theme got to take center stage because moral/ethical questions of who’s at fault/who’s the victim/who’s collateral were set aside in favor of saying that we’re all kind of helplessly intertwined in this mess, and the only way to recover is to do it together.

except Hans, that guy can a suck a dick

#Anonymous #and not to keep beating a dead horse but: this is why frozen 2 kind of makes me want to pull my hair out #because it DID try to be about something specific #it DID say that traumas physically linger because people unequivocally did wrong #and that some people are JUST perpetrators #and it even went the extra mile to say that wrongs need to be righted even if the person who committed the wrong isn't alive anymore #for them to go so far and then weasel right back to the general 'well we have to save arendelle bc we're all in this together sweetie (: (:'#it's bullshit!#arendelle isn't a victim! arendelle suffered fuck all and FORGOT an entire neighboring people in less than 50 years #disney #helen writes meta

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creepychippy · 5 years

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I love the idea that places like the boiler area would have lots of blood, guts, and corpses, while a place like the lobby or bedrooms would have very little. (like a few spots hear and there that have blood on them) Ones like the garden might have areas that are full of blood and corpses and some that are not. What do you think?

Ok, let me give it a try (those are only quick ideas and not official to this AU):

Boilerworks:

- Either filled with murky water or blood

- Bloating corpses floating in the water

- Pipes spewing steam or guts as a Jumpscare

- Intestines hanging from the pipes

- Fog around and only little lighting (Imagine it like the Little Nightmares Runaway Boy DLC)

Basement:

- Very little to no blood

- Blood leaking from the washing machines

- Corpses are stored in the luggage Steward carries around

Lobby:

- No blood

- Torn curtains, furniture with claw marks in them

Mezzanine:

- Corpses and gore can only be encountered in Soulfflé’s kitchen as well as the area outside out of it

- A lot of organs lying around in the kitchen

Hotel Shops:

- Little to no blood

- Player is fooled by mannequins, who could come of as either People or Corpses from far away

- The place is much more trashed than its Original Counterpart

The Great Stage:

- Little to no blood

- Going into the bathrooms and looking into the mirror will definitely earn you a Jumpscare by it suddenly breaking

- Crying sounds coming from on of the Toilet Stalls

- Entering through the doors will reveal to the Player not only Amadeus, but Mannequins sitting on the seats and all looking towards their direction

R.I.P Suites:

- Little to no blood

- Blood comes out of the drains when interacting with them

- Much more rundown, with the danger of breaking through the floorboards

Castle MacFrights:

- A lot of blood and gore

- Much more gruesome and terrifying Torture Devices around, with the occasional Corpse still in them

- Also, a lot of Skeletons

- The cart which would be filled with tomatoes in the Original has now Corpses in them

- A lot of dead bodies meeting their fate in the room with the wooden spikes as ground

- Mannequins are seated in the big Battle Arena

Garden Suites:

- Little to no blood, but a lot of bones instead

- Includes a Jumpscare with bloody handprints suddenly appearing on the big glass window and going up

- Carnivorous as well as toxic plants all around

Paranormal Productions:

- First seems like a harmless place, but when Morty takes you to the place where the Godzilla Movie would be filmed in the Original Game, this is where everything horrifying will be revealed, from corpses and guts to dangerous equipment for a Horror Movie (kinda imagine it like the MLP Creepypasta “Cupcakes”)

- The place overall is very hazardous in itself, mostly due to the equipment (fire, saws, etc)

- Jumpscare, where a rapidly twitching eye will suddenly appear on the TV screens

Unnatural History Museum:

- No blood

- Broken glass everywhere

- Place is trashed and has very big bite marks all over it as well as broken off pieces of wall, seemingly caused by an outside force

Tomb Suites:

- Little to no blood

- Skeletons are hidden in the sand

- Corpses killed by traps

Twisted Suites:

- Little to no blood

- Mannequins impaled by knives and sharp object

- Mannequin floating in the water tank

- Overall silent ambience

The Spectral Catch:

- At the beginning, no blood and gore

- Skeletons are lying around

- After calling the big Pirate Ship with the bell, the blue coloured ocean will slowly turn red, with bloated Corpses and pieces of them suddenly floating up in it, indicating Captain Fishhook’s arrival

Fitness Center:

- Blood and gore included

- Corpses were bludgeoned to death, with their heads reduced to a pulp

- A bloody head will be thrown against the window as a Jumpscare

- The pool water is either murky or bloody

The Dance Hall:

- Blood and gore

- Corpses with bleeding ears lying around

Master Suites:

- Blood and gore included

- Jumpscares as well as deadlier traps all around

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recentanimenews · 4 years

Text

REVIEW: The Eizouken Live-Action Movie Takes a Hands-Off Approach to the Source Material

A note on safety: The following movie review undertook the strictest of safety procedures to watch the anime film in cinemas in Japan, including washing hands with disinfectant before and after, sitting in seats apart from others, going to a cinema outside of the busy metro area, and wearing a mask during the entire runtime of the movie. We strongly urge everyone to follow the recommended safety protocol in your country and always wear a mask when in public — not just for your sake, but everyone else’s as well.

Let’s talk about faxes.

I promise that it will make sense soon.

To this day, faxes are huge in Japan. A lot of people, especially small business owners and freelancers, use them to send out invoices and the like, which must also be stamped with their personal seal known as a hanko. It’s an inescapable part of the giant, slow-to-change bureaucratic machine that permeates everyday life in Japan. Japan’s new administrative reform minister, Taro Kono, recently declared war on hanko and faxes, but it’ll be an uphill battle because Japan is basically the DMV if it became a country, with endless forms, applications, stamps, etc. It would actually be a pretty good topic for a satirical anime or something. But it’s not really the right topic for an Eizouken movie. Yet that’s what Tsutomu Hanabusa's live-action adaptation, which premiered on September 25, is ultimately all about.

The original Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! manga and anime had a pretty straightforward story: a trio of high school friends start a club to make traditional, hand-drawn anime. There was, of course, much more to it under the surface — like a look at how an artist’s environment influences their work, the very specific details that make anime feel more real, the delicate balance between creativity and realistic time/resource management necessary in any kind of artistic production, etc. The original story admittedly also had its flashier moments, though most of them took place in the imaginations of the three main characters: Midori Asakusa, Sayaka Kanamori, and Tsubame Mizusaki. On the whole, Eizouken is a celebration of the artistic spirit and a goofy, energetic love-letter to an industry that rarely loves animators back with its long hours and creative compromises.

The Eizouken live-action movie, on the other hand, has combat scenes, tactical police raids, elaborate battles, and, if I understood it correctly, a typhoon in a box. None of those are from the anime produced by the Eizouken club. They all happen within the movie’s “real” world and their goal is to push forward the idea that bureaucracy is bad.

Let me explain. In the manga and anime, the Student Council at Asakusa, Kanamori, and Mizusaki’s school was mostly an occasional roadblock they had to overcome to get some money for their club or to screen their finished anime. They did have a more prominently antagonistic role in the Culture Festival episode where they utilized their own security force, but to call them the villains would be really missing the point of the story. So anyway, the Student Council is 100 percent the villain of the Eizouken movie.

In the live-action film, the Student Council runs the school with its own paramilitary force that they use to enforce the ideas of Total Bureaucracy. They intervene in afterschool activities, merging existing clubs according to their whims, even if it doesn’t make a lick of sense. They can only be fought with signed forms and the like. They hate Eizouken because they represent disorder and because their existence challenges their rule-obsessed … rule. All of this was definitely a small part of the manga and anime but here, it’s been dialed up to 11 and given center stage, all to create an easily-recognizable Big Bad for the Eizouken girls.

Image via Amazon Prime

All of that doesn’t make the movie bad. On its own, it’s a semi-enjoyable story about insane high-school girls so obsessed with their administrative duties that they organize an armed police raid on their friends while yelling: “Don’t let them make that anime!” It’s a bit funny. But it’s not Eizouken.

An interesting thing about the live-action Eizouken movie is that it was supposed to premiere back in May (but got pushed back because of COVID-19) so it could follow the live-action series that aired before it. The series covers the events from the first chapter/episode up until the Student Council budget review, while the movie cuts down all that story into about 40-45 minutes and fills the rest of its runtime with new footage concluding with the screening of the Robot Club anime. This really hurts the movie because it was written with the assumption that the audiences have all seen the series, so a lot of crucial context is missing. Why do Asakusa, Kanamori, and Mizusaki have a problem with the Student Council? Covered in the series. How did they get their dilapidated clubhouse? Covered in the series. Why is there a cheerleader rebellion happening on the school grounds? Covered in the series.

If you’ve read the manga or seen the anime you won’t have trouble following it, although you probably will have trouble recognizing your favorite characters. Literally, the entire main cast is wrong. You remember how Mizusaki could flawlessly switch between her geek and model persona? Well, now she gets a bit flustered when people ask for her autograph. Also, there are no traces of the detailed-obsessed aspiring animator left in her (the film as a whole focuses very little on the actual act of making anime which is definitely ... a choice.) She’s not annoying or a bad influence. It’s not a terrible direction. It's just different. In the movie, Kanamori has exactly one scene where she can demonstrate her producer and money-and-resource-procuring skills and it happens off-screen. The rest of the time, she mainly yells at Asakusa and Mizusaki for not focusing. She did get a few more character-building scenes in the TV series but movies are meant to be as self-contained as possible so it would have been nice to see that here.

Image via Amazon Prime

Asakusa is probably the worst. In the manga and anime, she was an adventurer, a dreamer, a hard worker, a fully-rounded person. She had trouble with crowds or public speaking but she was brave in other areas, and she knew exactly what she wanted. The live-action Asakusa has a violent physical reaction when strangers talk to her. She also cries A LOT. She constantly has the look of a lost kitten about her, afraid of the world and what it might do to her. The animated/drawn Asakusa loved the world. She was fascinated and inspired by it to create anime. The live-action Asakusa does design to escape the real world because it scares her. Maybe this type of character could’ve worked in another series, but this just doesn't feel like Eizouken.

A lot of the choices in the movie are weird like that. The recap of the TV series happens in the form of a parody of samurai movies like Rashomon. There’s another parody of a Japanese variety show after that. A few American movie spoofs are also thrown in later. That’s possibly a commentary on modern entertainment, which would make sense in a story titled Eizouken (lit. “motion picture studies”), but the point of the anime and manga is that these girls aren’t making or studying general “motion pictures.” They make anime. Hand-drawn anime. They hammer in the difference between regular cinema and anime a lot. It’s one of the themes of Eizouken. But not in the live-action film, because, apparently, when the screenwriter read the name Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, they took it as a suggestion to stay as far away from the source material as possible.

Have you seen the live-action Eizouken movie or TV series? What did you think of them? Let us know in the comment section!

Cezary writes words on the internet. You should follow him on Twitter.

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mostlymovieswithmax · 5 years

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Midsommar [spoiler review]

Ari Aster has released his second feature film, Midsommar for which he writes and directs and it is a vast, expansive experience that threw me through a kaleidoscope of emotions, which amazingly is something I can’t say for a large number of horror movies coming out these days. That being said however, I’m not entirely sure that I could confidently class Midsommar as a horror. I don’t know if I’d really class it as any specific genre at all. It is certainly its own beast and for that, I would commend it highly. As something that is so dense with detail I will probably be jumping back and forth to moments in the story, giving this review a somewhat non-chronological structure. I can’t possibly touch on everything, especially as I’ve only seen it once. I believe it is something that needs multiple experiences to fully appreciate and is a movie I’d love to experience again.

The talent on display in regards to basically every technical aspect of the film is to be praised tremendously. I loved the cinematography and the look of the movie; the colours and the sets were all gorgeous. Mostly set in broad daylight, this stylistic choice is not something I’d immediately associate with a movie that was going for this type of vibe. Mixed with the set designs, the look of the movie made for a visual feast I couldn’t keep my eyes off of. What made the aesthetic qualities of the movie pop that little bit extra for me was the camera work and how it moved; I think of shots like when Dani goes into the bathroom in the first act and the camera pans over the door frame and twists to show her standing in the toilet of the plane. Or when they’re driving across Sweden and the camera flies over the car and turns to end up in an upside down position, perhaps foreshadowing what the characters are in for on this journey. It’s details like this that cracked a huge smile from me as I was watching, not to mention it separates Midsommar from so many other movies that try to depict suspense and terror. Furthermore, a feature that I found to be intensely thoughtful to accompany the fantastic visual display was the editing, or more specifically the cutting of shots. Often I see movies follow a certain formula when it comes to this facet; conversations cut together with a shot of one character and then a reverse shot to show another character; wide angles to establish locations or buildings, then cutting to the inside of the buildings themselves. There’s seldom ever much of a flare to the editing of a movie but I saw Midsommar capture that charmingly to add tension or even to highlight a joke. Accompanied by the score, a lot of these shots gave off an eerie tone that made me feel pleasantly uncomfortable. I loved the low, stretched out notes of the music that went that extra step further in order to make me feel slightly distressed. The sound design was incredible and generally it isn’t a facet I’d pick up on unless it was either done very well or very poorly. There were sections where even items like cutlery or people walking would catch my ear in a noticeably pleasing way. It shouldn’t be undervalued at all; great sound design can elevate a movie so much and I’m both glad and impressed at how well it was executed here.

Midsommar’s first act may have unfortunately contained a lot of my favourite moments. It introduced the main characters and worked to convey the relationships between Dani and Christian, as well as with Christian and his friends and how they all felt about Dani. I appreciated the time put into the dynamic between Christian and his friends and how they viewed Dani, although this was sort of thrown away once they got to Sweden; I never saw any sort of resentment from them towards Dani after that. Pelle obviously felt a lot differently about Dani, going as far as to kiss her during the latter stages of the movie. I’m not sure why it was necessary to have Pelle feel this way and I don’t understand what it added to the story besides forcing some conflict into Dani’s relationship with Christian, which was being achieved on his end regardless. Along with this, we are also shown the unfortunate and upsetting demise of Dani’s family which acts as a plot point in helping Dani to decide upon accompanying Christian and his friends to Europe. Seeing what happens to Dani’s family may have been the most affecting part of the movie for me. To top it off, her reaction was absolutely chilling; I love how Aster gets such raw and believable performances in his films. Dani’s loud, pained cries made me feel for her so much and forced a deep discomfort into me that carried through as the credits and title came on screen. Something that intrigued me quite a bit during this first act is how conversations were filmed through mirrors. We would see a couple of instances of characters talking to other characters that were reflected in a mirror. These static shots that carried on for a short while added to the tense atmosphere and the conversations or arguments that were taking place, imposing a kind of separation between those we could see outside the mirror and those we see inside the mirror. The main cast we’re introduced to in America are all good and give believable and compelling performances. Florence Pugh was fantastic as Dani; William Jackson Harper was decent; Will Poulter was great and one of the stand-outs from my experience. Vilhelm Blomgren portrayed quite an interesting character in Pelle. Christian seemed to be the only one that rubbed me the wrong way because he was such a massive dick the entire time and he was never redeemed. Not to say Jack Reynor’s acting was bad (quite the opposite in fact), I just didn’t sympathise with the character. There are aspects to the characters and the decisions they make that wound me up a bit but in terms of the acting, they were more or less solid.

The secondary characters, or mainly the Swedish locals didn’t stand out as individuals to me, possibly because they were portrayed more as a collective, which is fine but I would’ve liked to have seen some character development from at least a couple of them. Now, I say it’s unfortunate that I derived the most entertainment out of this first act because after that, Midsommar suffers quite a bit from some pacing issues. This movie is almost two and a half hours long and it didn’t feel like it needed to be, especially with a plot that only allows for so much exploration. The plot itself is quite basic, but it is displayed as something so grandiose in scope that it comes across as being eminently pretentious. Could it be the insanely short production time that went into making Midsommar that makes it feel fairly lacking in a few areas? Or is this genuinely the cut that Aster wanted? Results from a quick search of the movie told me that around half an hour of its running time was cut due to the content it presented. Consequently, this will make the home video release different to some degree than the cinema release as it may come to our TV screens as a director’s cut. If this is in fact the case (and I do intend to buy the blu-ray upon its release) then could it be that we’ve not even seen the movie that Ari Aster wanted us to see? Will a director’s cut make it better, worse, or simply just longer? I for one am assuredly excited to see what the end result is.

A big problem I had with Midsommar is how early it peaked in regards to the horror. One of the first things the main characters are presented with upon arriving at this rural community is the idea of people being separated into groups depending on their age: the concept that they didn’t consider themselves adults until a certain age; that they didn’t work until they were old enough to; that they died when they reached a specific year of their life. They’re then told that a ceremony will be held the next day and while our main characters ask what it is, we see William Jackson Harper’s character, Josh smiling in a sly “I know what it is” kind of way. His friends try to ask what he knows, to which he does not divulge anything. What follows this is a scene wherein two elderly people sacrifice themselves by falling off of a cliff in front of the other members of the community. To me, this scene was beautifully unsettling for a number of reasons. Despite expecting them to jump initially, I was still shocked at how well it was executed both in relation to the story and in a technical sense. At first, the woman jumps off of the cliff, dying instantly with a bloodcurdling crunch. Of course the characters from America and the characters we are introduced to earlier from England are understandably shocked. Even Josh reels back in surprise which I found to be a little strange considering how he acted as though he knew what was going on beforehand. What did he think was going to happen if not that? We’re never told. As the old man approaches the edge of the cliff and the English and Americans clue in to what is happening, they react as I’m sure we all would to what happens as he prepares to jump. He lands in a much more awkward fashion with a smaller sound that is no less distressing. Only this time, he doesn’t die... The scene is then racked up a notch as he screams out in pain at having his leg torn off and his body broken on impact. The rest of the Swedish onlookers scream in pain with him and it is terrifying to hear. I imagine this painted a picture to most viewers that the locals we are presented with in this rural Swedish village are all somewhat spiritually connected; are able to empathise with one another's emotions in a way that makes them able to feel the sensations of those they’re close to. Undoubtedly the torment doesn’t stop there and Aster has to quite literally hammer home what this ceremony is all about. In order to put the old man out of his misery, a group of people take it in turns to smash his head in with a large mallet, causing further stress to the main characters, but stopping all of the Swedish inhabitants from screaming in agony. That whole scene… was awesome! I loved it and it stands to be maybe my favourite sequence from the movie. The unfortunate part is that after this happens, I expected everything to amp up a bit and start showing me more uncomfortable and fucked up things but sadly this wasn’t the case. In a sense, it was as if the movie blew its load on this earlier scene and didn’t focus on too many other stand-out plot beats which was pretty disappointing. For some reason, Will Poulter’s character ‘Mark’ had slept through this ceremony and as a result, hadn’t experienced what his friends had. Whether this was done for a specific reason I’m not picking up on or simply so that he could continue to crack jokes is beyond me. I will give credit where credit is due: this movie made me laugh when it wanted me to. The inclusion of comedy in Midsommar was expertly handled and never made it come across as a lame horror-comedy.

Prior to this and upon arriving in the green fields of rural Sweden, the protagonists all get high and lie around in the grass. While the comedy kicks in here, it is also notable for the reaction of Dani as she starts to feel the grief of losing her family once more and urgently tries to get rid of it. I liked this scene and how it played slightly with the visuals which foreshadowed the inclusion of drugs and their effects later on in the movie. Sadly with what happens to Dani’s family in the first act, I’m not sure it was that purposeful overall, despite liking how it was depicted. Yes, this event does explain how Dani acts for sections of the film and yes I did like seeing it act as a catalyst for why she goes to Sweden in the first place, but I’m not sure it was hugely purposeful when referring to the movie as a whole. It never came back in a way that affected the narrative or the story that was being told. It was just something that happened to the protagonist that caused her a great deal of upset. Almost as if they could have died in any number of terrible circumstances and it wouldn’t have made a difference. While I really liked the characters’ first drug trip sequence, I got worried early on that Midsommar was going to take an approach that put the trips and the drugs at the forefront of the movie, akin to something like Shrooms (which was just awful) and sure, they played a big part but it did more to enhance what was actually happening rather than fabricate a story that didn’t really take place, just to have them wake up in a field exclaiming how crazy their collective trip was.

As the characters start to become more and more under the influence through the drugs that they’re given, we see the world warp around them. Trees ripple and form faces; the food would shift; flowers would pulse in accordance to Dani’s breathing; characters’ facial features would distort. Dani starts seeing grass sprouting from her hands and feet, or vines mimicking her movements to show how she’s progressively becoming part of this society. Characters like Christian however start experiencing the drugs in a negative and more aggressive way, as if they’re being attacked by senses! There is unease and terror in how Christian experiences the festival, whereas Dani’s experience is comparatively happier. The contrast of how Dani was being accepted and Christian was being rejected was thrilling to see, markedly in how Dani’s demeanour changed as she found herself integrating with everyone else. Although I must say I’m not sure why they kept drinking that drugged water that looked like muddy urine. Christian almost refuses to drink it until he’s told “it’s spring water with special properties” which was all the information he needed apparently! What properties were they? Doesn’t matter; he drank it anyway. The moronic decisions manage to manifest more throughout the movie, however. Regrettably we don’t get to see much of Mark and Josh’s experience with the hallucinogens or even much of the festival because their time is cut short in a manner I didn’t find all too entertaining. Mark is the first to go from the original team. Due to urinating on a sacred tree, he is murdered off-screen and has his face cut off. This could’ve made for a superb scene if it were done right but the way it was handled came across as hollow. Elements akin to this could have worked to convey unease and terror, but they are implied rather than shown which can work in some circumstances but I would’ve liked to have seen something more memorable and haunting instead of seeing an after-product and thinking “okay well I guess that happened”. Show him being mutilated, you cowards! You don’t even have to show it; just possibly what happens in the lead up! It would’ve made for a far more compelling story beat! All that happens is a girl comes up to him as he’s eating with everyone and asks to show him something. His response is just “she’s gonna show me” and leaves. He doesn’t question what he’s about to be shown; he just gets up and wanders off with a girl he doesn’t know in a foreign country, going purely off of Pelle’s word that everyone there is great! What a way to force that in! Josh is next on the kill list because he took some pictures of a sacred book when he knew he wasn’t supposed to because either he’s just insensitive to other peoples’ cultures, or he thinks it’s okay as long as it’s for his thesis. After this happened I kind of dropped off. With most of my favourite characters gone and the remaining characters questioning everything less and less, not only was there not much left to ground the film in a world that would consider the things that were happening to be deeply disturbing, but also from the protagonists’ perspectives as well.

I’ll acknowledge I’ve been railing on this film a considerable amount... with good reason. But despite being heavy on the criticisms, I still consider Midsommar to be a good, even great movie! I adore films that beg me to revisit them and learn more about them with each watch. Sprinkled throughout Midsommar are a tonne of small details and I’m sure I didn’t pick up on everything; in fact I hope I didn’t. Along with strange “what the hell?” moments like putting scissors under the baby’s pillow (I think that’s what it was anyway) that I still don’t understand, there also exists things that maybe don’t need to be thought about but are still nice to see included, such as goats and cows that took the immersion into this countryside village a notch higher. Or to draw from more obvious details that add depth to the people: going back to how they would all scream in unison, for instance to empathise with another’s emotions; when Dani sees Christian cheating on her, all the girls she is with cry and scream with her, possibly to experience what she’s feeling and/or to show her that they consider her to be part of their people, which also manages to contrast with earlier in the movie wherein she’s with Christian in her apartment but she’s the only one experiencing the intense pain as Christian tries to comfort her.

Upon entering the third act I started to wonder what the actual point in Midsommar was. Could it possibly be one big metaphor for grief and how we can choose to deal with it? There didn’t seem to be that grand of a point being made, either in the relationship between Dani and Christian, the relationship between America and Europe, or just the presence or influence of cults and religion in different parts of the world; those ideas seemed somewhat surface level. So I can’t help but think it was trying to convey a more metaphorical meaning. Either that or its meaning was just “Europe’s weird, man”. In this way, the finale didn’t leave much of an impact besides leaving me feeling quite hollow and disappointed, wondering what all that had been in service to. I can’t say Midsommar blew me away with much of what it showed me. There were a few decisions made which weren’t all that original in how they were executed and there were some dumb moments that had me questioning why they were included at all. Yet I would never say it isn’t unique in what it achieves; I can’t disregard all of the jaw-dropping technical showmanship and the interesting, creepy ideas that managed to meld horror and suspense and mystery and comedy into something I simply don’t know how to categorise. I could talk for ages about this film and still not touch on absolutely everything about it. Ari Aster is clearly a talented guy and I can’t wait to pick up the blu-ray and watch it a million more times. Along with that, I am for sure going to see whatever he puts out next. These are the kind of movies I love seeing and supporting and I honestly can’t recommend Midsommar enough because it’s something I feel will resonate with different people in different ways, evoking more than a few interpretations of it. It is so worth the watch.

★★★½

#midsommar #midsommar spoilers #dir: ari aster #movie #review

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sabine-leo · 6 years

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Dreadful Silence

Author: @sabine-leo

Rated: M

Genre: Angst, Insecurity, Hurt / Comfort, Humor and Fluff

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston / You

Part: 1/?

Summary: After an illness your brain experienced a trauma which caused it to lose the ability to speak out loud what you want to say. To get back on your feet after months in the hospital and secluding yourself from the world takes a big amount of courage and strength. Gladly there are helping hands… those of your friends…and handsome strangers

Trigger warning: Ilness, speechlessness, Aphasia

Note: This idea was in my head for a while. I needed to get it onto paper. Please let me know what you think about it and if you like me to continiue to explore it.

Dreadful Silence ~ Part 1

This was hard for you. Why did you agree to this? You weren’t ready, not nearly.

Maybe you could just hide out in the storage room and be helpful assorting the shelves. Your best friend Julia had meant no harm, but after your illness and the by product that you lost most of your speech you were living some what secluded. It had taken you time to get on your feet again after the encephalitis had knocked you down and flipped your life in a direction you never had guessed. Waking up in a hospital after you dropped like a stone on a night out in front of your friends you couldn´t articulate. Only murmurs and gasps had left your mouth. The panic attack that had followed required the doctors to slightly sedate you again. Weeks of treatments and therapy had followed.

Learning sign language hat been part of the therapy. You could formulate some words, but were very, very slow and it disturbed you so much that you stopped trying in front of other people. The looks on most peoples faces hurt you so much that you didn´t want to interact with anybody then your close friends any longer. 5 months had passed that way and your friends had enough of it.

Julia owned a little store in the city and couldn´t afford a full time help if she wanted to make at least a bit money out of it. She sold flowers, little trinkets and artwork she made herself. Julia was very talented and until somebody noticed that she had to make do with this little shop of hers. She was in desperate need of some help and you wanted to help her, but felt overwhelmed after 7 months of being in a hospital and mostly by yourself.

“Mondays are slow, don´t worry this will be fine…and we need to get you out of your flat for a while. It´s time to live again.” She smiled at you and opened up her shop. “You could start helping me to get the flowers out, maybe do one of your sweet arrangements for the window?!” You nodded, that would be ok. “I..i iiii” you started “….no..” it really stressed you out being that slow. You knew exactly what you wanted to say but just couldn´t get the words out! “….people..” You sighed and signed the sentence you wanted to say again:

I don´t want to interact with people, I´ll will help you out as good as I can but please don´t make me talk in front of others.

Julia hugged you once “I won´t, but you need to be amongst people again, let us help you (Y/N) we can´t take your seclusion any longer. It hurts us too you know…”

Julia always was the honest one, she said what she was thinking and gave it to you straight if she thought you were in need of it. Before the illness you had been a fun-loving, outgoing person who loved to go to the movies or theatres or just enjoyed a night out with friends. Hell, you even acted in a little play yourself once. You hadn´t had trouble being alone and read a good book, but you loved to be around your friends. That had changed so much so, that you knew that Julia was right. You were hurting the people who had been there for you, who´d learned to sign too, just to help you study it. A big lump formed in your throat and your ears teared up.

I´m sorry I hurt you, I lost the ground under my feet

“You don´t have to apologize, just try to get back to us. We don´t need you to speak…But your spirit is missing, we want you back sweetheart!” Julia kissed your cheek and smiled teary herself.

“Now let´s get to work after this little heart to heart.” Laughing breathless you nodded and rubbed your eyes dry. You owed it to them to try harder…you owed it to your self to get back on your feet.

The Doctors said that with training and time you would get your speech back. The part of your brain wasn´t damaged for good, it just had some kind of trauma thanks to that bacteria, but it would take constant training and another couple of months’ time to get it up and running again.

If you hadn´t been that frustrated with yourself you probably would be further along the road to recovery. Shit, you really had let yourself down on that. This had to change.

You just prayed that you´d find the courage to get up again.

2 weeks after your heart to heart with Julia you had found pleasure in helping her in her shop. She was so talented, when you had done all things required you just watched in awe when she created her art in her little workshop in the back. At the moment she was giving an old lamp a new shade out of sea glass and mosaic-stones.

Hearing the shop door open she pleaded you with her eyes to go take a look because she couldn´t stop her work right now. You nodded and took the next step on your long staircase of recovery.

A man was standing inside the shop and looking around with fascination. He saw you and turned to you. His face was fairly familiar somehow but you couldn´t put a name to it. His smile was handsome and charming. “Hello, I am in need of some flowers for my mother’s birthday. I saw the arrangement in the window. Please tell me it is for sale, it looks stunning.” You smiled and nodded. Going over to the window to get the flowers out he followed you with his gaze.

“Could you make another one like this just with tulips and marguerites?”

Again, you nod and the man looked at you with interest. Julia came through the door and stopped dead in her tracks. “Tom Hiddleston, oh god!” Tom laughed softly and greeted Julia. You just stared at him for a moment. NOW you could put a name to him. You saw him in a play last summer and were fascinated by his talent to make you feel SO many feelings at once and totally engage with what was happening on stage.

Julia shook out of her dazed state and said.

“I see (Y/N) already got the flowers for you, are you in need of something else?” Tom smiled and came over to the workplace where you started do arrange the Tulips and the Marguerites for him. “No, I asked …(Y/N) … to do another one of those beautiful arrangements already. Your shop is quite stunning.” He looked around again.

In that moment Julia came to you and said softly “If you need my help I´ll be there, but please….try!”

Out of all people she wanted you to start with HIM? You started to sign.

You can´t be serious…I can´t do that on my own

Julia grinned and shrugged her shoulders. “Jump in on the deep end Girl!”

“Mr. Hiddleston…” she started.

“Just Tom…” he smiled and had seen you sign out of the corner of his eyes.

“…Tom… I need to go back to my project in the workshop, (Y/N) will finish your request and help you with everything else you need. Thank you for choosing my little shop.”

“My pleasure, you have great art in here.” Julia went back to the workshop, even though she should drop dead any minute by the daggers you had thrown at her with your glare.

Tom leaned a little on the counter you were working on.

“My mother will love the flowers, you saved me from running around town in search of a present.” You laughed a little and looked up into his eyes. They were as blue as the forget-me-nots you had put in between the white tulips and marguerites. He didn´t ask for them but it would give the arrangement a special touch.

“I´m sorry to say that I can´t sign more than… Thank you…” He signed the Thank you while he spoke.

This was taking all your courage but you needed to be brave to get over the last months.

Slowly you started to sign and tried to explain what you meant with other signs. Oh my, that was confusing yourself. Would he get it?

I “I…so you” Tom translated for himself

hear “hear?” you nodded

you “You …I mean me.” He grinned.

just fine. “fine?... You hear me fine?”

You nodded and he laughed as if he had won a price.

“Splendid, so I need to get a hang of this… or you could write down what you want to say to me and we should be good.” He winked at you.

A laugh escaped you and you truly smiled for the first time in weeks.

Tom watched you smile and thought that you looked striking. So sweet and lovely that he would like to see you smile more often. He was on a schedule today, but this shop would definitely see him again. And he hoped that you were in it when it happened.

Finishing up his order and putting the money in the cashier you smiled at him and signed Thank you

Tom grinned and said “Oh, I have to thank you. I hope to see you again soon!” He left and waved at you through the window.

Julia came out the next second hugging you with a squeal “You did it!!!”

You nudged her shoulder and glared at her but grinned the next second.

“You loved him on stage last summer, and it seems like he took an interest in you too just now.”

Don´t be silly, he wanted the flowers

Julia laughed and shook her head. “I don´t know sweetie, looked different to me”

He was nice, I give you that…thanks for making me do it

Julia hugged you again and smiled

“No thanks needed, I´m the one who gets her friend back little by little!”

After another week you and Julia came to a silent understanding. You helped her in her shop 3 days a week and went to therapy again. She had given you the kick in your behind you needed to give it another try. It was exhausting and frustrating but you promised to do better this time around.

The next Friday you went to a nearby coffeeshop to get something for Julia and yourself. It was a goal you had set yourself and tried to see it through. You had written down your order prior to hand it to the barista when you got asked what you wanted. It went better then you thought and soon you were on your way back to the shop. Just in time to see Tom opening the door to go in.

At first you wanted to stop and wait till he was done, but then Julia´s coffee would probably be cold.

You mustered another surge of courage and went in. Tom turned from his conversation with Julia and a big smile appeared on his face as he recognized you.

You waved at him as he greeted you remembering your name. Julia took the coffee and the cake she had asked for and brought it to her workshop.

“I don´t need flowers today, I wanted to buy this lamp for my sister…” You nodded and wanted to get it for him but he stopped you. “…and…” he ruffled his hair. “I wanted to ask you if you would like to grab a coffee with me, but you have one already.” He smiled sheepish as Julia came back and took your beaker and said “This was for me too, go ahead and treat her to that coffee, I wanted to close for lunchbreak anyways.”

You stared at your friend, but Tom wanted your attention again. “That means if you are willing...” he smiled such a handsome smile that you nodded without thinking about it again.

“Great, let´s go then.” He offered you his arm and grinned. You took it hesitantly but started to walk.

He walked into the park with you and said “The mobile Coffeeshop here has great coffee or cocoa.”

Finding a spot on the grass he sat opposite of you and smiled.

“Try me, I tried to learn the sign language the last 2 weeks. Tell me what you want to drink.”

You shook your head in astonishment and started to sign slowly.

Cocoa with cream on top

“Cola with cream on top? No that can´t be right!” he laughed and you signed again with a smile on your face. “Ahhh cocoa with cream on top, that makes more sense!”

You nodded and laughed a little. That was one of the successes the last weeks. Laughing sounded normal and was easy for you. “Just a second…don´t run away!” he jumped up and went to order the beverages. You took the time to look at him. He was handsome, tall, lean and his smile was a smile that reached his eyes and pulled you in. With his hands in his pockets he waited for his order and looked at you with said smile.

The park was not as busy as usual at lunchtime. The grass was warm and soft and the sun was out. London could be so beautiful in the summer. Sitting back down he handed you your drink and sat his down for a moment. “I´m glad you came…I was asking myself how I could possibly see you again without buying flowers for all the women in my family.” That made you laugh and he looked at you with interest. “May I ask why you can laugh with sound but don´t speak? I hope it´s not rude of me to be so forward.” You held up a hand in motion for him to wait a second.

Inside your little bag you had a tablet. Taking it out you started to write on it.

It´s ok for you to ask, you seem honestly interested not just curious what disability I might have. Actually it´s no disability at all, I had an illness. The bacteria caused a trauma to the side of my brain which is responsible for the speech. I can talk, just very, very slow..so I learned to sign instead. In time and with lots of training I hopefully will get my voice back.

Tom read it as you typed and said “So, I hope I get it right. You have no problem whatsoever to form the words in your head just a blockade to get them out caused by the trauma?!”

You nodded and wrote: It is called Aphasia

Tom looked at you and smiled a little. “Your laugh sounds lovely, I can only imagine what it had cost you to lose your voice. You are a very strong woman to be sitting here with me and telling me this after just meeting me once”

You snorted a little: I´m not as strong as you think, I needed a kick in the behind from Julia after secluding myself the last months.

Tom grinned after reading this.

“Sometimes we need friends who do that, challenge us to new heights, new experiences, new trials.”

Taking a moment to drink you actually relaxed around Tom. He was sweet and polite and wasn´t looking at you as a lot of other people did, but then again…you hadn´t tried to talk in front of him yet.

Tom leaned back on his elbows in the grass. He was a handsome man. His jawline cutting and with a sight stubble that made it even more sexy. But his eyes were the ones that pulled you in mostly.

Those blue orbs that seemed to have a way to look into someone’s soul with a single glance.

“So (Y/N), what experience would you like to set out to do after getting said kick?” Tom asked with a hint of a smile on his face. You had to think about that for a moment and wrote:

Before all this I loved to do lots of things, but now…I´m just starting to be a part of the world again. I can´t name you one specifically...Or maybe I can: Grabbing a coffee with a stranger in the park!

Tom laughed at that. “eheheh.. Sorry, where are my manners…” He sat up straight and held out his hand. “…May I introduce myself properly. My name is Thomas William Hiddleston but Tom would suffice. I´m very honoured to be in your lovely presence and enjoy this beautiful day with you.”

You took his hand and smiled at his chivalrousness. You didn´t know why but his gaze and that silly but lovely gesture just now made you do it.

“…..I….(Y/N)…”

Tom looked astound but then smiled a very big and very honest smile.

“Your voice is lovely (Y/N) thank you for letting me get a glimpse of it!”

He kissed the back of your hand and held on to it for a moment, seeing the overwhelmed look on your face after you realised what you´d done and how he reacted. His reaction was so honest and open, so interested and not even the slightest irritated or commiserating that you could only start to smile back at him. Tom squeezed your hand slightly and let go of it. He took your tablet and wrote a number down in the contact section.

“I´d love to be the one to accompany you on another challenging experience or just spent more time in your presence…It´s in your hands…you have my number now.” He leaned back again.

“But remember, I know where you work now!” He winked and made you laugh out loud.

Tags as asked for :

@drakesfiance

@confessionsofastrugglingteen

@shinebrightlikeafanbase

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fanfic #angst #insecurity #you x tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston imagine #sweet tom #hiddles #hiddlestoners #hurt comfort #overcoming obstacles #fanfiction #british actor rpf

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johnnymundano · 5 years

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Hamlet (1969)

Directed by Tony Richardson

Written by William Shakespeare with an assist from Tony Richardson

Music by Patrick Gowers

Country: United Kingdom

Language: English

Running Time: 117 mins

CAST

Nicol Williamson as Hamlet

Judy Parfitt as Gertrude

Anthony Hopkins as Claudius

Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia

Mark Dignam as Polonius

Michael Pennington as Laertes

Gordon Jackson as Horatio

Ben Aris as Rosencrantz

Clive Graham as Guildenstern

Peter Gale as Osric

Roger Livesey as First Player / Gravedigger

John J. Carney as Player King (as John Carney)

Richard Everett as Player Queen

Robin Chadwick as Francisco

Ian Collier as Priest

Michael Elphick as Captain

David Griffith as Messenger (as Mark Griffith)

Anjelica Huston as Court Lady

Bill Jarvis as Courtier

Roger Lloyd Pack as Reynaldo (as Roger Lloyd-Pack)

John Railton as 1st Sailor

John Trenaman as Barnardo

Jennifer Tudor as Court lady

(All images taken from the Internet. Sorry about that.)

Like many English I have happily accepted every plaudit thrown at the work of William Shakespeare as though I myself had a hand in writing it, while never actually bothering to expose myself to any of it, outside of school anyway. It’s all a bit too much like hard work, you know, got other things to do. This nose won’t pick itself. But in the interests of satiating a mid-life crisis hunger for self-improvement I girded my withered loins and prepared to chuck myself unto the breech of the Bard of Avon’s oeuvre. Being a hesitant creature by nature, I decided to afford myself of the water wings provided by onscreen Shakespeare performed by actors I like. I really like Nicol Williamson (Excalibur (1981), The Reckoning (1969), The Seven Per-Cent Solution (1976) etc) So, here we are then with someone (moi) who is far too late to the party rocking up to tell you about Nicol Williamson’s Hamlet (1969). It’s actually Tony Richardson’s Hamlet starring Nicol Williamson, but in the theatre (darling) to get bums on seats the star gets top billing. In movies this would result in Mark Hamill’s Star Wars, so they don’t do that. And I can see their point because although I know who both Tony Richardson and Nicol Williamson are, I did only come for Nicol Williamson.

No offense to Tony Richardson, mind. Prior to Hamlet he had directed many movies including the cinematic landmarks (deep breath, now) Look Back in Anger (1959), The Entertainer (1960), A Taste of Honey (1961), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Tom Jones (1963) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968). (phew!) Other movies exist in between those, but those are the career makers; most people get one career maker, Richardson had a fistful. Back then though, people obviously had a lot of time on their hands for as well as being a movie director, Richardson co-founded the influential English Stage Company and directed Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. Crucially though, he also found time to co-found Woodfall Film Productions. Hamlet is of course written by Shakespeare and this movie is a Woodfall Films production. So a Hamlet movie is well within Richardson’s comfort zone. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard work and it doesn’t mean that the fact it works should be taken for granted. Nothing should ever be taken for granted in the world of film. After all Ridley Scott directed Alien (1979) but Ridley Scott also directed Prometheus (2012). And Alien: Covenant (2017). (Could someone please take the Alien franchise off Ridley Scott? Thanks awfully.)

Basically, Hamlet is a good film, well, actually it’s more precisely a really good filmed performance of Hamlet rather than a good film. It’s pretty obvious the budget was what a generous person might term, um, constrained. There’s a lot of stone arches in heavy shadow standing in for Elsinore castle. A lot. Other than this, uh, minimalism it's a pretty meat and potatoes production; with just a soupçon of suggested incest between Ophelia and Laertes and emphasis on generational conflict to add some '60s spice. It's basically Hamlet as written; it's not set on a Glasgow sink estate or in a cupboard in Hitler's bunker. Fret not though, Richardson knows what he’s doing, because the big difference between a performance of Hamlet and a filmed performance of Hamlet is you can get right in there with the camera. And that’s cheap as chips, whereas building Elsinore castle and showing the ghost are not an option. Brilliantly and counter intuitively Richardson takes the opportunity of filming Shakespeare to go not large, not cinematically widescreen in scope, but instead to go small.

Yes! Nicol Williamson can look you right in the eye as he moodily wonders whether he should off himself. No matter how much your seat cost in the theatre you can’t get that. And every seat in the cinema (or your house) costs the same, so it’s also a great leveller; everyone gets the same view. A ruddy good view at that. You can practically see the pleased gleam in the actors’ eyes as they launch into some riff that has (quite rightly) become part of the linguistic furniture of the world entire. “Oh, sure, you know this one” they seem to say “but you’ve never had it spoken directly to you, and for you alone. Tuck in! fill your boots” Imagine Elvis singing Suspicious Minds to you and you alone. Imagine is all you can do, because he died on the toilet in 1977. But you can actually have Nicol Wiliamson look you in the face and do that one about slings and arrows, even though he died in 2011 of oesophageal cancer.

But Hamlet isn’t just a one-hander, people other than Nicol Williamson are in it. And as fierily magnificent as Nicol Williamson certainly is as the truculent vengeance seeker, everyone else is great. Because, I imagine, if Tony Richardson says he’s filming Hamlet only a berk would turn him down. For there are no berks in sight in this one. One of the fun things about watching old movies of Shakespeare plays turns out to be the familiar delights secreted within the cast. Gordon Jackson, mostly familiar to me as CI5’s George Cowley in TV’s The Professionals (1977-1983) is here as Horatio, Roger Lloyd-Pack AKA Trigger from Only Fools and Horses is here as Reynaldo, Marianne Faithful is, much to my surprise here as Ophelia, and to my even greater surprise, she’s really very, very good (which will teach me to be so presumptuous), Michael Elphick of Boon (1986-1992) pops up and, hey nonny no, who is this playing Claudius, the King usurping uncle? Why, ‘tis none other than Anthony Hopkins, who has been in a couple of things I can’t quite recall right now.

Basically there isn’t a single face onscreen who doesn’t know what they are doing. And that’s why it works as an excellent introduction to Shakespeare. They know what they are doing so while you may not catch all the language (it being somewhat less than modern) you will always catch the gist and the intent of the speech. I’d bet you’d be very surprised by how much you do actually get; you should give yourself more credit. This Shakespeare stuff was never meant for just the toffs, it was meant for you and me; people who want to wind down after work. Don’t let the buggers keep all the good stuff to themselves, yeah?

Now, obviously, the preceding was a) awful and b) not a review of Hamlet itself. I’m not entirely sure who would possess the temerity to critique Shakespeare’s Hamlet (“Shakespeare’s foreshadowing is far too blunt and the whole exercise in adolescent angst is in dire need of a car chase or some boobs to lighten things up.”) What I am saying is, if you feel the need to attempt Shakespeare then you could hardly be in better hands than those of Nicol Williamson, Tony Richardson and ITV’s Boon. Go on, give Hamlet a go. It’s what Old Bill would have wanted.

#nicol williamson #tony richardson #anthony hopkins #marianne faithfull #1969 #the 1960s #shakespeare #hamlet #gordon jackson #roger lloyd-pack #michael elphick #theatre #culture #highbrow #united kingdom

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reformedkingsmanagent · 6 years

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(YES THIS IS A SUPER LONG POST. I’M SORRY FOR THAT BUT I HAD TO EXPEL EVERYTHING. I PROMISE IT’S A GOOD READ. EVEN IF IT’S JUST TO FIND FAULT IN. I’LL TAKE IT.) (also pretty please send me your thoughts or add to this even if it’s not in support of the bionic boy. I’d really love to hear it all)

Because it’s been a really really really really really long time since I’ve posted any proper discourse on Charlie as a character and I was admittedly inspired by the brilliant round of discussion concerning Vaughn’s grave misuse of Whiskey as a character (which you can find here, please read, these people are grand and most importantly: RIGHT), here’s some rushed thoughts in no particular order.

I’ll admit, when I watched TSS, it ended and I was gung-ho in Eggsy’s corner. I think we all were. There wasn’t any natural opposition worth arguing over, really. The villains were really, really wrong, and Eggsy was purely correct in what he was fighting for.

I didn’t give Charlie a second glance. (Can you believe that? Ha, me either.) They wrote him too one-note. Sure, he was pretty handsome, but not someone I’d think about for more than a second as his rudeness towards the golden boy, Eggsy turned me off, big time.

So imagine my great surprise when I go see TGC in theaters and I’m left stunned in my seat while I panic about my friend sitting beside me immediately judging me the moment I open my mouth and utter the words “I didn’t like Eggsy so much this time.”

Except what I really meant to say was “holy shit, Charlie got an upgrade.”

Because let’s be real, he did! Not just in appearance, though that was a bonus, but you can tell Ed really tried to give Charlie more dimension, even with what little he was given to work with.

In TSS he was a bratty posh rich boy with no real stake in the fight who gave up at the perfect spot to advance the plot (though I have tons of thoughts about how that all could be read differently).

TGC let him grow. There’s a year we don’t know about, but obviously he’s been through a LOT. We see him waking up in Valentine’s bunker, MISSING AN ARM and HOBBLING OVER MANY MANY MANY DEAD BODIES INCLUDING THOSE OF HIS FAMILY. That’s not something I’d probably ever get over, let alone survive.

(Can you imagine his family seeing him get zapped, possibly going over to console him and wake him up, only for their heads to go ‘pop’? Because I sure can.)

We still know nothing about how he got fixed up with all his new gadgets besides that Poppy’s guys made them, we don’t even know how he came into contact with Poppy or how long he was alone, injured, before he got help.

We do know Poppy was aware of what Valentine did, and probably what caused his demise (Kingsman), so did she stop by to investigate? Was she somehow already there and immune from the head-popping incident? Did she come across a gravely injured Charlie and take him in? Or did they cross paths some other way, possibly after he recovered?

If she found him and took him in right away, it wasn’t because of his connections. He couldn’t SPEAK. He couldn’t tell her all the insider information he had access to, he didn’t even know her plans.

So there had to be a level of care there on Poppy’s part. And sure, through seeing how she was looking after him, Charlie came to care for her too, probably using her as a surrogate mother figure after stumbling over his own mother’s headless body in the bunker.

The kid’s gone through some trauma. We have to give him that.

For holding a knife to Eggsy’s neck and otherwise being a non-issue, his whole family got killed. Yeah, them being there was probably a decent justification for what happened to them, but...is it though?

How do we know the circumstances that put Charlie there? His mother there? His brothers there? (Don’t fight me, he has to have brothers with how he acts) His father we can assume made some sort of deal with Valentine. It’s obvious Charlie’s dad’s got connections, what with securing Charlie as Arthur’s candidate in the first place, and we can assume they’re both a bit shady after it’s uncovered that Arthur’s a traitor, but I’m sure Charlie didn’t know the details. At least, not all of them.

His story would’ve ended there if not for Eggsy (ACCIDENTALLY) saving his life, which Eggsy was less than pleased about.

YOU DISAGREE AND BICKER WITH SOMEONE AND THAT’S JUSTIFICATION FOR KILLING THEM?

I’m sorry, does anyone else think that’s a bit...weird? No? Just me? I’m sure this won’t be palatable for most people, but these are things I think about during subsequent re-watches of these films, from an incredibly biased perspective.

So let’s make that clear in case my blog’s existence didn’t already give it away.

YES I AM BIASED. SO FUCKING BIASED. I LOVE THIS BOY AND THINK HE DESERVED BETTER.

Alright. Sorry. Back to it.

So great: Charlie survived, and spent a year recovering (possibly all of it spent with Poppy). He got his voice back via a strange device, and he got a brand new shiny arm to match.

Once fully in Poppy’s retinue, he was finally utilized for a plan she’d been working on for a long time. Those antidote production facilities don’t pop up overnight. The stockpiles of it don’t appear in a few days. Enough for almost the whole population, all across the world? This took planning. I’d even argue this was well underway before Charlie got on board. Him having inside information about Kingsman only helped Poppy feel like it was finally the right time to go ahead with it all.

And it’s not as if he was immediately spilling the beans. Eggsy was established, comfortable even, before Charlie showed back up again. Meaning he kept some of the information to himself until he really trusted Poppy, or, they planned this confrontation for months. Making sure Charlie was ready.

And this is very important:

Making sure Charlie wouldn’t go after Eggsy in blind anger for what happened to his family. Making sure he was focused singularly on their goal of getting the information out of that taxi.

You have to notice some things about the cab fight.

First, Charlie was after the console in the back. Had Eggsy unlocked the cab and left, that would’ve been the end of the encounter. Of course, Eggsy wouldn’t just give up trade secrets like that (which I totally agree with), so instead he forces Charlie into the cab to attempt to get rid of him.

Second, Charlie was not trying to kill Eggsy. He just wasn’t. Flashy fight scene aside, the only moments where anyone was in real danger were:

Eggsy shooting at Charlie (Did he just magically understand that the arm would protect him? No)

Eggsy about to get sandwiched between the two cars (was Charlie driving? No)

And Eggsy swiping at Charlie with the poisoned blade in his shoe, the very same weapon he used to kill Gazelle.

We can assume Charlie wasn’t intending to kill the cab driver. Honestly. He was just saving himself. But yeah, sure, I’ll give you that one.

Charlie’s thrown from the cab, his metal arm left behind, but he’s still breathing. Regardless, he succeeded. In gaining information. Information Poppy wanted.

Did Charlie know what Poppy planned to use the information for? Most definitely. So yeah, while I can sit here all day and tell you he didn’t personally push the button, I’ll give you that too. I can imagine Poppy doing it in a protective, motherly way. The way she watches the progress with Charlie. She announces to him that it’s been dealt with. And then gives him a gift.

Yeah, I know. Arm-Ageddon.

He gets this mere days before the final confrontation. This weighs into how ineffective he seems. He’s not had any time to train with it. He’s had the lesser version of the arm for much longer, but it’s lighter, smaller, less obvious, and less useful in a fight besides for self-defense.

What time has he had to train with the new arm? To get used to the heft of it? Pretty much none, when you think about it. He’s been travelling around for Poppy, for Clara, and most of this movie takes place across a few days. I’d say he’s doing his best adapting.

His whole fighting style has changed. He relies upon it HEAVILY and chooses to anchor himself as opposed to staying flexible and on the move. He’s a heavy hitter now, kind of tank-y, but we don’t get to see much variety. Because there’s not time to explore its many new functions.

In between all this we get a glimpse of how Charlie’s changed. We know nothing about the extent or actual status of Charlie’s relationship with Clara. First, she’s his ex. Then she’s his girlfriend. I get it, it’s “complicated,” we just don’t know. Was she with him before V-Day? Did he bring her on with Poppy? Or did he meet her through TGC?

Who knows.

The bigger takeaway is that despite whatever is going on, they are mostly apart and he definitely warned her about the spiked drugs. Does she listen? No. But what does he do? He personally sees to it that she gets the antidote. She gets cured.

And I’ll put money on Poppy not having a clue.

Why? Because it’s risky at this stage. Also, an antidote was taken by Eggsy as a result, and Charlie didn’t know what became of it. But he had to report it to Poppy just the same. Destroying that stockpile wasn’t his call to make. But was he ordered to get rid of it? Most definitely.

So yeah, sure he’s angry with Clara for hooking up with his mortal enemy and leading him there, but he’s more angry with Eggsy. He doesn’t yell at Clara, though she definitely knows she’s messed up, instead he focuses his anger on Eggsy. He knows if they get away with the antidote he risks his position at Poppy’s table. And that’s the last thing he wants to do.

Because Poppy = mom, and that’s exactly what Charlie needs.

We also get to see how polite Charlie is.

He’s nice to Poppy. He tries to get her to perk up and gives her bits of motivation when she’s down. He indulges her silly hobbies like bowling and going to Elton concerts for two.

He thanks the guy for opening the door at the antidote stockpile because even though he’s absolutely pissed off, he knows it’s not to be directed at him.

He’s trying, okay?

Alright, I know this is stupidly long at this point and I feel like cutting it down so it’s something people will actually read but. I just can’t do that.

Still, I’ll try to wrap this up.

Charlie doesn’t give up Poppy’s information. Whether he knows about the password or not is irrelevant. He struggles against Eggsy, but ultimately he accepts his fate. You can see it in his face.

He laughs. He laughs because he knows it’s unavoidable. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t throw a fit. He accepts it.

Quite different from him being tied to those train tracks, don’t you think?

If that’s not growth, then I don’t know what is.

And let’s point one other thing out.

Poppy’s plan would’ve worked and there would’ve been FAR LESS CASUALTIES if not for the dick president refusing to sign. So while a bit misguided, we can say that not all those lives lost are on Poppy’s hands either. Not that she’s a saint, she grinds up people and feeds them to her employees, but she’s not 100% culpable.

I do absolutely think quite a few people would’ve died simply based on the logistics of getting those documents from point A to point B, it would’ve been drastically reduced. We can’t know for sure.

Holding the population hostage? Super shitty.

Not signing the documents because you’re a holier-than-thou dick? Also super shitty. Just saying.

And if you REALLY want to put this in a grey area, what about Tequila? Not gonna open that can of worms, but the idea that Eggsy and co. are 100% pure isn’t fair. So can we allow a tiny percentage of acceptance of Charlie? Because in the grand scheme of things he’s really no villain. An obstacle? Sure. But a villain? No. Does he have reason to be now if they somehow bring him back for a future film (PLEASE)? YEP.

Charlie’s not a hero. Not even close. Does he have reason to be angry though? Hell yes. Does he do a relatively good job at controlling himself? Yep. Did he deserve an apology, or even a chance at possible redemption? Absolutely.

He reacted to hearing Merlin over the walkie talkie, so there’s some part of him that doesn’t totally hate Kingsman…

Give the boy a shot. Please.

#charlie hesketh #KINGSMAN #STUPIDLY LONG WASTE OF A POST BUT #I was inspired #everybody deserved better this time around #I can't even think about what they did to roxy without burning anger #healthy discourse is good for the community #I think #I love you guys please don't be mad at me for this #if you think I'm wrong that's valid and fair #I'd love to hear more opposing opinions

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thewidowstanton · 5 years

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Stav Meishar, multi-disciplinary performer and creator – The Escape Act: A Holocaust Memoir

Stav Meishar – a stage artist who mixes theatre, circus, music, dance, poetry and puppetry – was born and raised in Tel Aviv in Israel. She attended the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts and has worked professionally as an actress since childhood, notably starring in Wicked’s original Israeli cast.

After moving to the US in 2008, Stav has performed internationally in Hebrew, English and Yiddish. In 2012 she founded Petit Mort Productions to provide an outlet for multi-disciplinary artists whose works are “innovative, unique and perhaps a bit strange”. In 2013, her play The Dreamer and the Acrobat ran at the NY Frigid Festival, and she made her circus debut on silks in the Off-Broadway revival of The Megile of Itzik Manger.

Stav is now based in Bristol and this month embarks on a UK tour of her solo show The Escape Act: A Holocaust Memoir, which is based on the life of Jewish-German circus artist Irene Danner. Stav chats to Liz Arratoon in the run-up to its UK premiere at Jacksons Lane in London on 23 September 2019.

The Widow Stanton: Is there any showbusiness in your background? Stav Meishar: Almost everybody in my family is in love with the arts but nobody else makes it. Everybody does other things around it. My mother is an arts critic, lecturer and guide. She knows everything there is to know about arts but when I asked her if she ever wanted to make any, she said: “Heavens, no!” My dad owns a business he funded… it’s kind of hard to explain but it’s like an archive of Israeli folk dancing. So ever since I was little whenever a new Israeli folk dance would be created, he’d get the choreographer and a bunch of volunteer dancers and videotape it, with instructions, so that enthusiasts around the world can learn how to dance.

How did you start performing so young? I’ve always loved attention [laughs]. There’s video tapes of me when I’m two or three years old doing, like, hand puppetry. Not with actual puppets, just with my hands. I think it was a Mr and a Mrs who met at a movie theatre and fell in love. It was always something I wanted and I used to scour the newspapers when I was little for audition notices. So when there was one for an Israeli production of Oliver Twist I figured, why not be an orphan? [Laughs]

So you just auditioned and got the part? Yep! The production was first in Tel Aviv. There’s a big tradition in Israel on Hanukkah to have shows for the family because everyone’s off from school and the parents are going crazy trying to find something different for the kids. I was… 11, I think, and then the following year it toured all around Israel. I had a lovely time.

What happened about your schoolwork and all that boring stuff? If I remember correctly, the rehearsals were about a half-hour bus ride from my school and I had to get special permission to leave the last class a bit early, so that I could make it on time. All the kids were really mean to me about it: “Oh, you know, she’s hoity-toity with her rehearsals.” I’d rehearse every day and get home at about 7pm.

But being on tour… I think because Israel is so small it’s a bit different to what we think of as tours in the UK or US. There were about 50 kids in the cast so the production would hire a bus and I think there was at least one adult from the production with us.

Was the Thelma Yellin school like a Fame school or something? [Laughs] It’s pretty much what you imagine when you think of a performing arts school; a little bit like Fame. It’s a great school in Israel that still exists and has a great reputation. All the students have to be good at all the regular subjects. You can’t slack off in any of that but you also have to choose one of six artistic majors: theatre, classical music, jazz, cinema, visual arts and dance. So mine was theatre. I was there from 14 to 18.

Why did you move to the US? I always wanted to be in musical theatre, and originally the dream was London. I got accepted at a few schools here but none of them had international scholarships. There was a lot of crying and sadness around that [laughs] and then I picked myself up by the bootstraps and figured, ‘Well, I’ve got to come up with a plan B’, and I got accepted to a musical theatre programme in New York at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy that did have quite a generous international student scholarship.

I worked my arse off for about two years saving every shekel I could and got some help from my parents as well, God bless them, and yes, I moved to the States and studied musical theatre. I graduated and worked in professional musical theatre in New York for about a year and then one day I woke up and realised, ‘I hate it!’. Not musical theatre, I still love that, but the business around it; how mean everybody is and how soul-crunching open calls are. I couldn’t do it anymore.

This crisis was in about 2010 and I was in a really dark place for a while and decided, ‘I’m just going to see as much theatre and performing arts as I can and see if I can get inspired by any of it, and take as many classes as I can in all kinds of different things’. So I took yoga, and I took Pilates and all kinds of stuff… and I took a silks class and uh… well… yeah, fell in love. [Laughs]

Where did you learn your circus skills? I trained for a long time at the Circus Warehouse in New York, which is a fantastic space with really high-level professional training. It’s not a university, it’s not accredited, but the level is super high and the coaches are all fantastic.

I see also you play ukulele and do poi spinning… have you got anything else up your sleeve? I had a year or two of trying a bunch of different things. I still play the ukulele mostly for my own pleasure. I took a street show to the Edinburgh Fringe for a couple of years where I put together Shakepearean monologues with whatever was popular that day on MTV, on the ukulele. So Taming of the Shrew and how badly he treats her, how awful he is leading into Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. That was fun for a little while.

Oh, and poi spinning… I do a lot of things none of them in any way as professional as I do theatre. You can’t do too many things well. You do a lot, you end up being OK at most of them. I’m skilled in a lot of things but wouldn’t consider myself expert in all of them. Theatre is where I’m most confident… history, specifically World War II history is something I’m very confident in, and Jewish education is something I feel an expert on. Circus is always a tricky thing because I’ve been doing it long but I have never done it with enough… let’s put it that way, I started late and I’m lazy.

Have you done stuff at Circomedia, being in Bristol? Yeah, I just did one year full time there, basically shadowing their foundation degree students doing all the practical stuff but none of the academic stuff, because I already have my degree. It sounds much more than I’m capable of. Yes, I just graduated from a full-time programme; I’m still pretty shit at circus but I never intended, like, I don’t market myself as an acrobat. I’m a multidisciplinary artist who has a lot of tools and because this current project is about a circus artist, I had to have some circus skills thrown into the melting pot of the show, but I’ve been really adamant with everybody where I’m performing, don’t market it as circus show or people will be really disappointed. It’s a theatre show. It has puppetry, it has circus but I’m no more a circus acrobat than I am a puppet master.

So let’s talk about The Escape Act. How did it come about? It was completely random. I started my Jewish education company, Dreamcoat Experience, and our niche, so to speak, was teaching progressive Jewish education using performing arts: drama, music, puppets, thing like that, and I started weaving circus methods into our curriculum. I was curious if anyone had done that before and I went to Google and I typed in ‘Circus Jews’ and one of the first things to come up was the New York Times obituary for Adolf Althoff, the German circus owner who saved this Jewish family. I just remember reading it and my jaw dropping to the floor going, ‘How is there not a movie about this?’. It was incredible. I just started going into this Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole from which I never emerged.

You’ve written about Irene Danner’s story for Circus Talk, but give us a brief outline of her story. In seven years of research, I uncovered a lot and it’s a big story. The short of it is, Irene, born Danner, was a descendent of the Lorch family, Jewish Circus royalty; they were the most famous Risley act of their time. They performed with the Ringling Brothers in America, they went on tour with Circus Sarrasani in South America, they really were the celebs of their time. The circus closed when she was about seven years old; they went bankrupt around 1930 with the rise of anti-semitism and people not really wanting to see ‘the Jew circus’ anymore.

Irene trained as a acrobat from when she was little and got her first job when she was 13, with Circus Busch. She was the flyer for the horse-riding troupe The Carolis and was there for three years until the law changed and Jews weren’t allowed to work anymore. About three years later she went to see the Circus Althoff and fell in love with their clown, Peter Bento. Peter asked Adolf if he would give her a job. Adolf knew it wasn’t legal but he didn’t really give a shit, excuse the language. That’s his, not mine. She was not allowed to marry Peter because of the racial laws of the time but they had two kids during the war and three more afterwards.

At some point when the Jews were starting to get deported, she persuaded Mr Althoff to let her family join as well; so her sister and her parents, and all four of them survived the war. Other members of her family didn’t make it. If you visit their house there are a few stumbling stones outside for all those who perished. The idea is that you shouldn’t just be reminded of the Holocaust when you decide to be by going to a memorial, but that you stumble upon them.

The Escape Act is as faithful to the story as I could make it but I took some artistic liberties. For example, she joined the Althoff circus because she fell in love, but in the show I’ve made it that she joins because she misses performing and she wants to do what she loves. It’s a bit of a feminist twist; she’s making her own path.

So in the show, you’re doing a bit of trapeze and juggling but it’s a theatre show? It is definitely a theatre show. It’s quite text heavy.

How did you go about your research? I started at the Yad Vashem Museum – the big Holocaust museum in Israel – because the obit mentioned that Adolf Althoff and his wife Maria, had received the honour of the title ‘The Righteous Among the Nations’ from Yad Vashem, which is a special sort of order, I guess, for Gentiles who saved Jews during World War II. As they’d given them this honour I assumed they’d have files on them and indeed they had.

They had interviews with both Adolf and Irene… photos… and then I just started visiting museums, archives, libraries, just picking information wherever I could, speaking to whoever I could. I wish I spoke German; my research would have been so much better. A lot of my info came from a wonderful book called Jewish Identities in German Popular Entertainment. It’s the only English book available that talks about circus performers in Germany during that era. Of course I looked at the bibliography and saw where I could branch off from there.

One of the books I got in German is this tiny little book that’s all interviews and testimonies from Irene, her husband, Adolf, basically everybody involved. I crowd-sourced the translation. I just reached out on Facebook and got something like ten German speakers to translate two chapters each voluntarily. So I got the whole book translated out of the goodness of their hearts. One of my favourite things described was the friendship that Irene and her husband had with a Moroccan acrobat called Mohammed; Muslim, of course, and being Jewish, I was like, yes, Jewish/Muslim friendship, yay! He was their best friend during the war and he helped hide them, he protected them, they were really each other’s backbone.

Years later when I went to Irene’s town and interviewed her kids, who are now in their seventies, I asked them if they were still in touch with any of the saviours. Her eldest son was like: “Ja, ja, we still speak, Christmas cards, birthday cards, but the one we are really in touch with, we speak every week on the phone, is Uncle Momo.” It just took me a second… I’m like, ‘Do you mean Mohammed?’. He goes: “Yes, yes, he lives in Tangier now.” ‘I’m sorry, is he still alive?’. “Yes, he just celebrated his 94th birthday.”

It was just incredible! So here I am in a living room in Germany, learning that there’s one person still alive from that era, and here’s the real amazing thing… this was in May and in June my husband and I were booked on our honeymoon, guess where? Morocco! That was incredibly random. It was meant to be. I told Irene’s son, ‘It so happens we’re going to Morocco. Will you please connect me with Mohammed?’. So a few weeks later, there we were in his living room in Tangier.

What does it mean to you to be performing the show in Germany on the anniversary of Kristallnacht? I think I’m actually more terrified than honoured, because her kids are probably going to be there and I’m so terrified that they’ll be angry at me for making changes. That’s my own demons and whatnot. I think as an artist it’s something of a trait to imagine a worst-case scenario. It’s something we do to ourselves but I’m sure it will a wonderful experience and hopefully her kids will love it. I did ask for their blessing and they gave it to me.

But just talking to you I get emotional about bringing the show on Kristallnacht because this is where it all took place. Even when I visited there last year it was really emotionally difficult to be in that synagogue where I know Kristallnacht happened, and to be in the family’s home where I know Irene saw her own grandmother being snatched away. In those places there’s a visceral element to being in the spot where it happened. Like visiting Auschwitz is different than reading about it. And there is a scene in the show that takes place on Kristallnacht, so to be at the synagogue where it actually happened, in the town where it actually happened, in front of that family, I mean, it’s… ahh! It’s an incredible gift that they’ve given me to invite me to do my show there.

Do you feel, with the rise of the far right, that your show is even more relevant now and it’s even more important that people should hear this story? Yes, absolutely. It’s been in my mind ever since I started researching this history, and every time I think it’s going to become less relevant, it has to get better from here, it doesn’t. It’s getting worse. Every historian has this feeling of helplessness where you see history repeating itself and yet people do it anyway. Even with Germany and all that history, when I talk politics to people, they’re like: “Oh, but it’s getting better now. Gays have the right to marry, trans people are accepted.” But if you look at history, the Weimar Republic happened right before the Nazi regime. They had, like, the biggest gay parties, they had cross-dressers, they had cabarets, they had this amazing period of artistic and sexual liberation and then this happened. I’m not sure that an improvement necessarily says an upward motion.

When I first starting working on the show the thing I really kept thinking about was how the Holocaust was taught to me. Growing up in Israel it’s a big subject in our curriculum. We study it, I dare say, a bit too early, but one of the most powerful experiences that I had growing up and that I saw as a Jewish educator in America is that schools would bring survivors to tell their stories first hand. And that’s always been for me and my students the most powerful experience, more than watching movies, more than seeing pictures of naked skinny bodies. Just having a person there telling you this is what happened, this is what they did to me, to my sister, to my parents, it’s different. And it’s a resource that’s not going to be available forever. Survivors are dying out and the thought that led me in this work is, ‘OK, what experience can I create that would get as close to a first-hand telling as possible?’.

I’d like to think this show is a good alternative. It’s not perfect, it’s never going to replicate that, but telling a story in the first person as if it were my story and taking those moments of stepping away from the character, and being myself and telling my own experiences, more about the after-effects it has, I think that’s powerful for everyone. What’s it like for someone who is descendent of refugees from a genocide? How does that affect you? Here’s this person who was never in the camps, who never starved and who had a pretty cushy, privileged life and yet there’s this scar that was her inheritance, and it’s never going to go away.

Would you say this show is the highlight of your career so far? It’s definitely the most ambitious project I’ve taken. I’ve been a performer for most of my life but I’ve always interpreted other people’s work. That’s what actors do, and this is not the first time I’m doing my own project but it’s the first time I’m doing, first of all a project that I’ve vested so much time and effort in, but it’s also the first project that has autobiographical elements. So the show I would say is 95 per cent Irene’s story but the rest is me and my history.

The way it’s structured is when there are points when her experiences sort of trigger my own memories growing up, I take a step out of Irene and become myself, the house lights go up and I talk to the audience about my own experiences. It’s a wonderful thing as an artist to be able to share that sort of vulnerability with an audience, and it’s absolutely terrifying and it’s difficult. It’s so raw and it’s weird because those things haven’t happened to me. I’m telling the stories of my ancestors and still, yeah, it’s right there in the really innermost parts.

vimeo

Stav Meishar performs The Escape Act: A Holocaust Memoir at Jacksons Lane in London on 23 and 24 September 2019, before a UK tour.

Picture credits: Michael Blase; Asaf Sagi; Kati Rapia: Shirin Tinati: Gilad Kfir

For Jacksons Lane tickets, click here

For tour dates, click here

Stav’s website

Twitter: @stavmeishar

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