#obviously you can derive to more detailed conclusions going off of these bits and pieces

[kaialone]

Just some interesting details mentioned about Paracelsus in the Slash Beat Encyclopedia and the 10th Memorial Book:

He was originally a stone axe created during the final period of the Crusades (remember, they lasted like a 100 years.)

It's described that it'd display its full power by sucking up blood, even before it was a sentient being. (So, I'm assuming he was some kind of magical weapon from the start? I think Slash Beat Encyclopedia even indicates it might've been a bio-mechanical weapon, but that bit is not mentioned in the 10th Memorial Book, and that one's more recent. EDIT: Looking it over again, I realize it could've meant "creature-shaped" rather than bio-mechanical.)

Its transformation into a Magical Foci (though for the reference, this specific term wasn't applied to Paracelsus until Xrd, I believe) and gaining a sense of self is said to have been a gradual result of him absorbing too much blood. (There's some additional details about how Magical Foci in general are born from Xrd's GGW and onward that don't come up here yet)

He began to communicate and even started picking his own wielders and the like, and sought for a purpose in life through his achievements in battle.

[twocubes]

to summarize my views on space colonization:

colonizing another planet is stupid. see, you first have to build these closed environments in which you can live for months/years at a time in space and on the surface while the target rock is still not livable, and you have to figure out how to build a supply chain to turn space dirt into useful stuff over there. it is thus strictly less technically challenging to embed a closed environment that is already in space into an asteroid and turn that asteroid into something liveable, and once up there, it’s strictly more useful to not be at the bottom of a gravity well. indeed, the energy required for going from one microgravity-situation to another is going to be basically null, which makes expanding and building out much simpler, and also makes it unnecessary to store that much return-home-in-case-of-emergency fuel; all you need is to fall down a well, basically. in the long run, if we were living on asteroids we could imagine slowly building up living environments further and further out until we left the oort cloud entirely, tbh. last i checked it wasn’t terribly clear how frequent rogue planets are so idk, we might be able to hitchhike all the way to any other given star, for all i know...

mining asteroids is stupid. look fundamentally no space material can ever recoup the cost of bringing it over here. the only proposals i’ve seen that make any sense involve mining water for other space colonists, but that notably isn’t useful at all for anyone on earth. at least, in terms of raw-material value. last time i talked to a rich guy, he was saying that the surplus value derived from space would be more, like, “authenticity-value” or “aura” or, w/e; like he was basically positing a massive cultural-manipulation project whereby people would sort of decide that space-stuff has waay inflated value and that that would drive space colonization. a sort of tulip-bubble but for hand-collected space rocks. which is stupid although i mean. i guess that’s at least possible? and i guess just as much you could imagine a governmental-entity constructing some system of debt to be reimbursed by massively overvalued space rocks forcing this into existence; in fact, like, if you take the “frontier as safety valve” theory seriously, you could pitch this as a mechanism of social control but this is still stupid. it would be a way to expend excess social will by channelling it into this insane task rather than making things better right here, which... i mean, you’ve just given all those people who didn’t have a choice but to move out because you took all their shit kinetic orbital strike capability over your house. i’m sure you can figure out how this will go pretty easily.

processing space-stuff into useful stuff is stupid (maybe) or more precisely, it’s the crucial part of the entire system without which the whole thing can’t get off the ground, and it’s the part that no one wants to look at in detail. like, if you want to mine space rock, it is implied that you want to turn space rock into more fuel, more space station, more food, etc. last time i looked at this for mars the plan was to bootstrap a hydrocarbon industry by using solar power to turn carbon-dioxide into fuel. this because all our rockets run on hydrocarbons. and that was just for the fuel. which, i mean, i realize mars’s atmosphere is 95% CO₂ while earth is 0.04% CO₂, and that therefore earth-intuitions about CO₂ might be a bit off, but uh it still seems like you’re trying to unburn things back into being fuel and oxygen. which still seems... like a big ask. (and also like the sort of thing that would be strictly harder to develop than any piece of technology that would solve global warming forever, but, what do i know, i don’t know chemistry)

those are the ones i looked into at various points, at an amateur level. obviously. next up: might look into how the efforts into building closed ecological life-support systems are going.

in conclusion: JUST MAKE BETTER ROBOTS, WEIRDOS, YOUR STUPID FLESH BODIES HAVE NO REASON TO EXIST IN SPACE. YOU’RE HAVING TROUBLE ENOUGH KEEPING THEM ALIVE ON EARTH AND YOU EVOLVED FOR THAT ENVIRONMENT

[aelaer]

Hey aelaer, I have a question and since you seem to have been writing fanfic forever, I think you're a good person to ask this. I have a crossover idea with Doctor Strange and another universe, but to my dismay someone has already written something similar (not the same universe). I did have my story plotted out already, but there's some key concepts that can't be avoided I don't know if I should give up. I don't want to be accused of plagiarism even if the story is completely different.

Hi, thanks for thinking of me for your question! I have a tendency to ramble (and I ended up writing an essay for this) so let me answer you immediately: yes, you should still write it.

Now the rest of the answer delves into the why, in entirely too much detail as I am wont to do.

According to plagiarism.org, Merriam Webster defines the following items as plagiarism:

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own

to use (another’s production) without crediting the source

to commit literary theft

to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

For instance, if I were to state that the above was my own words, I would be plagiarizing both Merriam Webster and plagiarism.org (which is just irony at its finest).

Figuring out how to avoid plagiarizing words is easy: don’t copy-paste words that aren’t yours and declare them as yours. Slight rewording of the content doesn’t keep it from being plagiarism, either. The issue of ideas, however, is a good deal more difficult to quantify, especially in the creative space.

The Office of Research Integrity starts off by giving us a base point of idea plagiarism with the sciences in the following statement:

“In the sciences, as in most other scholarly endeavors, ethical writing demands that any ideas, data, and conclusions borrowed from others and used as the foundation of one’s own contributions to the literature, be properly acknowledged. The specific manner in which we make such acknowledgement may vary depending on the context and even on the discipline, but it often takes the form of either a footnote or a reference citation.”

This makes sense. In many educational systems kids are taught to properly site sources for information, which extends to ideas within the scientific community. If you are building your thesis on cancer research upon the discoveries of other researchers, they need to be referenced and cited properly (and it builds credibility for your own studies).

But how does this apply to creative writing, or indeed any creative medium? Obviously you don’t see footnotes for every source of inspiration in popular fiction across creative media, and it’s not like magical schools are banned from fiction because JK Rowling wrote a series about such a place. How do the rules of plagiarism of ideas that have a clear guideline in formal writing adapt to the creative arts?

To answer this question I am first going to turn to the modern legal system. Every country has its own set of laws regarding the protection of original works and ideas, but for the sake of ease the following is based on US laws and definitions. If you’re interested in your own country’s specific laws (and how they differ from what is stated here) I recommend a quick Google search.

Copyright is a concept that puts some (but not all) acts of plagiarism into a legal liability. It came into form as the printing press (and printed works) became more popular, but has grown significantly over the past 150 years as new technology and new ways to distribute media have come into play. As Wikipedia succinctly summarizes, “In law, copyright is the exclusive right, given to the creator of a work, to reproduce the work, usually for a limited time. Copyright protects the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fairuse doctrine in the United States.” This is how parody and criticism are protected, for instance.

It’s important to note that copyright protects the specifics, but not the actual idea. For instance, Marvel (and thus, Disney) have the copyright to the story of Stephen Strange, the arrogant surgeon that had a terrible car crash and went to Kamar-Taj and learned the ways of the Mystic Arts. However, if someone were to write about Trevor Baker, the arrogant baseball player that lost his arm in a car accident and went to a secret society in Japan to learn magic to become a sorcerer, there is no copyright protection. The idea is the same (and perhaps plagiarized), but there is enough difference to make it its own work.

You may note that, under that copyright definition and the current state of US law, all fanfiction are copyright infringements. Alongside that, all fanfiction can be considered a plagiarism of ideas in the eyes of some original creators. However, you’ll find that most authors, studios, and creative organizations are tolerant and sometimes encouraging of fanfiction and other fan-derived works so long as it’s not done for profit and clearly stated to be a fan-derived work (one time commissionsseem to be a grey area that most seem okay with, but something like art prints of copyrighted or trademarked characters is not something I’ve found definite rules for, and I imagine that it is also on a case by case basis; publishing written fanfiction works widely for profit is a big no for most creators). For more on this subject and how fan-derived works have fared legally, take a look at this wiki article, which mostly looks at cases within the United States but is still an interesting read. For more details about specific cases you can go to the sources linked.

You’ll note that, since copyright law does not protect ideas, that it doesn’t really fall into the scenario prompted in the original ask. The reason I bring up copyright is that it is important to recognize the differences between copyright and plagiarism.

I think Sara F Hawkins (an actual attorney, unlike me) states it best in her article about it. She has a whole list of the differences between copyright and plagiarism, but I think for the sake of this topic, this point is especially relevant to us: “Plagiarism is a violation of moral, ethical, or organization norms not laws.”

So let’s look at this case from those three viewpoints (for the sake of ease, I am using this definition to show the difference between ethics and morals. I don’t know if it’s right, but it’s useful).

Moral: The plagiarism of ideas and where it stands on a moral ground really varies from person to person. For instance, one may accuse me of plagiarizing @amethyst-noir​‘s ideas with the embellished or different spins on the prompts and asks received in her inbox. However, my moral stance would be that this falls into inspiration rather than plagiarism because there is enough of my own work within these prompts. This is a stronger argument as I also have her full support (as well as the support of a couple of the anons), but even if I didn’t, I think that if you put enough of your own spin onto the base of an idea, you craft it enough to make it your own. Many, many stories follow the same general plot lines and tropes; that does not mean they are all plagiarizing each other. Furthermore, the original ask makes it sound like you, anon, did not know this story existed after crafting the outline, making the argument null. How can you plagiarize something you did not know existed? You can’t, not from a moral standpoint.

Ethical: Unfortunately this one is a bit harder and the one you seem most concerned about. There is no one culture amongst the fan fiction community, and even every fandom has its own set of different communities with their own sets of norms, leaving this not entirely possible to predict. Instead I would rather critically examine the key plot points that are the same as this writer and figure out if they are relatively common tropes or entirely too specific to each other. For instance, if there’s a kidnapping, that’s in half the fiction out there. It’s way too broad a trope to be considered an idea one can really plagiarize. However, if both your story and theirs feature a kidnapping of the same character in the same spot with the same method after a very similar series of events, then there may be more people that see the similarities between them.If you want to take precaution against overzealous fans of the other work, upon publication of your own story, you can outright mention that you found a work similar to yours well after beginning your story and that any similarities are unintentional, with a link and a positive plug to the story in particular. You could even reach out to the author themselves before publishing, but I don’t think this is necessary, especially since you are crossing over a wholly different world (which already distinguishes itself as a different piece of work in regards to the base idea in most cases).

Organization: The authority on transformative works is usually considered to be AO3. AO3 would not pull a work for very similar ideas; if that were the case, the hurt/comfort, chatroom, and E-rating categories would be much, much smaller than they are now. So no worries on that end.

I cannot predict the behavior of your reviewers, anon, and without specifics I cannot say how similar your work is to this work already published, but I hope that everything I outlined above gives you an idea of where to go from here.

I am going to end this essay of an answer with something I found in my research on this subject. I came across this fantastic article by a Jonathan Bailey about the plagiarism of ideas and how they apply in US patent law (unlike copyright law, you can patent ideas), and what it would mean for the creative space if they were applied similarly. I recommend reading the whole article, but this passage especially stood out to me:

The best thing that we can do is realize that, in the eyes of the law, the value of a creative work is in its execution, not the idea behind it. As such, we have to take it upon ourselves not only to be original, but to carry out our visions the best possible way.

I think that should be a mantra everyone working with both original and derivative works should take to heart. Supposedly every story has already been told, so we may as well just tell the stories with our own spin, in our own words, and our own specific ideas that make them distinctly ours. That is how we make them unique and memorable.

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2018, Part III

Parts I and II are here and here.

GOOD MOVIES

70. Mid90s (Jonah Hill)- I usually applaud filmmakers for letting visuals tell the story instead of spelling everything out, but Mid90s needs to spell some more stuff out, especially at the truncated end. His brother brought him an orange juice, so all of the abuse is forgotten? I need a bit more there.

I was always going to be in the tank for this though, having been the same age as the protagonist at the time, owning some of the same shirts as him and hanging some of the same posters on my wall. Despite the "My First Screenplay" beef I had up top, each supporting character gets something to do. Hill shows promise as a director (and the fingerprints of his influences) by being able to shift between poles of emotions in a matter of seconds.

69. McQueen (Ian Bonhote)- Although it waits too long to get into McQueen's depression, this documentary does an adequate job of showing the ups and downs of his life. It was great seeing things I've only read about, like the Voss show.

Here's the thing though: I'm not a genius, but if I were, I would hope that my closest friends and advisers would be able to articulate what made me great. A little less "We were working sixteen-hour days." A little more "He changed art forever."

68. Beautiful Boy (Felix Van Groeningen)- For better and worse, this portrait of a parent's worst nightmare is unrelenting. Surprisingly, the toughest moment is when Nic is fierce with pride, clean for fourteen months. Because when you pause and see that there's an hour left in the movie, you shudder at how low he might end up going.

Van Groeningen's sort of french braid of past and present hasn't changed for his English-language debut, but things worked best for me when he locked in on Timothee Chalamet's mannered but touching performance. I wish the movie had a proper ending.

67. The Kindergarten Teacher (Sara Colangelo)- This takes a little while to get sick and twisted, but I liked it once it did. Part of why it works is Gyllenhaal's commitment to the role. As dark as the character gets--and the film does seem hell-bent on establishing her as a failure when I'm not sure that's true--Gyllenhaal never judges her. It's probably her best performance since SherryBaby.

As for Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays a poetry professor who kisses people and then apologizes and says that he misread the moment and acts all bashful, are we sure about him? Are we sure he's good at acting?

66. The Spy Who Dumped Me (Susanna Fogel)- The spywork of the last half-hour is way too convoluted, but the comedy is fast and loose in service of a sweet female friendship. We're at the stage with the genius of Kate McKinnon in which I just assume that she came up with anything funny on the spot. For example, there's an off-hand joke that her character went to camp with Edward Snowden and was surprised that the news didn't mention how "into ska" he was. It's so bizarre that it had to be improv. Later, when Edward Snowden shows up as a character, I had to admit that the movie was tightly written. But I assumed it was McKinnon first. 65. Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg)- Halfway through Ready Player One, there's a sequence that takes place inside The Overlook Hotel of The Shining. The characters are walking through a photorealistic recreation of that setting, down to the smallest details, but it has been repurposed with different angles for this film. Not only have I literally never seen something like this in a movie, but I never imagined the possibility of such a thing existing. And somehow...it's corny and derivative.

So goes Ready Player One. It takes the simple pleasures of a Chosen One narrative with a killer villain, loads every corner of the frame with Ryu or Beetlejuice or a Goldie Wilson campaign poster, and punishes you with maximalism. Each piece reliably contributes to the whole, sometimes in thrilling and amusing fashion, but no matter when you check your watch, forty-five minutes are left.

When imdb came out, Steven Spielberg was one of the first people I looked up. What shocked me was how many projects I attributed to his direction when he had only produced them. In my kid brain, Spielberg had directed Gremlins or Goonies or An American Tail. They had his imprimatur of whimsy and wonder and childhood identification even if they were, you know, a bit more conventional and less purposeful than the movies he directed. Well, not since Tintin has there been a Steven Spielberg-directed film that feels more Spielberg-produced.

My favorite reference was the Battletoads. Or more accurately, imagining the seventy-two-year-old filmmaker going, "Oh, you know I gotta get the 'Toads up in this bih!"

64. Ben Is Back (Peter Hedges)- Despite a little bit of note-card screenwriting--"Get a line about how insurance doesn't care about drug addiction in there!"--The first two-thirds take their time revealing information to the viewer, dropping bread crumbs of the family history quite gracefully. Roberts and Hedges play off each other well, and their charisma powers the first half. She, of course, has an ample bag of Movie Star tricks, but, surprisingly, he already does too. You can see, in the confrontation at the mall, for example, how the mother's dissembling and conniving would pass down to him.

So it's a real bummer when the final third decides to separate the leads and rushes to a baffling conclusion. It falls apart like few movies in recent memory.

63. Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo)- Whatever. I admire the skill that it must have taken to balance the revolving wheel of characters--even if it does feel like check-ins half the time. The movie is exhausting in a bad way until it's exhausting in a good way. More importantly, here are my power rankings. (Their power in my own heart. Thanos is obviously the most powerful.)

1. Rocket 2. Hawkeye (Renner Season even when it isn't.) 3. The Collector 4. Black Panther 5. Thanos 6. Iron Man 7. Ned 8. Nick Fury 9. Star Lord 10. Thor (His scene with Rocket is the best one in the film.) 11. Gamora 12. Hulk (Your boy is so earnest in this. "They KNEW!") 13. Spider-Man 14. Wong 15. Okoye 16. Doctor Strange (Way cooler in this than his own movie.) 17. Captain America (His hair was beautiful.) 18. Drax 19. Pepper Potts 20. Falcon 21. Groot 22. Black Widow 23. Winter Soldier 24. Loki (Is he alive? Was he alive before this? Can he impersonate people or whatever even if he's dead? What's his deal?) 25. Scarlet Witch (Her first line is, getting out of bed, "Vis, is it the stone again?") 26. Gamora's Sister (No, you look it up.) 27. War Machine (Do you think Cheadle forgets that he's in these? Like, he misses a day of shooting just because he forgot?) 28. Vision 29. Whatever Peter Dinklage Was

62. The Old Man & the Gun (David Lowery)- Sissy Spacek's character explains, on a tour of her house, that she pulled up some wallpaper and found a signature from 1881 underneath, which is so unique that--ugly as it is--she couldn't bear to cover it. The movie is sort of about that. Does a way of life from a long time ago matter now?

Does it matter how you present yourself? How much does intention cancel out action?

The questions play themselves out in a way that is formally interesting--Lowery swish-pans and advances the scenes in a way that he hasn't since Ain't Them Bodies Saints--but informally pretty dull. Redford is engaging as possible, but I feel like I maxed out on my concern for a person who refuses to change.

I've had the Sean Penn "on one" scale for a long time, but I'm introducing the "off one" scale for Casey Affleck, who is so purposefully muted that he seems like he's going to pass out in some scenes. Keep doing you, Case. As far as acting goes.

61. Disobedience (Sebastian Lelio)- I admired how little the film spelled out about the setting and the characters' pasts. The beginning is cautious without being slow, and the women seem drawn to each other with a sort of magnetism that is difficult to pull off. While the triangle of people at the center is realistic and fair, the picture is ultimately a bit staid. I don't want melodrama out of the story either, but I do think it would work better if the characters were more passionate about anything, even the religion that makes them lack passion. 60. Crazy Rich Asians (Jon M. Chu)- This movie is sweet, and it nails the rom-com fulcrum scenes that it has to. Hear me out though: Both of the leads are winning, and Henry Golding's charm keeps us from acknowledging that his character is a psycho. Here is a list of things that, over the course of a year, he does not bother to tell his girlfriend:

a. That his family is the wealthiest in Singapore. Or wealthy at all. But more notably, he tells Rachel no details at all about his family, such as his brothers' and sisters' names. b. That he skipped an important trip home a few months ago, which caused a rift in his family. c. How to pack or dress for their trip to visit his family. d. That his mother did not want them sleeping together at her house, not that he "wants her all to himself." e. That his family wants him to take over their business, which would necessitate a permanent move to Singapore. f. That he went out with one of the women attending the bachelorette party, and that this woman has very good reason to sabotage Rachel and Nick's current relationship. g. That the wedding they're attending is also a super-rich affair that will be covered by international media. h. That the wedding party they're attending the night before is a formal affair with hundreds of guests, not the "family party" that he presents it as. By the way, this is one of the two times that he not only doesn't accompany her to an event, expecting her to meet him there and find him, but he doesn't even send a car. i. That he's thinking about proposing to her. "We haven't even talked about that stuff," Rachel tells her mother.

Communication is key, Nick.

59. Lean on Pete (Andrew Haigh)- I liked the first half and its patient doling out of information. Haigh sews quite a few credible threads to show why the gruff Dell would take a liking to Charley. When the film diverges into a drifter story, I got frustrated with it. To me, drifter characters aren't interesting because they take unpredictable actions, what enliven films, and make them predictable. A dine-and-dash is a dangerous, exciting thing to happen in a movie, but when this scared kid has already done so much similar running, it dulls that edge. This is Haigh's least successful film, but it's still empathetic and sensitive.

58. Hereditary (Ari Aster)- The first third of Hereditary is when it is at its most intimate and compact as a story of grief. And with the bridge of a genuinely shocking event, it becomes less Don’t Look Back and more of a hellish explainer.

Ari Aster is a master craftsman already, investing every element with intention, down to “Why are clocks so present in the frame?” That craft extends to Toni Collette, who is even better than she normally is. But in refusing to be mysterious and small, the film didn't connect with me on a level beyond admiration..

57. Gringo (Nash Edgerton)- The expository information about the company comes too late, the ending is too tidy, and I'm not sure what my girl Mandy Seyfried is doing in this. But it's funny overall, in large part because Theron and Edgerton bounce off each other beautifully, projecting a very specific brand of nouveau riche awful. She says, "Fat people are...hilarious," and he wears too many accessories in his pick-up basketball game, for which there's a running clock.

Many of these crime comedies fail because all of the characters are painted with the same cynical brush, but Oyelowo is so likable here as a frazzled guy in over his head, playing against the type of simmering dignity he inhabited as someone like Martin Luther King. I'm glad that he's getting at-bats with something this different.

56. Bad Times at the El Royale (Drew Goddard)- If you like table-setting (and I do), then this is going to be a fun time. Each room at the motel gets a two-sided mirror, each character is two-faced, many events are presented from two perspectives, and there's even a double in the title. It's hard not to share in Goddard's delight as he patiently lays out all of the Tarantinian pieces.

Once he has to start declaring things though, somewhere halfway in the meandering two and a half hours, the film doesn't end up having much to say. I'm not sure I wanted another Cabin in the Woods ending, but I did want it to add up to more than the modest pleasures that it does. Kudos to Chris Hemsworth and his dialect coach for finally piecing together a serviceable American accent.

55. Thunder Road (Jim Cummings)- As far as calling card movies go, this one is a pretty smart character study. It centers on how the things we find important, the impact of words in this case, can often be the things we struggle with the most, through dyslexia and spoonerisms and messed-up jokes in this case. That being said, no offense, the film would be 25% better with a more capable lead actor. 54. Annihilation (Alex Garland)- Much like Sunshine, another Alex Garland script, this story handles the mystery elegantly, with jolts of real horror, until we get where we're going, which doesn't live up to the promise. I do appreciate that it respects the viewer's intelligence--withholding answers to questions, sometimes never answering questions. I'm grateful that it exists. 53. BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee)- Like Chi-Raq and Red Hook Summer, BlacKKKlansman would make for a hell of a YouTube compilation if you cut together its best moments. It's sharp and vital when it's at its best, which is pretty much any time it's commenting on the present, through "Now more than ever" Nixon campaign posters, mentions of how David Duke's policies might show up in Republican platforms, or the searing epilogue that brings back one of Lee's oldest tricks.

Like a lot of his recent work though, it's a mess tonally, and basic stuff like the timing of the cuts seems amateurish. I also think Lee's relationship with Terence Blanchard is hurting him at this point; the music doesn't match what's going on at all. I wish it hung together better than it does.

52. Widows (Steve McQueen)- This is the messiest film that Steve McQueen has made, which is its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. That loose quality allows for some expressive moves, such as when the alderman candidate takes a real-time two-minute ride from the poor area where he's campaigning to the tony area where he lives, in the same district. This is a film with admirable ambition to go with its cheap thrills.

But that same messiness produces as many bad performances (Farrell, Neeson, and, yes, Duvall) as it does good ones (Debicki, Henry, Kaluuya), and it elides so many moments near the end that I have lingering questions about whether a major plot point was even resolved. This is definitely the type of movie that has a three-hour cut that is better, and I still hope that director's cut doesn't waste five scenes on Debicki's prostitute relationship with Lukas Haas. (Where is his sliver of a face on the poster?)

51. The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci)- I feel as if I have to adjust to the astringency of any Iannucci property, and when I do, I laugh a lot. This movie is hilarious, and I'll save you from a list of the jokes that work the best.

Iannucci and his collaborators take one of the most violent, tyrannical periods of history and expose its perpetrators as sniveling, feckless children who might accidentally spit in their own faces as they're trying to spit on someone else's. Destabilizing those in power--in this case de-memorializing them--and portraying them as lost, scared humans is the goal of satire. So even though he does it so well, part of me wonders, "Is that it?" Bureaucracy is dumb? Isn't this an easy target? For what it's worth, I felt the same way about In the Loop, despite everyone else's praise. I'm waiting for Iannucci to find a weapon sharper than the middle finger.

50. Tully (Jason Reitman)- In a way, it's refreshing for a screenwriter to be bad at writing men. The outdated, clueless, manchild dad is the biggest weakness of the script, especially since everything else is pitched with such realism. There's also one scene that I hate but probably shouldn't spoil.

Put aside that character though, and this is a movie with wit, verisimilitude, and even a bit of visual agility. The protagonist--Marlo, a Diablo Cody name if there ever was one--has a special needs son, and I appreciated the honest way that Marlo's frustration with him sometimes outweighed her understanding.

49. Fahrenheit 11/9 (Michael Moore)- Fahrenheit 11/9 is diffuse, but it's effective enough to be in the top half of Moore's work. He stays out of it mostly (besides that familiar narration, as gentle as it is ashamed), but his heart is clearly in the searing Flint section. In fact, I wish he had made a documentary that focused only on that American travesty, not all of them.

He has the same challenge that many of us do--pointing out the crimes and perversions of Trump while keeping the high ground--and he doesn't always avoid the low-hanging fruit. Dubbing Trump's voice over Hitler's is the type of shit that people hate him for. At most turns, however, Moore's choices make sense. A long diversion into the Parkland kids, even though I find them kind of tiring personally, serves as an inspirational peak to the valley of any people of a generation or two earlier than them.

48. Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson)- Many Wes Anderson movies are flippant about death and disease. When the effect works, it's refreshing and disorienting. When it doesn't, like in this movie, it feels cold, as if he's moving dolls around in a playhouse.

But in every other way, the sweet and wry Isle of Dogs benefits as a manicured chamber piece. The details are obvious (the tactile fur on all of the dog puppets), less obvious (a translation provides the legend "very sad funeral" to accompany a news story), and even less obvious (more than one joke about how many syllables should be in a haiku). If the narrative--jaded stray finds redemption through guileless child--doesn't offer much in the way of re-invention for the director, then I'm glad the large canvas does.

47. You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsey)- I wanted an artsy crime film, and I got an artsy crime film. I have no idea if I liked it. It's bleak and groady, more of a violence movie than an action movie, concerned with the cycle of abuse and the oily spread of vengeance. It begins twenty minutes after most films of its type might choose to, and it begins in earnest at the hour mark. The atonal Jonny Greenwood score is a perfect approximation of whatever kind of dark clouds are floating in the protagonist's head.

Even when it doesn't work, the film is a reminder that Lynne Ramsey is a real artist. Although this doesn't come close to the catharsis and real-world relevance of We Need to Talk About Kevin, it reveals a focused point of view. Whether it's depicting a sequence through only surveillance footage or cutting to a half-second of flashback, she includes exactly what she wants to.

46. The Commuter (Jaume Collet-Sera)- I gave Non-Stop two-and-a-half stars, and this is a much more elegant version of Non-Stop. Even though it succumbs to gross CGI and outsized conspiracy, the class-conscious table setting is non-pareil, and it lets Neeson act his age.

45. Vice (Adam McKay)- Vice is a difficult film to evaluate because its greatest strength, the resolute, partisan, experimental point of view, is also its greatest weakness, the hand-holding, pedantic, antic point of view. There are moments in this film--the menu scene, the fake-ending--that are more inventive than anything else this year. And credit to McKay for a sui generis structure that covers thirty years in the first hour and two years in the second hour; if nothing else, he has the talent to make unitary executive theory fun.

It's a big, angry, auteurist, '70s swing, so it also takes a lot of chances that don't work and, quite obviously, it wields poetic license in the way that Ron Burgundy swished around a glass of scotch. Sometimes it doesn't know when to trust the viewer, like when it freeze frames and flashes "George H.W. Bush, President, 1989-1993" over a Bush-looking guy talking about "Barbara and I" as his son misbehaves in the background. Through no fault of McKay's, the story feels anti-climactic as well. Although I felt more distance than I expected from events that I consider recent history, the dominoes are still falling in the world that Cheney shaped.

One thing that is less debatable is Christian Bale's transformation into Cheney. That word "transformation" is used any time a famous person wears a wig. This performance, which spans decades and is not directly related to any of Bale's other work, is different. The portrait of Cheney is one of monolithic evil, which Bale suggests, but it's also grounded in reticent, clenched jaw micro-movements. Cheney, who is four inches shorter than Bale, seems like the smallest and biggest man in any room. At this point, if you told me Bale was playing Grendel, I wouldn't bat an eye. In fact, his Grendel might look a lot like Dick Cheney.

[thefashionraptor-blog]

The Daydream Business, Using Fantasy to Sell You Clothes

“Advertising is legalized lying.” – H.G. Wells

A few weeks ago, I was driving home from work, when my mind started wandering and I found myself launched into a nice little daydream (note: stay alert, drive safe, kids). With mind about 85%-90% focused on the road, the rest was building a nice little short film starring myself deep in the heart of London, walking around and enjoying a nice little stroll in the early morning.

Now, I’ve never been to London, so obviously the ‘heart of London’ was open to interpretation and a bit vague at best. However, for some reason, my funny little brain decided to very specifically dress me in a very particular olive colored, light jacket. I couldn’t recall if I had seen this jacket somewhere before, but my imagination had conjured it flawlessly and without hesitation. It was strange, but when I got home, I felt the urge to hunt down this piece of daydream clothing.

This led me to thinking about how large a part fantasizing plays into our clothing experiences. Furthermore, it made me think about how companies and advertisers try to play to our daydreams and fantasies to sell their clothes.

If you flip through any issue of Vogue or Glamour or GQ (for the gentlemen), you notice that clothing advertisements can be a little … Strange.

Ok, maybe ‘strange’ isn’t fair.

Clothing advertisements seem to have a lot of elements that are superfluous. You’d think that most advertisers would be satisfied with the simple formula: happy, attractive person + clothes we’re trying to sell = $$$.

This is why I’m not making thousands concocting the advertising campaigns for Gucci or Chanel.

Yes, there are companies that adopt that basic formula of advertising:

From Gap.com But more often than not, it takes a little more … Imagination to get a buyer’s attention.

This is a magazine advertisement for Dolce & Gabbana. Obviously, we keep the elements of happy and pretty + clothing, but there’s a lot more going on in this picture. We have a cast, we have a setting, we have an energetic moment in a story we can only glean.

Here’s a magazine ad for Prada. They take a drastically different tactic from Dolce & Gabbana with only 1 person, a simpler ‘scene’, and even ditch the happiness element with the model taking on a seemingly neutral expression (or maybe she’s just happy on the “inside”). However, like Dolce & Gabbana, there is more here than just a person being happy in their clothes.

It’s unusual for models in ads to have their faces turned away from the camera like this. For one, it blocks expression and second, the eye of the watcher is naturally drawn to head on human faces so to take the full face away risks loss of attention. Despite this, the composition and the model’s body language are intriguing and invite the viewer to question and draw conclusions.

Though it may seem minor to some, the most striking detail, at least to me, is the model’s adjustment of the dress strap. It’s a very personal action and presents the model as more of a unique character as opposed to just a body showing off clothing.

You come to realize that Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, and other companies (particularly of the high end, luxury items) are not playing off of your interest in clothing to sell their stuff. Instead, they seem to be playing off of your interest in story and character. Suddenly, the clothing you’re looking at has context, has character, has been through something possibly phenomenal or heartbreaking or dangerous. The clothing suddenly has a history, a mysterious past and owning that piece of clothing makes you a part of it (at least, that’s what they want you to think).

Dear Gucci, who is the mysterious man with the ‘IRIS’ tattoo and how did a lion get into the kitchen?

It’s a pretty ingenious tactic honestly. The mind is naturally programmed for story. From Lisa Cron’s ‘Wired for Story’, published 2012:

“Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution – more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to. Story is what enabled us to imagine what might happen in the future, and so prepare for it – a feat no other species can lay claim to, opposable thumbs or not�� Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience reveal that our brain is hardwired to respond to story; the pleasure we derive form a tale well told is nature’s way of seducing us into paying attention to it.” (Cron, pg. 1)

Cron is saying that since the early days of mankind, we have used story to test out hypothetical situations and to learn from the results so that we may not need live out the more negative consequences. On the other side of the spectrum, story also allows us to experience the more pleasing, rewarding hypotheticals. If these are stories we tell ourselves, we usually call the positive ones daydreams and that is what clothing companies are encouraging us to explore in their advertising, asking you to think about yourself literally in their models’ shoes (in addition to other things) and the adventures that might ensue. The prospect of ‘what if’ and ‘what might be’ is a surprisingly compelling buying incentive.

Furthermore, clothing companies aren’t limiting themselves to just these one or two page short story ads. Sometimes, their tactics get a bit more cinematic.

This is Tom Hiddleston. Say ‘Hello’, visit his twitter. But what’s important to note about Mr. Hiddleston is that he is not professionally a model, he’s an actor (a well-trained, very talented actor). This page comes from the latest issue of GQ magazine (March 2017) where Mr. Hiddleston took the cover and several pages on the inside for an interview based article and related photo set.

Now, the article in question, written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, has nothing to do with clothing.

Ok. So, there is something about a tank top, but the main meat of the article is not about selling clothing or even about getting Mr. Hiddleston’s opinions on brands. Mostly, it focuses on recent events and makes observations on Mr. Hiddleston’s character.

However, the accompanying photos have the distinct scent of advertisement. I mean, it’s a bit obvious with the product list off to the side giving brand, pricing, and encouragement for the usage of ‘browns’ in the upcoming season. But the composition is similar to what we’ve seen of high end advertisers. As tickled as I am to imagine it, I don’t believe Mr. Hiddleston conducted this interview while astride a bicycle and looking intently off into the distance. They’re using a well known actor and his story to sell their clothes.

Let it be understood that it’s a mutual relationship. Mr. Hiddleston gets the exposure as well as the platform to deliver his thoughts and promote his materials (in other words, go see Kong: Skull Island). In exchange, the companies that clothe him get to take advantage of his already outstanding fan base and add the quality of his character and story to the reputation of their merchandise.

We can even go one step further as magazines frequently include a photo set that has a narrative to give the scenes context.

From the latest issue of Vogue, we have a story of two lovers on the run, one actor Lucas Hedges and the other model Vittoria Ceretti, seeking to take their relationship to the next level. Vogue provides readers with descriptions of each scene, establishing for us a series of enticing and exciting events.

We have a starting point, Hedges and Ceretti running away from “it all”, spurred on by their intense passion for each other.

Yes . . . “Little more than the clothes on their backs” … Which happen to sum out to about several thousand dollars. Poor things.

We have building stakes and intrigue …

Conflict

“She says ‘I do'”, but I don’t know why she’s walking out so disgruntled.

And a resolution.

Is it an epic love story to rock the ages and make all of Vogue’s readers swoon with fantasized passion and romance?

No. It’s not even really a fully fleshed out story (more just a series of events). However, the suggestion of situation and context certainly makes the pictures more interesting and more engaging. By extension, the clothing worn by our primary players is also more interesting. In the last picture of the set, that isn’t just any $1,425 Jacquemus coat. That’s now the $1,425 Jacquemus coat that Ceretti wore as she dramatically ended the rollercoaster of an affair/near-marriage with Hedges. That coat now has a story to it which makes it more than just the sum of its physical parts.

So, what’s the deal? Why spend 1,700+ words pointing all of this out? Why is it important?

Well, first off, I feel that if we’re all going to be manipulated into buying very expensive clothing, it’s nice to know how it’s being done.

But more importantly, this reveals an interesting detail about our own brains. Story and context automatically make inanimate objects more intriguing. It’s the difference between a stick and the wand Harry Potter uses to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort, the difference between a wardrobe and the gateway to Narnia, the difference between a pair of shoes and the glitzy ruby (or shiny silver if we’re following the book) slippers that incurred the wrath of the Wicked Witch.

This tells us that if we want to make something important, interesting, or engaging, add story, add background, add character. And this goes beyond just trying to sell clothing. We will more readily put ourselves behind a cause if there’s a story to attach ourselves to, if there are characters to emotionally connect with.

In closing, I did find my daydream jacket, but I’m not stopping there.

About two weeks ago, I purchased a round trip ticket and 10 day hotel stay in London. I’m visiting for the first time during the last week in April this year.

It’s one thing to have daydreams, but it takes a bit more to actually pursue them and make them a reality and tell the story yourself.

I encourage you all to put in the extra effort.

Hang onto those daydreams, stay determined, stay lovely!

– The Fashion Raptor