#must see film

[ballingb-a-g-s]

[ariaste]

Me: [sees everyone talking about how Assad Zaman was "literally" coming up with RPF about himself and Eric Bogosian in an interview]

Me: ah, fandom's doing its little "interpret an innocent comment in Some Kind Of Way" thing again, let's go find the video and do our own critical thinking about what was actually said here--

Assad: What would happen if I said-- [words that cannot be interpreted as anything but RPF fanfic]

Me:

Me: ok fandom gets a pass on this one actually

[sweetsouldhavernas]

paint me like one of your french murfs

[dbarenzu626]

Happy "Ultraman: Rising" launch weekend!! 💥

So, if you don't know, I'm a bit of a connoisseur of tokusatsu and I've been no spring chicken when it comes to Ultraman. It all started with me... as far back as 4Kids' lame and incomplete dub of "Ultraman Tiga". Yeah, I started there, but of course, from then and there onward, I've dipped my toes into more of the franchise's works. From R/B to even a classic dubbed version of the 1960s show from DVD sets I got from my aunt, I've done what I could to open my eyes to what Eiji Tsuburaya brought to the world of Japanese pop culture.

Now, on Friday this weekend, I decided to double up and watch "Shin Ultraman" and this new work. On one side, Shin was a simply incredible love song to Eiji's work prior, but in Rising's case? I wasn't prepared for how emotionally charged Rising's whole story would be and how impressive the whole effort would shine through. You don't even need to have any knowledge of the Tsuburaya franchise to watch this film, "Ultraman: Rising" is a super fun effort with a lovely cast, a strong theme of family and parenthood and topped off with incredible animation courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic.

So! With how much this film charmed me, I drew up Emi and Ultraman/Ken Sato after a bit of a turbulent two months IRL prior, as a means to get myself back on my art wagon... look, motive aside, it was Emi's idea, okay? 🤣

[macaulaytwins]

Richard Siken, Crush // Bones and All, dir. Luca Guadagnino // Ethel Cain, “Ptolemaea” // Car Seat Headrest, “The Gun Song”

[kakooshi]

I feel like enough time has passed...

[oceanicpoetry]

Loki's arrival: official concept art (by Andy Park)

[aprilblossomgirl]

Laws of Attraction (2023) Episode 6, Dir. Wo Worawit Khuttiyayothin

"I hope we'll get married. If we can be life partners, I hope I can find the flower of my love."

[delyth88]

I'm fascinated with how movie-verse!Charles must have discovered and experimented with his abilities. I imagine he must have started off scared and nervous and then rapidly swung to being cocky and confident when he realises just how much control he has over everyone. He can make them do whatever he wants. He can make them like him, he can make them give him good marks in school when he didn't bother to try, he can make them be nice to Raven.

And then I wonder how long it took for this heady feeling to pass and for him to understand the humanity in each person and realise that he doesn't really want to control anyone after all.

And how easily it could have gone a different way.

[bharv]

Still waiting for the draggy age hype to hit me like

[labyrinthofstreams]

羅生門 / Rashomon (1950) | dir. Akira Kurosawa.

[kansassire]

Robot Dreams, 2023, Pablo Berger

[pairingbrainrot]

- The Power of A Single Red Rose

[shopwitchvamp]

Can't stop thinking about wanting to make a video game :[ Don't know how to make a video game :[[ Could I find the time and strength needed to learn? Perhaps. But something will have to give in return :\

[t4tozier]

i find it fascinating that grace chastity specifically picks ruth to do the tech and richie to film because we know that ruth is the techie for hatchetfield high’s theatre department and based on richie’s enthusiasm he’s very passionate about film/making videos (special interest maybe??) like they’ve supposedly never really interacted before now but grace somehow knew enough about the two of them to say okay you want to be involved here’s the thing i know you’re good at go do it

[anghraine]

Today's unhinged "good God I hate how much extreme generosity I'm expected to extend to the Peter Jackson films by people who make wildly bad faith arguments about things I like" rant:

I am very deeply tired of people insisting with zero evidence that of course the LOTR films are imperfect, but the difficulties of adapting LOTR are such that it wasn't possible for them to be better than they were—in, apparently, any respect. They just couldn't be done better, at all, because it was so hard to make something watchable at all.

This is always just like ... really? Really?? Just what prevented them from making better decisions about anything? What exactly made casting every actor of color as barely differentiated villainous hordes in the twenty-first century so necessary and unavoidable? The glamorization and vast expansions of battle scenes and insertion of "heroic" war crimes was the highest film as a medium could aspire to in the early 2000s because of what insuperable force?

What made it impossible to give Arwen a coherent character arc? The films could not have been made without the underlying assumption that most of the cast are NPCs who will only do the right thing, when they will, if prodded or manipulated or influenced by main characters? In what way is this an inevitability of adaptation or film that simply couldn't have been conceptualized differently, much less better?

There is zero explanation or justification for why any of this stuff (or the myriad other flaws) had to be that way and couldn't have been done better in any way at any point. It's just stated that the films that exist must be the best films that could have existed because they're the ones that do exist and are popular. QED.

That doesn't make any sense, though, and it doesn't convince anyone who doesn't already agree. The idea that they could not have been better in any way (including their worst quality, which again, is the extremely racist casting), that some force was preventing not only the actual filmmakers but any filmmakers that could possibly exist from doing anything better just seems patently absurd.

You can like them and respect what they did achieve without demanding that everyone buy into a baseless and irrational argument that their pop culture success means nothing about them could possibly have been done any better. Look, I was in my mid to late teens at the time. I remember the early 2000s quite well. It wasn't now, but we are not talking about an age so divorced from our own that any of these things were somehow fundamental to the media landscape.

There are ways in which the LOTR films were very good that were essential to their popularity then and now. This does not require anyone to accept that it was literally impossible for them to be better than they are or that some defense is required against every criticism of them ever.

I am not, incidentally, talking about removing Bombadil, an entirely understandable and defensible decision that the film defenders in my notes somehow always feel the need to bring up. I know that changes had to be made, that adaptation is not a word for word transcription, that it would always be a difficult text to adapt, that structurally minor elements had to go, that they are cinematically beautiful films that a lot of work and love went into. I know this. EVERYONE knows this, because for the last 20 years it's been impossible to criticize anything about them without being reminded. Their accomplishments, and their existence, do not mean that any choice made by the filmmakers must definitionally have been the right call and could not possibly have been better in any way.