#not surprise since mad max fury road is my favourite movie

[groove-27]

So in the end One Piece was always meant to be Mad Max fury road, but on the sea.

Kidd is the only one who is respecting the full leather post-apocaliptic aeshetic and i respect him for that.

[bobbyinthegarden]

March & April Reading Wrap-Up

Just like my February Reading Wrap-Up, here’s March & April

Fiction

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 

Might be my favourite Jane Austen novel? Maybe? I love the relationship between the sisters, and I hard relate to Marianne in an “I’m in the photo and I don’t like it” kind of way.

The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter

This book is really weird. I think I liked it, but I’m still working through my thoughts on it. I saw somebody on Goodreads say that this book is a bit like a hybrid of Mad Max: Fury Road and The Handmaid’s Tale, and that is pretty accurate. It’s bizarre at times, I was trying to explain some of the plot to my partner who was extremely bewildered by it. Major trigger warning that there is a lot of sexual violence in this book, and it also features forced surgical transition as a major plot point, so, do with that what you will.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Did a whole review of this one

Silas Marner by George Eliot

Absolutely adored this book, I am now a full fledged George Eliot stan.

Axoim’s End by Lindsay Ellis

I don’t know if this will be a surprise or not, based on my blog, but I do actually like sci-fi. Not so surprising, considering my lifelong X-Files obsession, I like stories about aliens and weird conspiracies to cover them up, so this definitely appealed to me for that reason and this was pretty decent, I will be continuing the series when I have time.

The X-Files: Fight the Future by Elizabeth Hand, adapted from the screenplay by Chris Carter

I thought it would be fun to check out some of the X-Files novelisations. As with most TV shows that get novel tie-ins, some are adaptations of episodes and some are original stories, with X-Files, they seem to mostly be original stories, but this one is a novelisation of the first movie. It’s a very faithful re-telling, it doesn’t really add anything, but it doesn’t detract anything either, it’s a very straight re-telling of the movie. I like the movie (the first one anyway), so that was fine for me, and the books pretty short so it only took me two days to get through.

The X-Files: Cold Cases by Joe Harris and Chris Carter 

Debated if I should include this in my wrap-up or not, since it’s an audiodrama, not a book, BUT I listened to it specifically for my 2023 Reading Challenge (the audiobook category). Full review incoming.

The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

Read this one for my reading challenge too, this time the children’s literature category. Despite really loving the movie when I was a kid, I’d never actually read the book, so it was nice to finally sit down and read it. Full review incoming.

Colonel Brandon In His Own Words by Shannon Winslow

I read this purely because I was curious to learn what self-published Jane Austen fanfiction is like, and I chose this one because I had read Sense and Sensibility so recently (for the unaware, this book is a re-telling of that one). It’s basically exactly what you expect. I saw somebody on Goodreads say that they liked this book better than Sense and Sensibility, which is definitely not an opinion that I share. The depictions of the Indian characters and the British Army in this book was quite questionable, in my opinion.

Non-fiction:

The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan

I read this book several years ago, when I was doing my BA at university, and it totally blew my mind. I have far too many thoughts about this book to express in one short paragraph, other than to say that it’s amazing that this book was written in the 1960s, Marhsall McLuhan was out there, writing about the internet 20 years before it was even invented.

First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

Did a whole review of this one too

Poetry:

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky 

This one too

Zines/comics:

The Fisherman’s Wife by @grendel-menz

A re-telling of the tale of the fairytale with absolutely gorgeous art that truly took my breath away. [LINK]

Two Pounds of Flesh by @thequeenofbithynia

I’ve talked about other comics by this user in my February wrap-up. This one is a beautiful and complex tale about gender, blended with horror - it’s extremely cool. I love everything that Andreas makes, and am planning on buying his most recent comic as well when I can. [LINK]

[lurkinghistoric]

Tagged by @fuckyeahisawthat! It’s a long time since I’ve written fic, so it was really nice to think my way into this space again. :)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 78. All under 10k, most under 5k. 

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?162,594.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Mad Max: Fury Road, Venom, Pacific Rim, Atomic Blonde, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. 

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? They’re all Venom fics! I’ve written more for Fury Road, but I came quite late to that fandom - whereas with Venom I caught a small wave. Of tentacle porn. They’re Miscommunication, Glow, Flip the switch, Careful driver and Every rose has a thorn.  

When I looked it up, I was surprised to notice that Guarded is my most-kudosed Fury Road fic. Surprised because it’s gen, and only shippy if you want it to be - at the time of posting, Maxiosa smut always got a better response. But I was proud of this one, about longing and touch starvation, and I’m glad it quietly found its audience. 

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not? Yes! An actual person has read the thing and told me they liked it! Wow!

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I am All Fluff All The Time. Wracking my brains, probably Reliable, which has an argument that doesn’t have an easy resolution. 

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written? No. The nearest I got was the Fury Road gang watching Alien. 

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? No.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yup. Most of what I’ve written is smut - partly because that does get a stronger audience response, but also because I like the balance of physicality and emotion, people working out how they feel. That’s particularly because I started with Max and Furiosa from Fury Road, whose canon physical interactions are so expressive. Taking it to fic, and making it shippy, feels like a natural extension of that. With Venom, the movie’s shippy subtext is pretty much text, so nudging it over the line to tentacle porn was immediately fun. 

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No. 

13. What’s your all-time favourite ship? Max and Furiosa. 

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? I had some scribbles, but nothing substantial. 

15. What are your writing strengths? I like my own prose: getting the rhythm right, getting the right word. And I like digging into the why of feelings, unpacking the vulnerabilities, finding a moment that speaks to a wider story. 

16. What are your writing weaknesses? Very rarely, a plot bunny will hop to my door, and we kind of look at each other in embarrassment, because we both know it’s come to the wrong address. I lean heavily to fluffiness, so there’s darkness I’ve sold short. I use writing prompts, but I’m very aware of the difference between the fics where the prompt really got into my head, and one where I wanted to write something but hadn’t internalised it, or at least hadn’t got there before the posting deadline. Writing fic is a balance between “writing for me”, and “writing for validation”, and I think “writing for me” has stronger results. 

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I don’t speak other languages well enough to do it..

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Mad Max: Fury Road.

19. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written? I don’t have one. 

Tagging @kirkypet, @primarybufferpanel, @ecouter-bien, @thebyrchentwigges and anybody else who would like to try!

[agentnico]

Top 10 Best Movies of 2019

Disclaimer: I have not seen the films 1917 and Bombshell upon releasing this list, so they have missed out on this list due to that factor. Otherwise, there’s a chance both of them would have been on here.

It’s that time of year again when I decide what were some of the greatest films that graced us on the big screen (or small screen in light of Netflix’s ever-growing presence). 2019 was not a bad year for movies, though it’s interesting to note that the highest score I gave to a film this year is an 8/10, not higher. Maybe that’s a detriment to 2019′s film quality, or more so to me becoming more stricter with my opinion. The latter is more likely to be honest since I had problems with Detective Pikachu. I know, how dare I judge that little cute yellow furry Deadpool-sounding Pokemon! Though I am proud to note that this is the most international Top 10 list I’ve ever done, managing to sneak in film picks that weren’t just made in Britain or America. I really branched out this year. Does that make me a professional critic? Probably not, but in feeling I am, and that is what counts. Anyway, without much further ado, here are my favourite films in 2019...

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Glass

Joker

One Cut of the Dead

The Lighthouse

Zombieland: Double Tap

Burning

Always Be My Maybe

The Peanut Butter Falcon

10) JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM - 2019 was arguably the year of Keanu Reeves. From his self parodying roles in Toy Story 4 and Always Be My Maybe (easily the best cameo of the year) to announcements of his participation in the upcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077 as well as returning for a third Bill & Ted film, and of course, there’s John Wick 3, a non-stop action romp that gives the Raid movies and Mad Max: Fury Road a run for their money. The weak ending does cause the film to fall short from perfection, but it still makes my Top 10, and deservedly so.

9) AVENGERS: ENDGAME - I hated Infinity War. I said it once and I’ll say it again. So it was much to my dismay that I really enjoyed Endgame. It’s a culmination and celebration of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, and though I may have problems with the franchise as a whole, I do respect them for how far they have managed to come.

8) KLAUS - Netflix’s first animated movie is an absolute delight. A callback to a time when films were much simpler, with a truly good message, beautiful animation that blends 3D computer animation with old-school 2D animation and some great humour. A very sincere and well-paced production with an engaging story (for the whole family!) that doesn’t rely upon ironic jokes to tie in the adults, or on the integration of modern technology to hold the kids’ interest (like so many modern animated features do). It just tells a story. Klaus is destined to become a Christmas classic.

7) DEERSKIN - Leave it to the French to provide us with one of the weirdest motion pictures on this list. A tale of a man’s obsession with his coat (a good looking coat no less!) that leads him to some hilariously dark places. In style and theme Deerskin reminds me of another film I really love, The Voices starring Ryan Reynolds, in that it is strange, horrifying, awkwardly funny and overall weird. You’ll either love it or hate it, but Deerskin is certainly worth seeking out.

6) UNION OF SALVATION - Having been displeased with modern Russian cinema as of late, Union of Salvation surprised me to a major extent. A large scale historical study that describes some of the more difficult pages of the history of the Russian Empire. The revolt of the Decembrists in 1825 had to show the emperor that the old rules and laws were no longer able to restrain the empire from collapse, and although the rebellion was suppressed, it became a special precedent that brought the country under global historical changes. Crisply filmed, and directed in a way that leaves it to the audience to interpret who was right and who was wrong, this is a historical epic that leaves an impact.

5) KNIVES OUT - “I suspect foul play.” I will forever be grateful to Knives Out for gifting us Daniel Craig with a Southern accent, something I never thought I wanted but now that we have it, I would not want it any other way. Director Rian Johnson has crafted a truly original whodunnit, that mixes classic elements of the murder mystery genre whilst adding an interesting modern spin to it. Also, talk about a star-studded cast (with a stand out performance from Ana de Armas)! I hear a sequel is already in the works, and I say bring it on!

4) ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD - Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to old school Hollywood is a visual and narrative feast, pairing Hollywood legends Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as they traverse the colorful streets of Los Angeles in 1969. Tarantino was already one of my favourite film directors, and here he fully displays why he’s a true artist of his genre (that’s right, the man has his own genre!). I might disagree with the movie’s ending, but the rest of the film is such a fascinating experience and easily one of the most memorable films to come out of 2019.

3) MARRIAGE STORY - Such a depressing movie. Yet such a great depressing movie. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson give career-best performances as a couple going through a divorce, and the way the movie is grounded in realism makes the whole thing a painful experience to go through, however one worth taking. Marriage Story is depressing, yes, but also truly incredible.

2) PAIN AND GLORY - The French give us the weirdest film of the year and leave it to the Spanish to give us the most personal one. Director Pedro Almodovar semi-autobiographical film takes a close look at how one deals with acceptance, being forgotten, symptoms of depression and generally all fairly negative attributes, but delivered in such an honest and profound way that there is a strange lightness that emerges from it all. Antonio Banderas is uncannily vulnerable in the lead role, delivering such an earnest performance that shows a man that is filled with melancholic regret who seeks his own form of redemption.

1) PARASITE - The winner of the Palme d’Or (the main prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival) is also the winner amongst my favourite films of the year, not that those two are comparable. In any case, Parasite is easily the most original and surprising piece of film-making that I discovered this year, managing to subvert expectations and blend together so many different genres so naturally. To spoil any narrative element of this movie would be a sin, like this one in particular works best when not knowing anything about it. That’s how I watched it, and now it’s my number 1 film of 2019. 

And now also for my No 1 WORST film of the year, which goes to...

WORST FILM OF 2019 - CATS. Obviously. What else did you think I was going to say? When I saw it I thought it was poop, and to this moment all I see is poop. Cats is poop. The end.

[skjaldmo-ulf]

I was tagged by @vastness-and-sorrow and @thislovelyoptimist for 2 tags ! Thank you ! :)

Name: Lou

Nickname: Don't really have nickname anymore

Zodiac sign: Capricorn

Height: 1.60m

Languages: French, trying my best at english

Nationality: French

Favourite season: Each season has its benefits, my hobbies can accomodate for each one, but i would say spring or summer, since taking care of animals is more pleasing when the weather is kind ahah

Favourite scent: leather, it is the sent of my room there is leather and leather furnitures everywhere, forest scent, horses (if you’re a rider you KNOW that scent ahah)

Favourite colour: Green, black, orange, blue

Favourite animal: birds, horses, wolves, deers, bears, mooses, mustelidae and more...

Favourite fictional character: Rosa Diaz, Gina Linetti (Brooklyn Nine Nine), John Constantine (Hellblazer), Aughra, Deet, Urgo, Skekgra, Skekmal (The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance), Lagertha (Vikings), Arya (Game of Thrones), Merlin (Kingsman), Perceval (Kaamelott) (basically every characters), Dewey (Malcolm in the Middle), Baze Malbus (Rogue One), and plenty more !

Coffee, tea or hot chocolate? Tea and hot chocolate, i really don't like coffee

Average amount of sleep? 8 hours

Dog or cat person? More cat than dog but still love both

Number of blankets? 2

Dream trip? North America and Norway

Blog established? I had this blog for almost 3 years i think ? but i'm on tumblr since 2012 or 2013

Number of followers? 119

Random fact? Owls can fly without making any noise because they have on their feathers a thing called leadind edge comb if i'm not wrong (the french word for it is "peigne")

1. Do you ever make your bed? Hmm not often

2. What’s your favourite number? 23

3. What’s your job? Currently working in a cinema, selling tickets and foods/drinks, projecting movies, cleaning, etc...

4. If you could go back to school, would you? Not really, school was not a happy thing for me.

5. Can you parallel park? I do my best ahah.

6. A job you had that would surprise people? I was a squire for medieval shows and i also did a bit of falconry (it was at the same place). People are surprised because of the "cool" side of it i think.

7. Do you believe aliens are real? I don't know. I think it's highly probable but not aliens like we imagine them. Also Alexandre Astier has an interesting point of view about this subject !

8. Can you drive manual car? Yes my car is a manual, i prefer manual.

9. What’s your guilty pleasure? Currently it's watching Gossip Girl

10. Tattoos? I got 2 tattoos and next month a third !

11. Favourite colour? Green, black, orange, blue

12. Things people do that piss you off? When i sell cinema tickets and people arrive and don't say hello but the worst is when they leave their trash and popcorn on the ground

13. Any phobias? I'm realy scared of spiders and some insects 🤷

14. Favourite childhood sport? Horse riding

15. Do you ever talk to yourself? Sometimes ! Usually i talk a lot to myself but in my head

16. What movie do you adore? The Thing, Trainspotting, Le Pacte des Loups (English title is Brotherhood of the Wolf), Into The Wild, Captain Fantastic, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Silver Brumby, The Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge, Star Wars, Rogue One, Marie-Antoinette, Kingsman and so much more ! ^^’

17. Do you like doing puzzles? It's not that i don't like it's just i never do puzzles.

18. What’s your favourite kind of music? Even if i'm Rammstein/Till obsessed, my favourite kind of music is movies/series's ost, basically just music without lyrics

19. Tea or coffee? Tea !

20. First thing you remember wanting to be when you grow up? I wanted to teach horse riding ! :)

[sealinne]

20 Facts for 2020

I was tagged by @francis-felidae

1. Do you make your bed?

No I have horrid hurricane nest bed with notebook, mountain of clothes and few books in the mix

2. Favourite number?

I guess 7 

3. What’s your job?

...so far no job

4. If I could would I go back to school?

Am university student

5. Can you parallel park?

With toy car perhaps

6. A job people would be surprised I had

Its not really a job but the best way how to make money is tax fraud. I swear

7. Do you think aliens are real?

Yeah very possible.. Just really far. N somewhere out there... Loitering probably.

8. Can you drive a standard car?

I cant drive any bigger wheeled vehicle.... or winged... or boat.. I just cant drive.

9. What’s your guilty pleasure?

Uhh I guess american talk shows

10. Tattoos

nah

11. Favourite colour?

red, purple, green, black.... so many cant decide

12. Things people do that drive you crazy

People being stupid in various ways... It drives me up the wall... But I cant do anything with that.. since more than often.. I myself.. Am very stupid

13. Any phobias?

Depth of seas, oceans, ponds, quarrys, rivers... etc... there might be Fish with capital F in there.

14. Favourite childhood sport?

dodgeball... 

15. Do you talk to yourself?

I love to do voices so often i just talk to myself as different characters

16. What movie do you adore?

Ohhh nooo.. oh gods... hard deciding question... I have over 20 movies that are on the MY MOST FAV MOVIE LIST and they just change.... But somewhere in there are Mad Max Fury Road, Dr Strangelove, Mars Attacks, Good Soldier Švejk, Lawrence of Arabia, Spider Verse..aand so many many more... i can talk about those and many others for hours and hours and hours

17. Do you like doing puzzles?

Depends on the type of puzzles 

18. Favourite type of music

Depends on the mood... often just movie soundtracks... songs from broadway musicals....then some metal..some punk some rockabilly...some indie stuff... Tom Lehrer songs... Philip Glass 

19. Tea or coffee?

tea tuareg... but i still enjoy good cup of joe in the morning.

20. The first thing you remember you wanted to be when you grew up?

Scientist...something in the biology field... and artist...And director...Once I learned that people can be someone.. I thought why not more than one job... Just renaissance person  

I wont tag anyone

[shirewalker]

tag games!

I’ll just tag a few people and then you choose your fave games, ok?

tagging @alarkvling​ @artemeis​ @ohmystarsy​ @captainvkirk​ @theleiaskywalker​ @lilabard​ @detmeter​ @starkova​ @caradocdearborn​ @julliettesferrars​ @roryglimore

all games under the cut

1st game! Ten Questions Tag Game

tagged by @aesterea​

How messy is your writing process?

Not as messy as it should be, I think. I’ve always been a perfectionist and unlearning that when being creative (doing first drafts, etc) is HARD. So I can’t say it’s messy-messy, but I try to make it a little messier so I can move on with things xD

Do you plan/outline before you write?

Oh yeah, yeah I do. Sometimes it’s just a paragraph with the general gist of the thing, other times I just develop the story in my head, but I always do some level of planning/outlining before writing. I wouldn’t be able to do it any other way tbh.

Which OCs are dearest to your heart?

The four MCs from my nano novel. I love them, so much I have to stop myself from fixing everything in one go xD 

Has your own writing ever made you cry?

Nope, not really. But it takes a lot for books in general to make me cry and it’s always, always when I do a reread. You’d think I was ready for the cry triggers? Well, THINK AGAIN.

How much of yourself do you think you put into your characters?

Probably more than some people would like? I try not to do self-insert, but we’re always bound to take inspiration from ourselves. As to avoid doing it all in an obvious and ridiculous way, I try to take bits of myself and put them in different characters. A habit, a taste, a crazy situation, etc.

What do you hope to achieve through writing?

To change the world~* Lol, to tell my stories, to make others dream with me. Why do we tell stories if not to change something about the world and make others dream?

How would you describe your style?

Still trying to figure that one out.

What works of writing have influenced your style the most?

Austen, Agatha Christie, LOTR, Shatter Me (Mafi’s writing is epic ok??), The Lunar Chronicles... Every book I’ve ready has influenced me in one way or another.

Do you have a “support team”? Who’s in it?

My fanfic readers? askflakj I don’t think I have a support team other than them tbh xD

Which OC would be your best friend in real life?

aaskhdajfls I don’t know. Maybe Jean and Maeve from my nano novel. But tbh, the four Roses being my friends? That’d be awesome, ok? I’d finally have my knit-tight group of friends :’)

My questions:

What’s the earliest story you remember writing?

Which do you prefer to write? Short stories of longer ones?

Do you think your writing is ready to be seen by the world?

Which OC would be the best company when writing and which would be the worst?

Do you have a favourite world you’d give anything to visit?

Any writing rituals? Special place, special time of the day, special medium to write a draft on, etc.

What’s your favourite genre to read AND to write? 

Do you have friends that write too?

If you could have a writing cottage anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Favourite author and how have they inspired you/your writing.

2nd game! 5 Things

tagged by @alarkvling​

5 things you’ll find in my bag: wallet, a book, water, food, bus card 5 things you’ll find in my room: books, my bookmark-making materials, a dreamcatcher I bought last year from an american indian, my first nikolina piece printed and framed <3 5 things that make me happy: rainy days, reading an amazing book, talking with my friends for hours (it’s been a while since that tho..), a warm cup of milk/cappuccino/hot chocolate, my nerdy otps 5 things i’m currently into: writing, drawing, bookmark making, shovel knight, nikolina lol 5 things on my to-do list: pass driving code exam, have a fun bday, be a better person, improve my writing, get a decent job.

3rd game! Music Game

tagged by @artemeis​

rules: set your entire (I don’t have all my music in one place lol) music library on shuffle and report the first ten songs that pop up.

The River by The Family Crest

Tell Me If You Wanna Go Home by Keira Knightley

La Vie En Rose by Louis Armstrong

Superstar by Broods

Make You Believe by Lucy Hale

Coming Up Roses by Keira Knightley

Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift

Howl by The Family Crest

Conscious by Broods

So It Goes... by Taylor Swift

4th game! I’ve never...

rules: list 10 curious things you’ve never done and tag 10 people

I’ve never had a sleepover

I’ve never had my first kiss

I’ve never worn contacts

I’ve never been to a nightclub

I’ve never gone farther than Seville (outside country)

I’ve never had birthday surprises (the good ones ofc)

I’ve never seen snow other than the tiny flurry we had over a year ago (so like, not the kind you see all white and stuff)

I’ve never been to another continent

I’ve never had bff(s)

I’ve never seen a musical on stage

5th game! Get To Know Me

tagged by @becpunzel​

How tall are you? 154 cm which is a itsy bit over 5ft...? *shrugs*

What color are your eyes? Blue+grey+green.

Do you wear contacts and/or glasses? Glasses

Do you wear braces? No, and never had.

What is your fashion style? Cute? Girly? *shrugs* I don’t know but it’s something like that xD

When were you born? 14th March 1991

Do you have any siblings? A younger sister

What school/college do you go to? I have a degree on animation.

What kind of student are you? The kind that has to do well lol.

What are your favorite subjects? History, art, books...? xD 

What are your favorite movies? Tangled, Star Wars, LOTR, Clueless, Laws of Attraction, Pacific Rim, Inception, Mad Max: Fury Road, Megamind, The Princess and the Frog, Ghibli movies, The 10th Kingdom, etc 

What are your favorite pastimes? Reading, writing, drawing, trying to talk with friends I haven’t talked in a while, playing games, photography, bookmark making, making edits for books/shows/ships I love <3

Do you have any regrets? I think we all have those.

What’s your dream job? Something I’m good at and I enjoy doing and allows me a happy life.

Would you like to get married? Yeah, I would. Gotta do everything else before that point in life, starting with being remotely appealing for dating haha..

Do you want kids? Maybe one day yeah. It’s not out of the question but it’s not a must-do either.

How many countries have you visited? 2

What is your scariest dream? I went to a christmas party with all my ex-classmates from various moments in my life and I was ignored the whole dinner, my gift got stolen and no one tried to help. Probably not a traditional scary dream but it was a big-fears-fest

Do you have a significant other? Hahahaha, no.

not doing the music part since I did it in the other game already xP

6th Game! Another Get To Know

tagged by @alexclovere

Age - 26 soon 27

Birthplace - Portugal

Current time - 1:46 pm

Drink you had last - water

Easiest person to talk to - the rare close friends

Favorite song - I have a lot but lets go with a classic: Can’t Help Falling In Love

Grossest memory - (: Last year, the week before my bday. It was so much fun! not! AND SO GROSS AND AWFUL D:<

Hogwarts house - Slytherin

In Love - no :\

Jealous of people - always a little

Killed someone - ofc not wth

Love at first sight or should I walk by you again - I think you have to walk by several times and even then there’s no guarantee *shrugs*

Middle name - I don’t have

Number of siblings - one sister

One wish - a good job

Person you called last - my mom

Question you are always asked - job?????

Reason to smile - in spite of things being bad, it always gets better, even if it doesn’t feel like it. also, cute pets!

Song you sang last -Tell Me If You Wanna Go Home by Keira Knightley

Time you woke up - 9:30 am

Underwear color - huh

Worst habit - either thinking the worst is happening or thinking I’m friends with someone when they probs don’t even remember I exist

X-rays - it’s been a while

Your favorite food - pizza, homemade

Zodiac sign - Pisces

[skriak]

The Expanse REVIEW (no spoilers)

(seasons 1 and 2)

I didn’t expect an awful lot from The Expanse. For some reason there seem to be a lot of mediocre sci-fi dramas around these days, ever since Stargate somehow spawned a billion terrible spin-offs despite the original show never being more than okay to begin with. So at a glance The Expanse looked like another of those over-budgeted and under-written shows, similar to my problem with a lot of the recent superhero series, with perhaps a superficial resemblance to Firefly but none of the wit or depth that made it a cult hit.

Luckily, I can report I was wrong.

The Expanse starts slow and doesn’t pick up pace for a long time, but within just a couple of episodes I had a sense of place and what the stakes were. Earth and Mars are locked in a cold war that’s threatening to heat up, while the people who toil in the asteroid belt between the two planets get shat on from both sides. The poor Belters even struggle to anywhere else because low gravity has given them poor bone density, further dooming them to their desperate existence. So it’s no surprise that a rebellious faction called the Outer Planet Alliance has risen to prominence in the Belt, exploiting the tensions between Earth and Mars to try and end the injustice.

I’m reminded of sci-fi greats like Babylon 5 or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Expanse is packed with minor details that give its world culture, history and all-round believability. Mad Max: Fury Road used exquisite background set design and subtle writing to give its simple story emotional weight, and The Expanse does the same trick but with a much meatier narrative at its core. The characters seem unrelated at first, but the search for the daughter of an Earther tech mogul spirals into something much more sinister. And while the Belters are the obvious underdogs and Mars have a number of reasonable grievances with Earth, the moral situation gets pretty murky since the OPA has violent undertones and Mars has an almost fascist obsession with military might. My personal favourite, though, is how claustrophobic and clunky space travel feels. Everything breaks, G-forces squish people who don’t strap themselves to a chair, and two ships shooting at each other means hundreds of tiny holes spewing air. Life in the Belt is grimy, thankless and above all dangerous.

In short, The Expanse is basically what I’d hoped Star Trek: Discovery would be. Obviously The Expanse has the advantage of being based on a series of novels, but Discovery has a vast pool of Star Trek lore to pull from and so far has only managed to be another sci-fi drama with too much shine and not enough soul.

And if you enjoyed this review, you can click here to see my many other similarly fabublous TV and movie articles.

[disappointingyet]

Since 2011, I’ve been assembling a list of my favourite movies of the year. If you stick them together, you get a collection of some of the best (in my warped opinion, obviously) films released in the 2010s. Below I’ve listed the top five of each year, and if you want to read the write-ups,  plus the rest of the best of each year, follow the links. 

A few thoughts:

There are a few films scattered around the annual round-ups that have no business being on lists of my favourite films of the decade. I think sometimes I felt they were a big part of the discussion and I wanted to include them so I could give my take… and in the case of Birdman, I suspect it was just because I had 19 films and wanted it make a round 20.  The offending movies are: Skyfall (a rotten film), Gravity (a really absorbing watch, but a film that evaporates the moment you leave the cinema), Roma (interesting, but deeply flawed), Cold War (a beautiful film, but one I didn’t really like) and, as mentioned, Birdman (unlike Cold War, which I had gone in expecting to love, I assumed I’d hate Birdman and therefore was pleasantly surprised. But not one of the best films of the decade, by any means). 

There are loads of excellent films that didn’t make these lists simply because I didn’t see them the year they came out. If I had, this lot would definitely have made the cut: Ida, Mud, Force Majeure, The Lobster, Exhibition, Brooklyn, The Lego Movie (and Lego Batman), The Stuart Hall Project, 20th Century Women and Once Upon A Time In Anatolia. I’m sure there are more I have forgotten, and many more I haven’t yet seen. 

I’d like to think there’s a reasonable range of movies here: comedies, horror, action movies, animation suitable for kids, westerns, drama, documentaries. But there’s no getting away from the fact that a disproportionate number of these are directed by white American dudes who got their start making low-budget films in the 1980s and 1990s. I guess I saw Down By Law and Raising Arizona at an impressionable age. Anyway, be aware of my biases (2018’s top five is free of films directed by white blokes of any age, though).

A few of these films do contain extreme violence. I usually mention it when they do.

I’d advise you against ignoring the ‘best old films I saw on the big screen’ bits at the end of each year’s round-up, because there are lots of great, and not always that well-known, films mentioned.

(Films in italics pictured)

2011

1. Attack The Block 

2. 13 Assassins 

3. Drive 

4. Cold Weather

5. The Fighter 

Click here for numbers 6-10, write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year 

2012

1. 2 Days in New York

2. Damsels in Distress

3. Shame

4. Moonrise Kingdom

5. Avengers Assemble (aka The Avengers aka Marvel Avengers Assemble)

Click here for numbers 6-16, write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year

2013

1. Before Midnight

2. Après Mai (Something In The Air)

3. The Act Of Killing

4. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

5. A Field In England

Click here for numbers 6-14 write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year

2014

1. We Are The Best!

2. The Wolf Of Wall Street

3. Boyhood

4. Grand Budapest Hotel

5. Inside Llewyn Davis

Click here for numbers 6-16 write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year

2015

1. It Follows

2. Inherent Vice

3. Mad Max: Fury Road

4. Top Five

5. Mistress America

Click here for numbers 6-20, write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year

2016

1. Creed

2. Paterson

3. Love & Friendship

4. Our Little Sister 

5. Everybody Wants Some!!

Click here for numbers 6-17, write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year

2017

1. Manchester By The Sea

2. The Handmaiden

3. Certain Women

4. Moonlight

5. The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki

Click here for numbers 6-17, write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year

2018

1. Leave No Trace

2. Columbus

3. Lady Bird

4. Shoplifters

5. Sorry To Bother You 

Click here for numbers 6-20, write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year

2019

1. Support The Girls

2. Booksmart

3. Under The Silver Lake

4. Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood 

5. Marriage Story

Click here for numbers 6-13, write-ups, and my favourite old movies of the year

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #411

Top Ten Films of the Decade

I’ve been doing this thing for quite a while now (my first Top Ten list was in 2012) but lurching into 2020 is my first opportunity to do some kind of retrospective on a whole decade. Therefore, intermittently for the next few weeks, I’m going to look back on ten Things that I Liked in the period 2010-2019 inclusive. To start with – coz it’s easiest, really – films.

And that’s all there is to it this week. My favourite films from the 2010s. Whatever you wanna call that decade. The Tens. The Teens? I dunno. Just read the list. It’s got Avengers on it.

Paddington 2 (2017): Not just wholesome and hilarious, or a perfect encapsulation of the best of British culture, but also a phenomenal technical tour-de-force of exquisite writing, character work, direction, design, and visual effects, and the single greatest performance of Hugh Grant’s career. More than a masterpiece; a milestone.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) & Avengers: Endgame (2019): Oh look, two films in and I’ve already broken my rules. But it’s hard to separate these, a two-part finale to a decade of movie-making and world-building. That the MCU got to this point is impressive enough, but to unite all that, to stick the landing not once but twice, to actually get this done is so, so incredible. The height of cinema, and a hell of a thrill ride.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017): This decade saw the somewhat surprising return of Star Wars under the Disney banner, and whilst it’s arguably even more all-pervasive than before, and even though we’re mostly recycling popular threads and aesthetics from the classic trilogy, we did at least get this, the best-directed SW movie, with the most to say, and the only Disney SW film thus far to offer us something beyond what we’ve seen before. Incredibly well-done, great, great fun, and the best lightsaber fight for nearly twenty years.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): A tour-de-force of directing rigour and filmmaking craft that also manages to be unabashedly, exhilaratingly fun. A sumptuous rollercoaster ride that threads the needle of feeling like a new Mad Max film despite everything (including no Gibbo, which is probably a good thing) whilst also offering something new for new audiences. Like Paddington, it should have cleaned up at the Oscars, because this is how you make movies.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014): Famous for its tricksy technique, the single-shot “gimmick” of Birdman actually reinforces the emotional whirlwind and fragmenting mental state of Michael Keaton’s character. A visual feast, tremendous character study, and full of hilarious meta-humour (including Ed Norton as a self-important arsehole of an actor).

Inception (2010): Someone once told me they didn’t like Inception because they felt it was trying to be clever. In my opinion, it’s incredibly simple, beautifully so; a classic heist movie, full of every trope and trademark of the genre, with one exceptional metaphysical twist (which is, if anything, over-explained). Fantastic visuals and Nolan’s best set-pieces turn it into arguably the first essential movie of the decade.

Inside Out (2015): Sadly this decade has seen Pixar’s unflappable status well and truly flapped with some lacklustre sequels and disturbing revelations about the culture of the studio. But there have been gems, and chief among them was this outstanding, humanistic, tragic and uplifting look at adolescence. In a feat of almost impossible brilliance the script works entirely on two levels (simple buddy quest movie versus existential examination of sadness and maturity), but it’s also just fun and funny and has the saddest “death” of the decade.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018): In a decade full of amazing animation, the wit and verve and style and originality and heart of Spider-Verse still stands out. Distilling fifteen years’ worth of Spidey cinematic culture into one film, combined with outstanding animation, a great story, hilarious gags (Spider-Ham!), superb cast (Nic Cage played Superman and Spider-Man in the same year), it’s the best Spidey movie ever made and – suck it, Joker – the first superhero movie to win any kind of Best Picture Oscar.

Arrival (2016): There were great contemporary sci-fi films this decade, but this quietly beautiful and phenomenally well-acted piece is my favourite. An intelligent look at the arrival of alien life, it’s basically an alien invasion movie about grammar, which floats all my boats at once. The tricksy timeline of the piece and melancholy ending reinforces its emotional heft and intellectual rigour but it’s also a tense and enjoyable character piece.

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012): We’ll bookend this look at the bestest films from the last ten years with the other greatest Hugh Grant performance. Criminally overlooked, this marries Aardman’s typical British silliness and love of sight gags with some of the best character work the studio has produced, with great dialogue and terrific performances. Manages to feel epic and small all at once, thoroughly British in design, heartfelt, fun, and hilarious. Way better than any other pirate move since 2003.

Doing this has made me realise that this really was a very good decade for film. There’s loads of stuff here that I couldn’t fit in. I sorta deliberately kept the other Marvel movies off the list, but I absolutely adore the likes of Iron Man 3 and Captain America: Civil War. Spielberg was his usual effervescent self in stuff like Lincoln and The Post. I can’t believe I couldn’t find room for Hunt for the Wilderpeople or Get Out. And then there’s stuff that, to my eternal shame, I haven’t seen yet, like Lady Bird or Moonlight or last year’s crop of goodies such as Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (I’m always incredibly self-conscious about the films that pass me by, as I used to see loads of stuff, but recent years have seen family and work take its toll on my movie-going). And other fantastic animated fare, like both Frozen movies, or Coco, Shaun the Sheep, the Lego movies… I’m sure I’m forgetting loads of other stuff too (Baby Driver! Ex Machina! Looper! The Big Short!). So yeah, despite the world literally catching fire it’s actually been a decent few years to watch fillums. Hopefully the next ten trips round the sun will be as exciting. And hopefully I’ll see more of them, too.

[ionitta]

Tagged by @cherophobia​ (thanks tabs ovo ♡)

🌹 Rules:

Tag nine people you want to get to know better

(I don’t talk to many people on here since I’m not very active 😅)

🌹 Favourite color:

It depends on the mood, I’ll say peach and the colors analogous

🌹 Lipstick or chapstick:

Chapstick, gotta keep em healthy and moisturized. I don’t wear lipstick much despite owning a lot. I’m actually trying to get rid of my matte lipsticks, I don’t like them as much as I thought I would when I bought them.

🌹 Last song I listened to:

AJR - Sober Up

🌹 Last movie I watched:

I haven’t been watching movies much lately since I’ve been busy, I think it might have been a rewatch of Mad Max Fury Road but I’m not sure

🌹 Top 3 tv shows:

Community, Parks and Rec, and Mr. Robot. I have a lot in my queue though, probably gonna change

🌹 Top 3 characters:

Makoto Niijima (wow what a surprise), Link, Spike Spiegel. This was a tough decision to make LOL

🌹 Top 3 bands:

The Wonder Years (my favorite band), as for the other 2 Idk, I like a lot of bands. Maybe Arctic Monkeys and Modern Baseball but I don’t feel as strongly about them as I do TWY

🌹 Books I’m currently reading:

I’m in the middle of rereading Gaiman’s Anansi Boys but I did start Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris when I got a copy from my boyfriend hehe

[emptymasks]

tagged by @ohpotter thank you :)

rules: you must answer these 85 statements and tag 20 people

tagging: sorry if some of you were already tagged @alyseofwonderland @clonetracers @lingering-snow @gemfyre @skip-mucky @ruinsrebuilt @gendryw4ters @alexpenkala @emono-omae @roecompany I know that’s not 20 but...

THE LAST

1. drink: water 2. phone call: my bank 3. text message: idk, I barely text any, I mainly just use messanger apps... probably my Dad 4. song you listened to: The Abduction - Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 5. time you cried: I don’t know, since my anxiety calmed down I haven’t cried as much 6. dated someone twice: nope, never even dated someone once 7. kissed someone and regretted it: still no 8. been cheated on: no 9. lost someone special: yes 10. been depressed: my mental health wasn’t the best when I was a teenager, definitely an anxiety disorder, and hating myself for a while, but I don’t know whether I got as far as depression, I don’t want to offend anyone who actually had depression... 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: no, I don’t drink

3 FAVOURITE COLOURS 12. blue 13. black 14. purple

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU 15. made new friends: yeah, started University this time last year, met some awesome people 16. fallen out of love: nope, never fallen in love 17. laughed until you cried: probably 18. found out someone was talking about you: I don’t think so. I mean my Mum talks crap about me all the time but 19. met someone who changed you: uh, yeah, I guess 20. found out who your friends are: not quite sure what that means 21. kissed someone on your facebook list: nope, never kissed anyone

GENERAL 22. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: all of them bar one, I only add people who I actually know, but there was one girl who I was friends with on deviantart back when I was about 13, but now I only add people that I know and talk too. I don’t even add people who I went to school with if I never talked to them. I don’t know, it just feels weird to do that on FB to me, 23. do you have any pets: our family has a chocolate labrador  24. do you want to change your name: um...no? It’s weird. I don’t really like my name, but not as in I don’t like it as a name, I just don’t like it for me. But I also couldn’t imagine having any other name. 25. what did you do for your last birthday: nothin 26. what time did you wake up: 8am-ish 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: sleeping 28. name something you can’t wait for: I don’t know... uh I’m being a vendor at the artist alley in Linc-Con (Lincoln, Comic Con) and it’s my first time being a vendor or doing anything like this and I’m nervous but excited but nervous. So I guess that. And Thor Ragnarok. 29. when was the last time you saw your mom: Like, an hour ago. I’m still staying at home for the summer, I move back to University next Monday. 31. what are you listening to right now: Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (what a surprise) 32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: yes 33. something that is getting on your nerves: uh, a lot of stuff, I’m very anxious all the time. in terms of something that’s annoying me... not much.  34. most visited website: Probably tumblr or youtube. 35. hair colour: brown 36. long or short hair: Long-ish. I’d like it to be a bit longer, but it hasn’t grown in like years. Seriously, I’ve never had a proper hair-cut, I just trim slip ends off and it hasn’t grown in so long no one ever believes that I’ve never had my hair cut. 37. do you have a crush on someone: not really, there’s clebs I’m attracted too, but there not crushes  38. what do you like about yourself: uh... I hate saying stuff like this, I always worry that I’ll come across big-headed. If I have to say something... I’m creative? 39. want any piercings: nope 40. blood type: no idea, I really should know, but I’ve never known and I’m not sure how to find out 41. nickname: None. I’m the only person with my name I’ve known that likes to be called Rebecca over being called Becky. I hate being called Becky. I had a teacher that called my Becks and I didn’t mind that too much. I do like pet-name / terms of endearment though. 42. relationship status: single 43. zodiac: taurus 44. pronouns: she/her 45. favourite tv show: band of brothers, legion, house of cards, halt and catch fire, brooklyn nine nine, hannibal, flight of the conchords, peaky blinders, star trek, the tudors, torchwood, the thick of it 46. tattoos: no, I like tattoos, but don’t want any myself 47. right or left handed: right handed 48. surgery: nope 49. piercing: no, don’t want any 50. sport: I did swimming for a long time, I don’t do it often now, but still enjoy it. I also have a thing for learning K-Pop choreography and then doing K-Pop random dance plays. It’s a decent workout when you’re too shy to exercise with anyone around and you don’t have the money for the gym anyway. 51. vacation: Haven’t gone in years, can’t afford it. The last time I went out for the day was with our Uni’s Harry Potter society and we spent the day at the Harry Potter studios. There’s another Buckbeak now and you can bow to him and he bows back and honestly I just love him so much and didn’t want to leave him. 52. pair of trainers: I actually don’t have any anymore. The closest the trainers I have is probably my converse.

MORE GENERAL 53. eating: um, I may snacking on tic-tacs 54. drinking: water 55. i’m about to: after finishing typing this, I need to test out how the Transformers print I just finished will look once it’s printed out, and then it’s back to making charms 56. waiting for: nothing for today, but I am kidna getting nervous about moving back to Uni 57. want: I got a 2.1 last year and I’d really like to get a 1st this year at Uni. Also to keep my Etsy shop up and running and to do well at comic con. 58. get married: eh. I honestly couldn’t care less. I’d be very happy to be in a committed relationship without being married. 59. career: want to be a concept artist for film, but will probably still freelance on the side

WHICH IS BETTER 60. hugs or kisses: what about both?  at the same time?? 61. lips or eyes: as in what I’m more attracted too? idk 62. shorter or taller: I’d want a partner to be taller than me, which isn’t hard as I’m 5′4″ 63. older or younger: ...I’m not going to lie. I have a pretty big thing for older guys, but realistically it would be better and probably healthier to date someone around my own age. Although now I am starting to be attracted to some guys around my own age, and I’ve never had a preference for older or younger women. 64. nice arms or nice stomach: ... 65. hook up or relationship: relationship. I could never do a hook-up or casual sex or a casual relationship. 66. troublemaker or hesitant: I guess hesitant?

HAVE YOU EVER 67. kissed a stranger: still no 68. drank hard liquor: nope, don’t drink  69. lost glasses/contact lenses: I like the only person in my family that doesn’t need glasses 70. turned someone down: actually yes, once, but he said he’d liked me for the past 7 years and I hadn’t even had a conversation with him (saying hello to each other when he saw each around school doesn’t count) in the last 5 years and I hadn’t seen him at all in the last 2 years so it just felt kinds creepy to me. 71. sex on the first date: no, haven’t had sex, haven’t been on a date. I don’t think I’d ever feel comfortable doing that. Not unless it was a date with someone who was a super close friend so you already know and trust them, but even then probably would never want to do that. 72. broken someone’s heart: not as far as I’m aware off 73. had your heart broken: no 74. been arrested: no 75. cried when someone died: yes 76. fallen for a friend: nope

DO YOU BELIEVE IN 77. yourself: eh 78. miracles: no 79. love at first sight: no, it’s really impossible, you can feel attraction at first sight, but you can’t love someone you don’t know 80. santa claus: no 81. kiss on the first date: I mean, that kinda feels like the odd one out in this category. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. 82. angels: idk, I’m agnostic. I don’t really know if there’s any higher power of anything. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. Either way I’m not going to worry about it, I’m just going to make the most of my life either way and try to be a good person regardless cos that’s just the decent thing to do.

OTHER 83. current best friend’s name: idk if I really have  a ‘best friend’. I have friends, some of them I talk to more than others, but I don’t really rank friends. 84. eye colour: blue 85. favorite movie: ...this would be a really long list, are you sure you want that, I’ll try and put a few: Lord of the Rings, Baby Driver, Cap: Winter Soldier, Rise of the Guardians, The Princess Bride, The Breakfast Club, Inception, The Prince of Egypt, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Kingsman, The Martian, Mad Max Fury Road, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (I know it’s not a great film but I love the characters), Mission Impossible 4 (didn’t expect to like MI but there you go), Iron Man, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 + 2, Deadpool, Interview with the Vampire (I love Lestat and Louis but you can probably guess my feelings about Anne Rice), Fight Club.. I should stop typing now.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Atomic Blonde (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: This is a movie that doesn’t need two separate reviews but there is a bit I want to talk about that delves into spoiler territory. I am posting this review a few days after the movie is released in the U.K. so if you haven’t yet seen the movie don’t read on.

General Reaction:

Most definitely a movie I’m glad I saw. When I saw the trailers for this movie I was hoping to get the same enjoyment out of it as I did back in 2014 for Lucy, I can safely say I did and it wasn’t just the same takeaway either because whereas Lucy gave us Sci-Fi/Action, Atomic Blonde gives us Spy-Action Thriller and is it great that the two movies distinguish that separation for the two leading ladies as Scarlett Johansson and Charlize Theron have more or less been the same type of actress up until now. I was always pushing for Theron to get the Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel role as I feel not only would she have added another strong female talent to the MCU but also I really want to see her in a superhero role. Yes Atomic Blonde is based on a graphic novel but this is more in the same domain as Kingsman as opposed to the tights and flights that Marvel and DC give us.

Now I say this movie reminded me of Lucy and Hollywood has been trying for a while to turn some of its up and coming starlets from roles who are always cast in secondary or love interest roles to leading ladies and apparently the way to do that is by making them the leading lady of an action movie while avoiding making them femme fatales. Lucy for Scarlett Johansson as I said, Salt for Angelina Jolie which didn’t work out so well and actually I’d say Wanted is a better argument for her if not for the fact that movie belongs to James McAvoy, now Atomic Blonde for Charlize Theron. All three of these actresses have had great roles as secondary characters. Johansson is of course fantastic as Black Widow in the MCU, Jolie was apparently great in Wanted (still haven’t seen it yet) as well as Maleficent which for me is still her best role. Also many may argue that Lara Croft was Jolie’s turn at becoming a stand-alone action star but 1) I am not counting franchises otherwise Johansson as Black Widow would be up there on my list and also not many people particularly liked her portrayal as the character. Theron meanwhile I have followed since her portrayal of Queen Rovenna in the Huntsman movies, but she then peaked my interest with Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. I haven’t seen Fast 8 purely because I haven’t seen anything to do with that franchise but going into this movie I never felt as if she couldn’t handle the responsibility whereas with Johansson there was a lot riding on it for a career outside of the MCU and maybe even a solo Black Widow movie...which she proved she could handle only to let it all fall away with Ghost in the Shell.

Cast:

Also unlike Lucy there are more than just two main characters who I could focus on in this movie. With Lucy there was Scarlett Johansson and then Morgan Freeman as a side-character. Here there was Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella, John Goodman and Bill Skarsgård who I heard was in this movie and noticed him but noticed him for being cute and it wasn’t until the end credits where I realized who he was as I’ll be probably having nightmares about him in a month’s time thanks to his portrayal of Pennywise in the new It movie. Regardless he did a very good job as a side character and in fact everyone in this movie did a good job with the roles they had. I know there were other names in this movie like Toby Jones but I didn’t include him before because he didn’t impress me, he always plays the sort of middle-management low-key role.

The movie belongs to Charlize Theron and this is evident in her first scene because from when we first meet Lorraine to the time she goes to the interrogation room there is no speech, it’s all just facial expressions and the way Theron moves around. The fact she bathes in ice water is a very strong visual and her standing naked looking at herself in the mirror beaten up is also another strong visual. Also the reason I love good spy-dramas so much is because it always leaves the audience asking questions and waits for a pay-off which this movie did very well with the flashbacks while also going back and forth from them to the present day interrogation scenes.

James McAvoy is fast becoming one of the U.K’s best exports for America because not only can he do a great wholesome yet multilayered Professor X but also when he’s allowed to he can do the feral roles very well. Maybe it’s the Scottish in him but I haven’t seen him in a role of this capacity since Filth back in 2013. There were a lot of throwbacks to that for me here but also making him an antagonistic character was refreshing for me as again I’ve always seen either the hero or anti-hero whereas here he was definitely the bad guy. Also he gave me a laugh out loud moment towards the end when he’s fighting Sofia Boutella’s character who has literally stabbed him in the back and when he’s trying to get the knife out he stumbles back and pushes it further in...hilarious.

Speaking of Boutella, this is probably the best performance I’ve seen of Sofia Boutella and there’s not even a bar for her to reach. I thought she was a great henchwoman as Gazelle in Kingsman but I don’t remember he speaking, then she did speak in Star Trek: Beyond and was probably my favourite character for her design alone but here she ticks all the right boxes for me, to the point where I was sad with how her story ended. Now of course I can’t talk about her role without talking about her lesbian love scenes with Theron and the reason I didn’t talk about this with Theron is because I was actually compelled by how convincing Boutella was as a lesbian. I don’t mean that in an offensive way I just mean I found her performance believable, if not extremely raunchy.

Best Scenes:

So I didn’t want to give everything away with this review because as is the case with the spy genre there are a few surprises but I wanted to talk about my favourite scene in the movie which is about 2/3 of the way in and is the scene where Theron’s character Lorraine is trying to save the “asset” Spyglass who was shot by James McAvoy’s Percival and she takes him into a building and possibly from them entering the building it’s all one continuous shot for 15-20 minutes. This scene puts Marvel to shame as until now they’ve been the one to do continuous shots either in the Netflix shows or Captain America: Civil War. Seriously this stairwell fight is one of the most epic scenes I’ve ever seen and the fact it’s all done with one camera, like the point where Lorraine and Spyglass are in a room and Spyglass is patching himself up while Lorraine is covering him from the gunmen and the camera swivels to the door which is being shot repeatedly and when it pans back to Lorraine she’s moved across the room. The scene ends when a car chasing them gets crushed by a lorry as you see the camera switch to another shot with the car flipping around but seriously I was in awe for about 20 minutes.

Also, because I love the spy/espionage genre, some of my favourite scenes were those that utilized techniques associated with the genre. Yes they didn’t use flashy gadgets but instead tricks of the trade. Not knowing who you can trust even if they’re supposed to be your partner is rule #1 in the spy handbook and utilizing a crowd as a diversion is also another great trick. As such another of my favourite scenes was the umbrella scene that Lorraine set up with Bill Skarsgård’s help to shield Spyglass which incidentally is the scene that directly precedes that 20 minute one-shot scene so yeah that chunk of the movie is my favourite. It combines both grand espionage techniques of trusting no one because Lorraine didn’t trust Percival enough to tell him the plan and the diversion technique which is brilliant.

Recommendation;

This may not be a movie up there with the big blockbusters of the year but it is definitely up there among my favourite movies of the year, I think if Wonder Woman wasn’t the epic that it was this would have surpassed it but I think Theron here proved she could easily hold her own against Gal Gadot in terms of leading action heroine.

Overall I rate the movie a 9/10; this was a fantastic cast lead by a brilliant leading lady. It was another great star on the board for epic spy stories even though franchises like 007, Mission Impossible and Kingsman are keeping the genre alive but these stand-alone films, particularly female led, keep the genre fresh./ 

So that’s my review of Atomic Blonde, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Movie Reviews and other posts.

[film-crit]

Fast and Furiosa: Analysing and Comparing the Action in the Fast & Furious

If you had read my review of the Fate of the Furious, you will realise the minimal attention given to its action set pieces. That’s not because there weren’t any; there were a plethora of action sequences, but because of just how unspectacular it all was. From the choreography to the stakes involved – action scenes were forced, illogical and lacking in direction that makes a scene engaging. It got me thinking about how severely this long-running franchise has fallen from grace. It could really learn a lesson or two from action movies that have mastered vehicle combat and car chases. Do be informed there will inevitably be some major spoilers ahead!

Geography

Filmmaking is an art, and action scenes are no exception. In fact, vehicular action sequences may just be its most demanding form. As with any action scene, it requires the camera to capture impact, heft, velocity and all that’s technical. Most challengingly, there is constant moment across long distances. These are a lot of complicated elements to be conveyed on-screen. It is important for filmmakers to communicate clearly so that viewers can quickly process the information being delivered.

George Miller’s masterpiece, Mad Max: Fury Road taught us that when it comes to large-scale vehicular warfare, viewers need an awareness of the geography of the battlefield. The film takes time with its birds-eye view sweeping shots, to survey the landscape and highlight to its viewers where each faction is in relation to each other. This greatly aids our understanding of any situation within the set piece, as we know exactly what is happening in any time and space. We are able to anticipate and never become confused by the complex movement and developments in the action never seem like an afterthought.

It’s worth realising that this much attention to layout is paid to a one-dimensional battlefield – an empty desert. In comparison, we have a key action set piece in the Fate of the Furious that takes place in Manhattan, a location far more complex due to its verticality and infrastructure. There is so much more to process. Perhaps the usage of drones like Mad Max: Fury Road may not be feasible, but this is where the studio’s obsession with CGI would come in really useful. As the action unfolds with Dom ripping through the streets, we have no clue where his objectives are, nor the position of those stopping him. This crucially reduces any suspense as we couldn’t even guess if the target was near. Our lack of awareness of the surrounding detracts from the film’s credibility as well, as Dom’s methods of evasion reveal themselves as conveniences rather than moments of surprising instinct. Such is his prompt decision to drive through a glass corner store upon the arrival of the team he betrayed. We had no idea it was there; it was as if it magically materialised for his emergency escape.

In many ways, the final chase in the Fate of the Furious along the frozen lake borrows heavily from Mad Max: Fury Road. Change in temperate, but it shares a similar vastness for vehicular warfare. Here, the geography established with surveying shots across the ice is undermined by the ill-disciplined logic of the film. It’s a lack of logic that defeats the purpose of establishing geography. Cars trailing far behind amazingly catch up to join the chase. Distances are neglected, as the “10 kilometers” of ice towards the gate seem to run for an eternity, much like the ridiculous runway in Fast 6. There was no excuse for that. It’s important to pair action with some sort of consistency in order to allow audiences to understand the stakes – like the threat of the aircraft taking off any moment now. This gives urgency and a reason to take any action scene seriously.

Related: 5 Movie Franchises that Absolutely Need to Wrap Up

Seriousness

All that talk about absurdity brings us to the point that the franchise needs to inject some seriousness.We are not talking about realism. It’s completely fine that our protagonists always come out alive after pulling off the unthinkable, but their lack of concern gives us little reason to be. It takes away the intensity from each scene.

This has been the case since the sticky introduction of Hobbs, the unbreakable Rock. In Fast 6, he tells his partner nonchalantly to take the wheel, only to leap off great heights in an attempt to land on another vehicle – unharmed.  Ironically, we soon frown with cynicism when Fast 7 sees Hobbs injured and hospitalised for the majority of the film, only to cause us to completely question the meaning of all this when he decides to bring in the “calvary” and flex off his cast. The lack of fear introduces him as an utter badass to begin with, but when the hype settles, takes away our need to worry about our protagonists.

A suitable comparison is another ridiculous car chase where impossible things happen. The Moscow car chase in the Bourne Supremacy remains the favourite car chase of all time because of its staggering level of detail, and the amount of genuine emotions expressed by the similarly unstoppable agent. He’s done plenty of badass things, but this scene is so intense because he gives us no reason to take survival for granted.

While cars in Fast would simply turn the wheel to execute complicated actions making it seem easy, the cinematography in Supremacy goes to great lengths to capture the difficulty in any equally impossible manoeuvre. The Moscow chase’s most intricate – and crazy – stunt is the finishing T-bone against a road divider in the tunnel. It is an elaborate sequence packed with skilful techniques and moments of genius. This involves Bourne’s taxi and the asset’s off-roader trading paint (gotta loveBurnout) upon entry, followed by a nudge from the asset that brings Bourne’s car sliding perpendicular to the flow of traffic. The editing is lightning quick, and the camera is hysterical, but the filmmakers communicate Bourne’s decisive actions so clearly – changing gears, turning the wheel, firing at the asset’s wheels – all to cause his own taxi to spin, niftily positioning the asset’s vehicle in the T-bone, only to slam it against an approaching divider. It’s a masterful sequence with a supreme level of detail and vision. An eye for detail – not skimming over action procedures – goes a long way to let viewers know that the film doesn’t dish out the ridiculous casually. It earns its outrageous outcome by creating a logical process by which it could be possible.

It isn’t just detail that lends credibility to the absurd; as countless vehicles slam violently into Bourne, the film bothers to capture genuine fear and panic. He doesn’t purse his lips and flex his muscles as if to absorb the impact, instead he is gritting and frantically spinning the wheel to reposition the car because his life depends on it. He is clearly nervous and unsure. The camera frequently observes his eye movement, he’s not taking his options for granted but constantly identifying outlets to evade the persistent asset, whom he never underestimates. Bourne lends drama and believability in terms of character to an implausible action set piece. So much so that we invest in it and desperately yearn for his success. It is the reason why the Bourne films are able to frequently deliver ludicrous action sequences while we buy into it and ask for more.

Progressive Storytelling

Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a massive submarine storming down a frozen lake in pursuit of our heroes? It didn’t have to happen, but it did. Much of the action in Fast and Furious seems for the sake of spectacle. It’s a treat for viewers, but becoming a trend over the past few films has inculcated a taste for excess and exaggeration that is manifested from its action to its plot. Gratuitous as set pieces can be, it’s important that this time is used productively in a way that informs the plot, otherwise it disrupts the flow of the story with scenes completely irrelevant.

Plot progression amidst action is essential in Mad Max: Fury Road. Any prolonged action sequence runs the risk of disengagement, even more so if your film is basically a 2-hour long chase. In spite of the chaos, Fury Road masterfully builds the narrative through visual cues and informative dialogue. As Max and Furiosa battle through the canyon, there is constant development in their relationship, as these two damaged individuals with trust issues depend on each other’s ability and sincerity to survive the punishing pursuit. They’re constantly engaged in action, but plot-wise, every action furthers the plot; we see the two exchanging tools, modifying each other’s weapons on the go, and literally providing support (Max lends her his shoulder to stabilise her killer snipe). Action and character development go hand in hand. Plot advances.

Plot takes a pause whenever action breaks in the Fast and the Furious. Those who were family before the action remain as family afterwards – there is no development injected into these scenes that value-add to our knowledge of any character. They morph into unbreakable punching bags for action to unfold upon. There is little to surprise us, based on what we already know about the characters. Tej is nerding out, Roman is whining, Dom is being a badass and is gonna jump out of the car soon to save someone in mid-air and the Rock is unbeatable. In the end, everyone celebrates. They do what they are expected of them, and little else. For most of the action, you can literally switch channels and return once it ends. You wouldn’t have missed out any crucial plot points.

Convoluted Stakes

Finally, factors that motivate and drive the action are just as important as its execution. Audiences need to be invested in whatever characters are fighting for – to root for them. This way, there is more at stake; scenes will become that much more interesting.

Let’s shake things up, we are gonna compare the stakes of the Fate of the Furious with one of its own, the fantastic Fast Five. Fast Five is proof that with effort and a real incentive to innovate, the Fast franchise has actually got what it takes to do brilliant work. Fast Five finds our crew in a desperate place. The crimes of the past are catching up and they need a fresh start – the clichéd clean slate. They decide to steal from a big drug lord – not the most moral thing to do – but nevertheless the deep connection we feel for these characters who want a fresh start to do good makes us root for them (who would’ve known it kick-started their career as driving superheroes).

As for the Fate of the Furious, the whole betrayal gimmick is problematic from the start. Having preached the value of family since the get go, it seems pretty amazing that the claim of a child would send Dom rogue. Not just rogue, but he displays a clear willingness to put his real family’s lives in danger. Characters in the film may be immune to collisions, but we are pretty sure flipping cars (Letty’s car!) onto each other runs the risk of severe injury.

Simply put, Dom was willing to kill Letty for Elsa and his child. Its entire premise spits on the face of the family, and provides no foundation that should drive the action. Therefore the action builds with little at stake, while we become increasingly infuriated at Dom’s moral laxity and question his loyalty to his family. Personally, we didn’t care if he made it anymore.

So there we have it: these are our issues with the factors that drive the action in the recent Fast and Furious films. We are car-nerds ourselves and are all for car chases – often our favourite action scene in films. It’s upsetting to know that the world’s go-to franchise for thrilling car chases is producing action that’s substandard.

This is another collaboration with guidesify.com, a website providing quality articles, from guides, lists and reviews. Do show us your support by liking, sharing and reading our work! 

[brendanmoviedate]

"Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture."

All through 2015, I’d been hearing about people doing a new-movie-a-day challenge starting January 1st and ending December 31. It seemed like a great idea for clearing through my watch list and an excuse to get out to the theatre more. 

So for 2016, I decided part way into January that I was going to go for it. By that point, I was only a few movies behind, so how hard would it be to catch up and get to 366 (I just had to pick a leap year for this) by December 31? Well, by April, I was about 15 movies behind, and this was with watching three or more films every Saturday while my girlfriend was in class. Still, I was confident - my girlfriend would be going to school in London starting in September, so I’d have lots of free time to cram in some extra movies. 

Flashforward to October, and an outdoorsy summer and month-long trip to the UK found me around 80 movies behind pace. Not good. I thought about giving up, but I’m too stubborn and foolish to let go of stupid things like this. October was rough. I watched movies all weekend, every weekend. I found the movies on my list that were less than 90 minutes, so as to pile on an extra film or two. By the end of the month, I had watched 100 films in 30 days. Halfway through December I reached 366, capping out at 374.

What did I learn?

This type of challenge really fucks up your decision-making abilities

When trying to decide between going out and watching a movie, or reading and watching a movie, or doing chores and watching a movie, or grabbing a meal at a restaurant and watching a movie, watching a movie always seemed like the right choice, just to get me closer to that goal of 366. Every time I chose to do something other than watch a movie, I felt anxious that this could have been the one movie keeping me from reaching my goal. It was rough. I’m only now getting over this feeling and it’s already March (spoilers: I’m never going to do this again).

The “only new movies” clause really stung

There were so many times when I wanted to watch a recent favourite, but couldn’t justify it. Mad Max: Fury Road, 22 Jump Street, Nightcrawler, Sicario, et al. kept beckoning me, but I would invariably choose something new.

Peak TV takes a backseat

With only a few minor excpetions (Veep, Silicon Valley, Game of Thrones), my TV watching for the year plummeted. I was already behind on shows like The Americans, Orphan Black, and Fargo that I really wanted to watch, but multi-episode seasons would eat up too much prime movie-watching time.

You don’t always watch what’s good, only what’s available

Netflix is so diluted at this point with direct-to-video releases and Netflix originals starring Adam Sandler that finding something of quality to watch was always difficult. Often I’d find myself watching a mid-2000s action movie instead something from my iMDB list just because it was on Netflix. Other times, even if I film I’d wanted to watch was on Netflix, like Son of Saul or Leviathan, I’d watch The Book of Eli because I was already too worn out by a day’s worth of watching movies. 

A movie-a-day only really makes sense for those who can watch a movie a day

Work+girlfriend+dodgeball+hockey+friends meant I had only two or three days a week to squeeze in movies, necessitating regular marathons. It really defeats the purpose of the challenge and wears out the viewer on a physical and psychological level.

Korean thrillers are awesome

I watched a number of excellent films from some of Korea’s best directors, mostly in the horror and/or thriller genres. Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of a Murder and The Host, Kim Jee-woon’s The Age of Shadows, Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing, and Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan all explored well-trodden movie tropes from fresh perspectives and made choices that North American filmmakers would normally shy away from. All of these films are classics that I can see myself revisiting over and over again. Of these films, Memories of a Murder is probably my favourite, serving as a Zodiac-like look into the futility of murder investigations. I should also mention Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden here, but I’ve talked about that masterpiece twice already.

Brian De Palma is an underrated master

Unabashedly fixated on voyeurism in his films, De Palma constructs tightly scripted, twisty plots that focus on peeping, spying, surveilling, and stalking as a means of telling a vast breadth of stories. His films are sleazy in all the right ways, but he brings to his low, almost uncomfortable, subject matter a brilliant technical understanding of film. Raising Cain, Body Double, and Dressed to Kill are all great examples of his craft, but it’s 1981′s Blow Out, starring a never-better John Travolta that is the perfect synthesis of his methods and methodology. The use of sound, split-screen, and split-diopters to focus on foreground and background at the same time is as captivating as the plot.

The worst movies were unfunny comedies

This probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me, but the worst kind of movie is an unfunny comedy. Not necessarily comedies with unfunny jokes (which, don’t get me wrong, are also nigh unwatchable), but comedies without jokes whatsoever. The films I’m talking about are those that are considered comedies because they weren’t serious enough to be dramas or tense enough to be thrillers, but instead just some stuff happens to the characters that provides a minor conflict or misunderstanding before an uninspired resolution. Fortunately, I only saw a couple of these, but they were painful enough to leave scars - The Overnight and the deliberately ironically titled The Comedy. The less said about The Overnight, the better, but I’ll at least faintly praise The Comedy for being a deliberate joke on its audience by being so gleefully unfunny.

I’m finally on board for the Fast & Furious franchise

After a meh first instalment and a horrible sequel, this franchise was as good as dead to me. With Furious 7 dominating the box office and positive word of mouth for the series finally drowning out my doubts, I decided to hop back into the franchise with the third instalment, Tokyo Drift. This film wasn’t by any means great, but it was engaging and personal in the way that the first two weren’t. When the next film cut back to Vin Diesel and company, I was slightly disappointed, as the band of thieves dynamic didn’t really meet my needs. However, it was Fast 5, when the franchise got a Dwayne Johnson injection, that it became an over-the-top superhero team-up movie. This film was absolutely insane, culminating in a getaway chase with a giant vault tied behind the vehicles demolishing half of Rio. The next two films failed to live up to Fast 5, but still featured cartoonish lunacy in the form of a wedge car vaulting other vehicles into the air and Dwayne Johnson flexing out of a cast.

The films of the 70′s and early 80′s continue to impress me

We’ve all heard that the 1970′s were the true golden age of cinema. Godfather this, Annie Hall that. But there’s so much more of value than the masterpieces everyone lauds. Sorcerer, Possession, The Warriors, Marathon Man, and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three are all vastly different films, but all have incredible performances, perfect pacing, and are utterly captivating. Sorcerer, about a group of drivers carrying unstable dynamite through treacherous jungles, and Possession, featuring Sam Neill as a spy watching his wife’s character slowing change into something else, both stayed me long after they were over, due to their incredible suspense and shocking outcomes.

Lilo & Stitch might be my favourite Disney movie

The Disney Renaissance died after the release of Mulan, with Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire failing to capture imaginations the same way Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast did. Combining this decline with my bumbling journey through adolescence, it’s only natural that I’d didn’t give them a chance. So it’s with great regret that I did not see Lilo & Stitch until 2016. This film has all the heart and morals of a typical Disney film, but it’s incredibly funny as well. This was one of the movies I laughed at the hardest last year, mostly due to the antics of Stitch, who seems part koala and part centipede. This will easily get a rewatch over any of the Renaissance films. I wonder if a live action remake is in the works. 

Return to Sleepaway Camp is as boring and tone deaf as Sleepaway Camp is fun and outrageous

Sleepaway Camp is a notorious cult classic, featuring campy performances and low tech slasher violence as well as one of the most genuinely shocking and disgusting reveals I’ve ever seen in a film. The image of it's final frame is forever burned into my brain. Naturally, the film garnered a few poorly conceived sequels with no one from the first film involved, which were easy enough to ignore. However, what I couldn’t help but be intrigued by was a “true” sequel from the original writer-director, featuring at least a handful of the original cast. If ever I regret watching a movie, it’s this one. Return to Sleepaway Camp reeked of desperation and ineptitude, from a director who had been far removed from filmmaking for the 25 years since his debut was released. It’s shrill, loud, derivative, boring, and featuring a twist so outrageously apparent for the whole film, it felt like a big “fuck you” to whomever watched and liked the first film. 

The Purge movies are getting increasingly closer to being worthy of their own premise.

The first film in the Purge series was a missed opportunity. Setting up a brilliant premise, where all crime is legal for one night a year, the filmmakers foolishly decided to confine the film to within a single house for an uninspired home invasion thriller. The Purge: Anarchy brought the action to the streets for some expanded world building and introduced Frank Grillo as the new face of the franchise. But it wasn’t until the third film that real characters and an interesting plot developed. The Purge: Election Year is topical, disturbing, and more visually interesting than the previous films; if the series continues in this upward direction, I’ll be completely on board for the annual purge.

As I said earlier, this experiment was taxing, making me feel the crunch of a deadline for an entire year. But despite those struggles, I’d qualify it as a success. For each bad and mediocre film I watched, I watched two that I liked. I found a bunch of classics that I’ll be sure to return to over and over, and a bunch of directors whose filmographies I can make my way through. 

[adamwatchesmovies]

2018/03/10 - SuperMovie Collection Update

It feels like ages since I’ve talked about some of the new acquisitions to my movie collection. Let’s do one about superhero movies I’ve purchased recently.

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) – 2-Disc 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray & Digital Copy Combo

I wasn’t initially going to pick up The LEGO Batman Movie, and now that I have it in-hand, I’m not sure why. This is a perfect example of how to do parody right. It makes fun of Batman but there’s such an attention to detail and so much enthusiasm here that the filmmaker’s love for Batman is clear. This is a great reminder to those who call the caped crusader their favourite superhero that he can be more than a dark, brooding vigilante.

Doctor Strange (2016) – 2-Disc Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Copy Combo

No sequel to Doctor Strange has been announced – unless you count the cameo in Thor: Ragnarok and whatever part he may play in The Avengers: Infinity War. It's a shame, as I found the film good, but somewhat derivative of other superhero origin stories… at least at first. Once Strange got his powers and became comfortable with them, the picture really kicked off. When we got to the big climax, I found it clever, inventive and filled with incredible visuals. I foresee the sequel as a picture that'll be even better than the first. In the meantime, I will point you towards the digital copy included in this set. Recently, Disney has updated their policy and allows you (at least in Canada) to choose Cineplex and Googleplay as retailers of choice when redeeming your copy. You’re not solely limited to choosing iTunes. If, for some reason, you haven’t already redeemed those codes, now's a good time.

Logan (2017) – 3-Disc Limited Edition “Logan Noir” Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Copy Combo

I can only think of 3 movies that received black-and-white release when the film was originally shot and shown in colour. This one, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Mist. The phenomenal George Miller film is an odd choice, as the colour palette throughout was this gorgeous mix of tans, fiery red and cool blues. I assume the western elements was the reasoning for the choice and I suspect the action will be that much more spectacular without those pesky, beautiful colours. Logan also has many attributes you’d associate with lone gunslinger movies so as a bonus feature, it’s neat. I have viewed The Mist in B&W and found that the film was improved by it. Partially, it’s due to the special effects. Some of them are a little dodgy, but don’t seem so when everything is made of shades of grey. It also makes it feel closer to the films it’s paying tribute to, chiefly Ray Harryhausen’s black-and-white monster movies like The Black Scorpion, 20 Million Miles to Earth and It Came from Beneath the Sea.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) – 2-Disc Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Copy Combo

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is not as fresh as the first, but there’s no way it could’ve been. So much of that initial adventure was spent introducing the characters and surprising us by showing how they fit together. Replicating that effect would've been impossible, even if the film had done nothing but introduce new allies and enemies for the Guardians. To make up for this, the film expands on their relationships and delivers two villains that are much meatier than 2014’s Ronan the Accuser. You also get a solid package that includes a music video with David Hasselhoff, which is a little bizarre, but in-line with the humor of this sequel. I bet it’ll be more satisfying than the whole of 2017’s Baywatch.

Batman and Harley Quinn (2017) – 2-Disc Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Copy Combo

I remember when the very first episode of Batman the Animated Series came on TV. My mother had the foresight to record it on VHS tape and in the summertime my siblings and I would watch the show over and over. This spiritual successor to it is one that I’m looking forward to watching, though I do lament the casting of Melissa Rauch (of The Big Bang Theory) instead of Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn. Sorkin hasn’t voiced the character since 2012 and was succeeded by the reliable and always brilliant Tara Strong in 2011’ s Batman: Arkham City so I can only assume that name recognition was the reason for this choice.