#scandal episode four review

[roxannepolice]

[pearlcaddy]

I really need people who don't watch The Try Guys and only know about them from the recent Ned bullshit to appreciate their most recent video.

For the past couple months, they've been releasing a mix of videos that in some cases have been carefully edited around Ned and in others been shot recently without him. There's been some shade sprinkled throughout the newer stuff, and there was this particular gem in a recent video:

[ID: Screenshot from Try Guys 30-Day Meditation Challenge of Keith standing in front of the cover of the Try Guys' book, The Hidden Power of Fucking Up. Normally the cover has a photo of all four Try Guys, but the image of Ned has been replaced with a blank 404 error message.]

In general, their approach has been to throw some shade but ultimately cut around and ignore him.

But now it's Without a Recipe season.

WAR is one of the Try Guys' major series, released during November and December, in which they compete with each other to bake an item without a recipe, usually to disastrous results. Because the videos are long and such a central part of their winter holiday schedule, the videos are filmed months in advance. (Despite how long this post is, I'm a very casual fan, but my understanding is it's shot in the summer?) Which means that these episodes were filmed pre-scandal and that they're very difficult episodes to scrap or reshoot. And, given the camera set-up, it would be almost impossible to completely cut out a participant.

So they went a different direction.

[ID: Screenshot of the title card reading, "The Try Guys: Without a Recipe. Everything is Fine: A Totally Normal Season." Next to the text are images of explosions and a sarcastic hand giving a thumbs up.]

The shade in this episode starts early. Zach has consistently been the weakest baker, but his chyron for this year was unapologetic.

[ID: Screenshot of Zach being interviewed by the camera. At the bottom of the screen is a chryon that reads, "Zach: No longer the 4th best."]

For the most part, the episode cuts around Ned; the audience isn't told what type of Pop-Tart he bakes and we don't see the judges tasting and reviewing his bake. Group shots of the four Try Guys tend to be cropped so that only Keith, Eugene, and Zach are visible.

The time he's made most visible in the background is in these shots:

[ID: Screenshot of Keith in the foreground. Behind him is Ned, seen from the shoulders down. The framing deliberately leaves the text on Ned's shirt visible. It reads, "I love bad ideas," followed by the heart on fire emoji.]

But my favorite parts of the video are when they just replace him. Because, while the rest of the episode plays like a normal episode, there's wild shit happening whenever Ned would have been on screen.

There's one time when the editors wink to a fan theory that they'd used a fake pole to partially edit him out of a shot in a previous video. How? By needlessly covering him with a fake pole instead of cropping him out the way they do with all the other shots from the same camera set-up.

[ID: Screenshot of Zach in the foreground. To his left is a computer-generated image of a large, clearly fake pole over the space where Ned would be.]

Now normally the bakers are split into two pairs and work at side-by-side work stations where they riff off of one another while baking.

[ID: Screenshot of Eugene and Zach in the kitchen baking at separate tables that are arranged side-by-side.]

So at some points in the video, Keith (who is the baker paired with Ned in this episode) is in footage where the Ned half of the screen is replaced with footage of an unused workstation, as below:

But my favorite parts of the video were the ones where they replaced Ned with something that really acknowledged the elephant in the room:

[ID: Screenshot of the same kitchen set-up from before with two tables next to each other. Keith stands at one, looking at the baker at the other table. Ned has been replaced with a computer-generated image of a pink elephant.]

Whenever Ned is (presumably) speaking, the audio is replaced with a loud elephant trumpet.

They commit to the bit so much that, when the judges announce the results, they don't even show us Ned's Pop-Tart.

[ID: Judge Rosanna Pansino holds up a Pop-Tart. A red-and-white paper box of fresh peanuts has been added to the footage, completely shielding the Pop-Tart from view. The peanut box has a cartoon image of an elephant as part of its design.]

Now, they easily could have cut out the announcement of the results, especially since they cut out all of his baking process.

But Ned comes last.

So they leave that part in. As a treat.

When the judge announces the name of the fourth-place baker, instead of saying "Ned," the audio is replaced with her voice saying "Elephant," and when we cut to Ned's reaction?

[ID: Screenshot of the Try Guys clustered together. Ned has been replaced with the pink elephant, who is screaming in protest while the other three Try Guys shrink away from him. The chyron reads, "4th Place: Elephant."

And then true chaos reigns when we get to the announcement of the winner, and there's honestly so much going on that I'll leave the image ID to explain it.

[ID: Screenshot of the Try Guys clustered together again. This time, Ned has been replaced with the body of a dancing man, while his head has been replaced with a terrifying dough face that Keith made earlier in the episode. Behind Ned is a smaller, full-body image of the pink elephant, standing in profile. Sat on the elephant's back is a cut out of the impersonation of Zach from the SNL skit that mocked the Try Guys' infamous What Happened video. Also on the back of the elephant are an image of a bent-over old man and a man in a suit holding a red cloak. I'm either not online enough or not versed in Try Guys' lore enough to understand their significance. The chyron reads, "Winner: Daddy's Favorite," in reference to Keith's victory.]

The whole video is truly, beautifully unhinged and I'm absolutely living for it. I've been wondering how they were going to handle WAR, because it's my favorite series and I knew editing around Ned was going to be a challenge.

Ned was always competitive, particularly on WAR, and I'm absolutely delighted that it turned into 40 minutes of everyone at 2nd Try taking the piss out of him... only for him to come in last place.

[nflstreetsanimereviews]

Anime Review: Oshi no Ko

To say that Oshi no Ko was the anime to watch for Spring 2023 would have been an understatement. The first episode, which was feature-length at 82 minutes, was quite possibly one of the best first episodes of an anime I’ve ever seen. Of course, with around four times the time to air–Oshi no Ko had to justify its length. If it was just average, then what was the point of the grand entry? Thankfully, Oshi no Ko more than justifies the dramatic entrance.

At the time, the sky-high average rating (90/100), while a good omen, seemed like a bit much considering the show had only just started. I know most people aren’t as pricks about rating anime as I am, but I was a bit skeptical. I’ve seen anime start strong only for opinion on it to change up after time has passed. After completing Oshi no Ko, I can comfortably say that it deserves the high marks it got then, and now.

The long run time of the first episode was only part of why Oshi no Ko was so well received initially. The stylistic choices (a part brought over by the manga) set it apart from the onset. It really captures the vibe of what an ‘idol’ idealistically is. Considering that Hoshino Ai is shown as the ideal idol, it’s a perfect match. While style can carry an anime (and manga) far, eventually even the biggest sucker will notice the lack of substance–fortunately for us, Oshi no Ko has both in plentiful amounts. The story contained within the first episode is a whirlwind. It’s astounding that Oshi no Ko can contain so many various themes and time skips and still maintain to be gripping. It’s not easy for a show to be compelling while essentially being Rugrats at the same time. While the story does slow down a bit starting with episode two, it still keeps up the quality while not betraying what drew people in the first place.

The synopsis for Oshi no Ko did it no favors–I had no idea what the show was going to be about from reading it. Maybe I’m just a moron, but tell me if you can dissect whatever the hell this means:

When a pregnant young starlet appears in Gorou Amemiya’s countryside medical clinic, the doctor takes it upon himself to safely (and secretly) deliver Ai Hoshino’s child so she can make a scandal-free return to the stage. But no good deed goes unpunished, and on the eve of her delivery, he finds himself slain at the hands of Ai’s deluded stalker — and subsequently reborn as Ai’s child, Aquamarine Hoshino! The glitz and glamor of showbiz hide the dark underbelly of the entertainment industry, threatening to dull the shine of his favorite star. Can he help his new mother rise to the top of the charts? And what will he do when unthinkable disaster strikes? 

At first, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Thinking back, that was a good thing. I knew what was going to happen, while not knowing how it would happen. A good tell if a story is great is if it still is emotionally compelling even if you know what’s going to happen.

While she is only a side character when it comes to air-time, Ai Hoshino is without a doubt the star of Oshi no Ko. Her origins are mysterious–we know nothing about her mother and father, or any of her family for that matter. At first, she may seem like your bog-standard idol that sings and dances for you, but Ai has something that almost no other idol has. That something is the power to enthrall viewers with her eyes. Well, not actually, but her star-shaped pupils represent her commitment to the bit. While she’s on a mission to give love to her fans, she hasn’t ever felt anything close to that in her life. That’s perhaps how she was lured into a relationship and got impregnated. Not wanting to ruin her reputation, she goes into hiatus during that time and afterward resumes as if nothing happened. Little does she know that she gave birth to two people that have already lived a life–a life admiring their now mother.

Aquamarine and Ruby Hoshino, who are both reborn as Ai’s child, were admirers of Ai in their past lives. Aquamarine (he goes by Aqua) was a doctor in his past life, who became a fan of Ai via one of his patients. That patient, Sarina Tendouji, happens to be the person reborn as his twin sister, Ruby. Ruby had a condition that kept her bedridden and in need of constant care. I do wonder how they’ve made it this far without realizing that they’ve already known each other in a past life–it would make sense considering they both had the ability to walk and talk, among other things, as soon as they were born. I have a birds-eye view of their story, which makes it unfair to assume they would know that. Anyways, being reincarnated as Ai’s children gives them both the ability to live with their favorite idol–something only that would happen in their wildest dreams previously…that is, until the ‘unthinkable disaster strikes’. I won’t spoil what the ‘unthinkable disaster’ is, but if you’ve interacted with anyone that’s watched or read Oshi no Ko, you probably know what it is. That ‘unthinkable disaster’ gives them both motivation to shine in showbiz. For Aqua, that means becoming a teen heartthrob actor for the purpose of finding and getting revenge on those who caused the ‘unthinkable disaster’. He also works behind the scenes as a protege of director Taishi Gotanda, so he can establish further connections. For Ruby, it means becoming an idol that shines as bright as her mother. Their connections and the fact that they kept their intelligence and memories of their past life gives them a huge advantage in achieving their goals. Aqua, who was a doctor that was pushing thirty before being killed in his past life, is intelligent and mature to the degree that he can communicate with adults without any sense of childish insecurity. This is because internally, Aqua IS an adult. Around 45 if my math is correct. Ruby on the other hand, still has that childlike immaturity since she passed away as a teen in her life. She does have immense knowledge of idol culture, and of B-Komachi (the group Ai was in), which makes her a repository of most things idol-related.

Kana Arima is listed as the third main character, but I would classify her more as a ‘super-supporting character’. A former child actor that is in her own words ‘past her prime’, she becomes acquainted with Aqua as toddlers when they both star in a movie. Known as the ‘genius child actor who can cry in 10 seconds’ and the ‘Bell Pepper Girl’, she has trouble finding industry gigs now due to her behavior as a child. Becoming acquainted with both Aqua and Ruby, she finds herself working with them often, even joining the same production company they’re in. Her mission in Oshi no Ko is to regain her footing within the entertainment industry. Being a 17-year-old ‘has been’ is a lot for someone to handle. All she wants is to be adored by fans again and to regain her confidence. Kana’s story, while nowhere near as important as the main story, also runs parallel to Aqua and Ruby’s. 

Akane Kurokawa, the actress that is extremely thorough when it comes to researching her roles, and MEM-cho, a YouTuber that stars alongside Aqua in a dating show, also deserve an honorable mention. Akane plays a crucial role in Oshi no Ko–one that I can’t get into without spoiling more than I want to. MEM-cho is the closest thing we have to a gag character. She serves as a casual observer of what’s going on around her.

Oshi no Ko is from the same mangaka that wrote Kaguya-sama: Love is War. While Oshi no Ko had me drawn in within the first twenty minutes, I was really never into Kaguya-sama. Does that mean that Oshi no Ko is better than Kaguya-sama? Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but it's certainly true that I enjoyed it more. If you’re a fan of one, you’re likely to be a fan of the other. ‘Non-Battle Battle Anime’ is generally something that’s better as an idea than in practice. Death Note has its moments, but overall is mediocre. Shokugeki no Souma (Food Wars) started out alright, but devolved into some of the worst anime I’ve ever watched by the fourth season (Third season part two? I don’t know. Doesn’t matter). The first volume of Classroom of the Elite (which got an anime adaptation with multiple sequels) only made me think of WHY would I, along with anyone else at the academy, would want to be part of the ‘elite’ of a country that’s been on the decline for thirty years straight? Most ‘Non-Battle Battle Anime’ is nothing more than making a mountain out of a molehill, or pseudo-intellectual garbage in Classroom of the Elite’s case. What makes Oshi no Ko better than anything else listed here is the ability to not get too involved in trying to make events seem important, and instead lets them play out. Not everything is the most important thing ever. Especially with series like Oshi no Ko where multiple side-plots are going parallel with the main plot. The exaggerated cynicism that often plagues other ‘Non-Battle Battle Anime’ isn’t a problem in Oshi no Ko as well. Sure, being an idol isn’t all sunshine and roses. Anyone who has half a brain knows that. Oshi no Ko doesn’t pretend like it’s a grand revelation that the idol industry is seedy and contains people of questionable morals. It doesn’t treat you like a dunce that needs to be spoon-fed everything. However, it does often tell you things that you actually didn’t know–like how the reason many YouTubers show off every new gadget they buy is for it to be a tax write-off. Maybe that’s just me not putting two and two together, but it makes sense considering that there’s no other reason why an idol or a podcast host would want to show off their new Hoover vacuum cleaner.

Speaking of the manga–I find the anime the more enjoyable version of Oshi no Ko. This is partly because I tend to prefer anime over manga in the first place, but also I feel like a series that’s centered around idols needs a voice for it to show its ‘true form’. The manga is good, don’t get me wrong, but there’s only so much you can do with only drawings. It’s like the difference between reading about a fight that goes on and being able to view it in visual form. There’s a reason why Dragon Ball doesn’t have any light novels (that I know of). Both the manga and anime are great. The user ratings for both will back that up. Your preference will depend on what you prefer in the first place most likely. The anime is the more appropriate medium for a series like Oshi no Ko in my opinion. That being said, it takes a manga to fully relay your idea for a story–one of idolization and revenge. Can’t have the cart without the horse.

A burning question you may have about Oshi no Ko is “What does it have to say about the idol industry?” Is it a ‘deconstruction’? Does it paint a positive view? Well, you know the latter isn’t true if you’ve made it this far. However, Oshi no Ko isn’t hyper-critical of the idol industry as it may seem. Sure, it would be easy to paint a cynical picture of the idol industry since it can be really nasty at times. Obsessive fans, very questionable use of underage girls, and the fact that idols are more than often forced to be ‘married’ to the fanbase. Having to forgo any relationship sans a business one with men and having to hide them if they do have one. Idol series like Love Live! forgo any mention of relationships with the other sex. Other than Miki Hoshii’s attachment to Producer-san, The Idolm@ster doesn’t show anything of the like either. Of course, that doesn’t stop either series from having yuri-fanatics ship characters together, or from doujin artists from drawing them getting railed, but in official media, these things are persona non grata. That’s because those series show an idealistic view of idols. They aren’t real people, so they can dance and sing all they want without worrying about reality. Reality often does shine its ugly light in those series, but it never defines it. The other end of this spectrum would be the film Perfect Blue. Perfect Blue is about a former idol, which technically isn’t the same as a ‘current idol’, but it still shows how one obsessive fan can give an otherwise normal woman chronic paranoia. Perfect Blue isn’t by any means over-cynical. It’s a great psychological thriller that still holds up to this day. Not exactly a shining endorsement of the idol industry, but that wasn’t the point. At least I think.

The point is that it’s easy to be hyper-cynical about everything idol related. However, that wouldn’t be a real representation of the idol industry either. While it may come off as ‘smart’, after a while it would just be lazy. Many people conflate pessimism with intelligence and optimism and dullness. Anime isn’t immune to that tendency. Too much cynicism only reveals that you have no idea what you’re talking about and are either too inept or apathetic to give an actual realistic view of what you’re trying to portray. Oshi no Ko thankfully doesn’t fall into this trap. I mean, for every obsessive fan there is, there are more fans like Ruby, who becomes an idol because she ‘idolizes’ them. The power of idols to brighten someone’s day is the reason why they still exist, even if you recognize that they’re ‘lies’ at the end of the day. Ruby isn’t the only one that decides to become an idol due to inspiration from former idols–many idols of today harbor fond memories of idols of yesterday. Like how many racers are inspired by the greats like Ayrton Senna and Dale Earnhardt, those that are taken from us too soon tend to be extra special to our hearts. Oshi no Ko is quick to point out that being an idol isn’t all fun and games–but that’s because being an entertainer, in general, isn’t as fun as it seems. Again, anyone with a brain knows that.

Aqua, who fully commits to being an actor so he can exact his revenge against those who caused the ‘unthinkable disaster’, has to work hard to keep climbing up the ranks. Having connections will only get you so far. He has the smarts that almost no 16-year-old boy has–mostly because he was book-smart enough to become an obstetrician in his past life. Thankfully for him, Aqua also has common sense, which makes it easier for him to use social manipulation in order to get closer to finding out the truth behind the ‘unthinkable disaster’. Being a handsome young man probably helps with that as well. The point is that to get his revenge, he needs to curry favor with industry higher-ups. Do a favor for them in exchange for information that’ll lead him closer to the answer. His journey, like Ruby’s, also shows the good, the bad, and the ugly about the entertainment industry. One of the arcs in the anime was inspired by real-life events from a dating show that’s similar to the one that Aqua participates in, so it isn’t like this isn’t made up out of whole cloth.

To answer the question, Oshi no Ko has a lot to say. Not only about the idol industry, but the entertainment industry as a whole. While it’s only a small part of the story, managing to strike a balance between blind idealism and realism enhances Oshi no Ko’s overall plot by a lot. It would be less powerful if it had Love Live’s interpretation of the entertainment industry or went the other way and everyone was a back-stabbing two-timing son-of-a-bitch ready to end your career to elevate theirs. The reality is that while there are a lot of social climbers, there are also earnest people. Aqua and Ruby meet people from both categories–and perhaps Aqua may be considered the former once you understand his true motives.

There isn’t much to rag about when it comes to Oshi no Ko. My main question as far as I know has gone unanswered is “What year is it?”. From the time that Aqua and Ruby are reborn to the current time, it seems that technology and society have not evolved whatsoever. One could say that the ‘current day’ is around now, which means they were reincarnated in the early 2000s, but that wouldn’t make sense because Ruby was already doom-scrolling and responding to hate directed towards her mother on an iPhone as a baby. That lead me to believe that the Oshi no Ko timeline was somewhere in the late 2030s, with technology not progressing any from the 2020s. Oshi no Ko doesn’t show Aqua or Ruby living in a techno-futurist utopia or dystopia. Society around them is ‘stuck’ in a sense. In order to find an answer to my question, I went to the Oshi no Ko subreddit. According to them, the answer is ‘whatever the mangaka (Akasaka) wants’. The evidence, however, suggests that Oshi no Ko takes place around the late-2010s, with Aqua and Ruby being born in 2004. This relies on the notion that Oshi no Ko and Kaguya-sama take place in the same universe. A Kaguya-sama character does make a cameo, so it’s not false to suggest that they are in the same universe. This wouldn’t explain how Aqua and Ruby were able to go viral on Twitter as babies when Twitter didn’t exist until a few years later. Ultimately, the conclusion is that it doesn’t matter, since it doesn’t interfere with the main plot at hand. It’s trivial to wonder why Twitter looks the same 15 years later, or why the technology in Oshi no Ko hasn’t progressed since Aqua and Ruby were born. It’s an afterthought that only pedants like me care about. It’s not the first series that had a fluid timeline, and it wouldn’t be the last.

As you can probably tell, there’s not much fault I can find with Oshi no Ko. Sure, I could be more nit-picky about certain details, but that has little to do with the story at hand. It checks off all of the boxes that make a great anime. The animation quality is superb. I don’t care for anime openings and endings, but most other watchers love the music–especially the opening theme. Aqua and Ruby both have separate missions in the entertainment industry, but both do it for their mother Ai–both storylines have a lot to offer. Neither storyline outshines the other, something that most anime that attempt the same fail to deliver. The supporting characters (super-supporting character in Kana’s case) also have compelling stories that feed into the main plot. It has the right balance between idealism and realism. Some more skeptical watchers may accuse Oshi no Ko of handing the dark side of ‘the industry’ with kid gloves. I disagree with that view since the industry isn’t as bad as some may like to think it is. The reason why stories like this are so compelling is because of how rare it is. If idols were getting jumped by obsessive fans every day, this wouldn’t be a story worth telling. No one would give a shit. If you dive too deep into the cynicism, you’ll end up looking as stupid as those who trick themselves into thinking that idols are for them, and them only.

With a second season coming ‘soon’, there’s no risk of diving into Oshi no Ko only to be left at a cliffhanger. This season ends at the beginning of the arc that I think does get too “Non-Battle Battle” with it. The anime adaptation of it should flow better–it’s hard to read multiple chapters that are just monologues. Way easier to shove that into one or two episodes. Then again, I’m more than likely in the minority when it comes to being bearish on the 2.5 Stage Play arc. I hate to admit it, but it kinda got too much for me at a point. Luckily, that’s the only arc where that happens. Either way, I’ll be watching it, and I recommend that you do too.

Is Oshi no Ko the anime of the year? Well, I wouldn’t go that far since we still have two seasons' worth of anime yet to be aired. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was voted AOTY at whatever award show Crunchyroll hosts. I wouldn’t complain either. It’s genuinely a very good show that deserves the praise it gets.

90/100

[z-saint-box]

High Guardian Spice Series Review

[reviewing the show as a whole]

"So what exactly was all the fuss about?" "Is this review a food?"

[If you haven't already, I recommend reading some of my episode reviews for this series]

Scandalous and infamous, High Guardian Spice is notorious for everything that it is. If you're reading this, chances are, you are already aware of its nasty reputation. The series has received so much negative press, so much vitriol, that I was encouraged to watch it for myself. For this reason, it received much more attention than it is probably deserving of.

As a result, I actually love how provocative it is, because there are worse shows and better shows that have never achieved the same level of attention or infamy as High Guardian Spice. If you want a show that's even worse, just watch Angel's Friends. Critics are quick to point out the irony of the show's title, because all four protagonists are named after herbs, and not spices. However, the reason behind the name is revealed at the very end of the series. Rosemary, being the leader of her team, comes up with it; and as established, she is impulsive, and may even have below-average intelligence. But even after knowing the names of each herb, I never had a problem with the name of the series.

Critics are also harsh on the show's intro for being generic with simplistic lyrics. Yet, I'm surprised that they didn't mention Windy Wagner slurring the vocals. Even though another take would've been nice, and the fact I still don't know what's "warm and bright," I actually like intro theme for its optimism and sense of adventure; and the fact that opening sequence is synched to the lyrics.

To "become the light" means to become a hero, what the girls, especially Rosemary, intend to do. Just look at her face when she looks in the mirror. Her expression shows absolute determination and will. For the reasons above, I find myself listening to the intro on repeat and wanting to watch it for every episode.

Interestingly, High Guardian Spice is nowhere to be found on Windy's official website. In spite of this, I actually love the work she did for it.

However, I have a lower opinion towards the credits. While it expresses the joy of friendship, it just sounds too childish. While it does work for the majority of episodes, it absolutely does not when placed after episodes like "Festival of Fall" or "Scypith." The shift in mood is absolutely jarring and I don't know why anyone at Ellation Studios didn't notice. Both parts of the Autumn Processional conclude on dark endings, and after the scypith is killed, the girls melodramatically cry over its death before suddenly becoming happy again in the closing sequence.

It's even more bizarre considering the content warning before each episode. If the show is not meant for children, then why does every episode have an ending designed for toddlers? Raye has said that the advisory is not his doing; instead, Crunchyroll is responsible, even though the show is nothing a ten-year old cannot handle, save for a bit of profanity.

[the show's advisory, although what for?]

Although speaking of, I definitely dislike the swearing, not because I am a prude; but because the characters look too cute to use foul language. One exception is Rosemary calling Mandrake an asshole. It's not only funny, but she is clearly the kind of girl to use that word.

The major conflict in the world of High Guardian Spice is the battle between old magic and new magic. Despite this, the show is extremely vague about the difference between them. It is not clearly explained or even demonstrated beyond their names and how powerful they are. The best I understand is, terrasphere are new magic, and they amplify magic powers. If I am wrong about this, it's the show's fault for not being more clear.

Going beyond its allegory or metaphor for technology, new magic is a recent development in the show's universe, and the fact it can do anything, it should be causing problems in the world; i.e. new magic is causing new problems that have never been seen before, especially if it's more powerful than old magic for the world to responsibly handle. New magic is more powerful, but also more dangerous.

A lot of viewers speculate that new magic is behind the Fairy Rot; and in all likelihood, they are correct. For the reasons described above, new magic is causing the destruction of the Fairy Woods. All of this however, is in the subtext, or background.

I should also mention that I still don't know what a guardian is, beyond protecting someone or something. I'm willing to guess that a guardian is someone that defends Lyngarth, or it may even be a special class of people with special privileges. For that matter, High Guardian Academy might even be a military school.

Similarly, an explanation for why Rose's parents switched gender roles would've been nice. Likewise, it also would have been nice to know more about Chicory, Rosemary's older brother; because surely, he is an important person in Rosemary's life. But for whatever reason, he is not attending High Guardian Academy just like her, and he doesn't even show up in Rosemary's flashback in the third episode. Even though he could easily be written out the show without consequence, I don't want him to.

For the reasons above, the world-building terrible. The most crucial elements of the story are not clearly explained or just as bad, under-developed.

Each of the four main characters have their own personal issue that suits their overall personality; Rosemary coping with losing her mother, Sage being caught between old magic and new magic as well as dealing with a school bully, Parsley needing to assume maternal responsibilities at home, and lastly, Thyme looking for a solution to the rot that is destroying her home in the Fairy Woods.

Initially, I didn't like Rosemary, not because critics say she is stupid and annoying; but because of her character design. Her hairstyle and frilly skirt are completely impractical for combat. However, I have eventually come to respect her for multiple reasons.

In the first episode, she wants to chase after an animal she believes has rabies. While this is obviously an extremely dangerous thing to do in real life and should have probably been replaced with something milder, this demonstrates her curiosity about the world, even if it is reckless.

She is an energetic tomboy that idolizes her mother; and wanting to be just like her, has a strong sense of justice and virtue, as well as perseverance and determination. This is best demonstrated in the second part of "Festival of Fall." Despite her feuding with Sage in the episode, Rosemary goes after Olive anyways and fights her.

As for Sage, she could've been my favorite character of the show. Despite ostensibly being the smart girl, the early episodes show how innocent and naive she is. Her stubbornness to adapt to new magic is actually her clinging on to her naivety and her desire to honor old magic.

While I have heard critics deride her outfit for being generic, this actually demonstrates the conservative nature of tradition. Despite being dressed modestly, she still looks cute anyways.

But all of this begs the question of why her parents send her to High Guardian to begin with if the curriculum is exclusively new magic. However, I speculate that they're so conservative that they are completely oblivious to the new standards, and even the fact that the world is changing.

Unfortunately, Sage loses her initial characterization in the episode "Crushing Obstacles." She comes across as condescending when she claims that guys do not talk about their feelings, despite Parnelle talking about his feelings to her in the previous episode, and even crying. Worst of all, Sage's behavior is triggered by Rosemary having a crush on Aster.

While it turns out that he is not a good match for her (at least according to what the writers intended), how Sage behaves is such a bizarre contrast to what she is like in the previous episodes. The reasons above are why I like Rosemary more than Sage, despite having a personality that is the polar opposite of mine; and despite Sage being a character I have more in common with.

Now would be a bad time to mention that I actually like Amaryllis. What I like is how, despite being much smaller than the entire student population, she dominates the school in spite of her height, and has a ton of fun doing it. Small, fearless, and proud, she is so entertaining that even the fandom likes her.

But my absolute favorite character is Parsley. Aside from being short and adorable, and also doing it with short hair, she is the most likeable protagonist for being optimistic, friendly, and cheerful. Having a great personality, she is the one main character that most people, even critics, are fine with. I also need to mention how she laughs in the episode "Transformations." Her laugh is so angelic, I find myself re-watching Rosemary burp just to hear it again.

But compared to the other girls, she has no meaningful conflict to face. Additionally, she has been a blacksmith since birth, she doesn't need schooling. The second episode shows that she is already proficient.

For this reason, I had to speculate why Parsley would like to attend High Guardian Academy. Her enrollment is redundant, and she can just get an apprenticeship under her father. However, another user I spoke to has speculated that, by going to High Guardian, she will be able to become her own blacksmith sooner. By doing this, she will be able to help her family out by earning a higher income.

I have also guessed that her life at home prevents her making friends. After all, before attending, it was her responsibility to look after her brothers. Without her, her parents will have more trouble taking care of the boys, although this could be mitigated if her parents had less. But by living away from home, Parsley does not struggle like the other girls do.

As for Thyme, I don't have any strong opinion on her. Part of the problem is that she is stoic; and as a minor criticism, her bow makes no sense whatsoever. The strings come out from the top and bottom, but then they magically connect.

[either she is distressed, or she had a bowel movement, from the episode "Festival of Fall, part one"]

The show is not formulaic; and because each episode is unique, I can easily identify any episode just by looking at a screenshot. I also love how each one begins with a cold opening, as a way to build anticipation for the next adventure that Rosemary and the girls will have. The best teaser is the one for "Rainy Day Memories."

While I prefer shows without a central story arc; and despite High Guardian Spice's linear nature, it is short enough that this is not a problem. And because there's only twelve episodes, the show has relatively strong continuity.

And even when the show's harshest critics have seen everything wrong with the show, it still has personality. Even if you think the show is terrible, it's still unique for what it is. You could even argue it's so bad it's good.

Overall, High Guardian Spice feels like a very rough draft that Raye and his studio weren't allowed to proofread or revise. The writing, being all over the place, encompasses an entire gamut from bad, to clumsy, to unfinished. What complicates everything is how the show was under-financed, badly promoted and rushed. After all, the production crew had to start the storyboard process for the first episode before the script was even finished.

A part of me believes everything would have been explained with a second season, but at the time of writing this, there are no plans for season two. And at the time of writing this, Ellation Studios has shut down. Interestingly, Raye would like to reboot the show instead of continuing it. I can only imagine how badly Crunchyroll (mis)treated the series as badly as it did.

In spite of all of this, the show looks great, and I absolutely adore the aesthetics. This includes the character designs and the environments; and at least the show doesn't use flash animation all that often. But High Guardian Spice is so cute, it's clumsy; or, it's so clumsy, it's cute. For these reasons, I actually like the show.

However, there is a caveat to note. Because I already knew a lot about the show before watching a single episode, I was already aware of its problems; so I accepted most of them without question and didn't take it all that seriously. Having low expectations, I just didn't find myself hating it as the average person.

Although, if you have seen my image of Parsley and Heauxy, you already know that I like the show enough to make fanart out of it, and the fact I posted screenshots from it.

There are easy fixes for most of its problems; and in fact, I could probably fix them myself. The most effective would be to remove old magic and new magic completely or to explain the difference between them more clearly.

And besides, with how much hatred it has received, it has a unique, but highly provocative identity, even when the production studio was not trying to make it that way. I actually like it for what it is. But what I really dislike is how difficult this review was to write.

With (or even because of) the amount of vitriol against it, there is still charm to be found in the world of High Guardian Spice. In fact, I'm in the mood to watch it again to see if my opinion sours.

For most critics, the show has left a bitter taste in their mouths; but for me, the show just doesn't taste all that bad. This particular spice is not meant for everyone; but at the same time, not all spices need to taste like cinnamon.

Grade: B - (is the internet going to kill me for this?)

[hotfudgecherryrosy]

A couple friends and I watched the first four episodes of Hazbin last night. It was fine. Other than the most tasteless scene ive ever seen in my life. But if it had been removed then the show would be fine.

Edit: As I mentioned in my comment below, I went to seek out other perspectives. I didn’t see a ton since I looked briefly and I don’t have any other social media, but it seems like a significant amount of SA survivors may find Poison as more respectful than my initial thoughts. Maybe I let my initial feelings watching the scene cloud my perspective (it’s meant to be disgusting and uncomfortable), or had the recent scandal too much in the back of my mind, but the last thing I want to be is the person that hates a show just because of some drama or speak over the experiences of others. Overall, I thought episode 4 was actually really good, probably the best out of the bunch. I also found the representation of Angel Dust pretty respectful overall.

Though I do want to mention it’s UNACCEPTABLE that the episode didn’t have a trigger warning before it

I don’t want to say a ton more because I suck at critical analysis and my friend is writing a longer review that I’m gonna help provide art/ music insight on and I don’t wanna step on his toes.

(also added tw’s because of my additions to the post)

[bakerstreetbabble]

Granada TV Series Review: "A Scandal in Bohemia" (S01 E01)

Welcome to my newest project here on Baker Street Babble: reviews of all 41 episodes of Granada TV’s Sherlock Holmes series, which ran on the ITV network in Great Britain, as well as PBS in America, from 1984 to 1994. This first review may run a bit longer than subsequent reviews, as I shall attempt to “set the scene,” as it were, and give some background on the series and its cast. The Granada series starred Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, and Brett’s performance was hailed by many as the quintessential Holmes of his generation, and perhaps of all time.

Before the Granada series began, many fans of Sherlock Holmes had considered Basil Rathbone’s portrayal of the great detective to be the most iconic in film history. Certainly Nigel Bruce’s Dr. Watson was a bit less popular with many Sherlockians, as many of them objected to Bruce’s portrayal of Watson as a buffoonish, bumbling sidekick. Also, despite the two films Rathbone and Bruce did for 20th Century Fox being presented in a Victorian setting, the rest of the Rathbone/Bruce films had been set in the 20th century. One of the aims of the Granada series clearly was to return Holmes and Watson to an authentic Victorian setting. Beyond simply returning the duo to the late 19th century, there was clearly a desire to be as faithful to the original stories, as well as the Sidney Paget illustrations that had accompanied them. To a very great degree, the series was successful in this mission. Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes was, by all reports, obsessed with making his performance as close to the original canon as possible. David Burke, who was the first actor to play Watson in the Granada series, was a very different character from Nigel Bruce’s bumbler. Burke’s Watson was far closer to the Watson we read about in ACD’s original stories: a Victorian gentleman, intelligent and loyal to a fault.

As I review each episode in the series, I shall share my thoughts as to how the adaptation compares to the original story, as well as my opinions as to how successful each episode is, not only as an adaptation, but as visual storytelling in its own right. I shall provide links to YouTube video of each episode and to an online version of each story, so the reader may access both story and adaptation. My thoughts and opinions are my own, and I fully expect some Sherlockians (and non-Sherlockians who may read the reviews) to have differing opinions. So without further ado, let us proceed with the first episode, “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

“A Scandal in Bohemia” was the very first Sherlock Holmes short story to be published in The Strand Magazine in 1891. Arthur Conan Doyle had published two Holmes novels before the short stories began to appear: A Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Sign of the Four (1890). Neither novel was particularly successful to begin with. But the scene had been set: a brilliant detective and his loyal partner. “A Scandal in Bohemia” as a story begins with words that immediately capture the reader’s attention: “To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.” Thus are we introduced to Irene Adler, a fairly minor character in the Sherlock Holmes canon, but nonetheless one whose presence in Holmes pastiches and film/TV adaptations has been immense.

This episode first aired on April 24, 1984. Readers who are familiar with the original story will notice the difference in the visual storytelling that opens the adaptation immediately. Instead of Watson’s narration beginning the episode, we are given a short introductory scene in which some thugs are ransacking Irene’s home. The plucky woman catches them in the act and calmly holds them at gunpoint. As the camera zooms in on the woman’s face, we hear Watson’s familiar narration begin. (Perhaps the tiniest bit unfamiliar to an American viewer, when Watson pronounces Irene’s name as “Ee-ray-na” rather than “Eye-reen.”) The scene then shifts to Watson arriving at the iconic lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where a sizable number of scenes throughout the series will take place.

There are some changes made to the opening scene between Holmes and Watson, where we are first introduced to the famous duo, that are not different enough from the original story to be distracting, but are certainly interesting to readers of the stories. Right off the bat, the observant reader will notice that, instead of stopping by the old flat after having been separated from Holmes due to his recent marriage, as he is in the story, Watson’s voice-over in the episode informs the viewer that he and Holmes still share a flat together at the time of the story, but that the doctor’s medical practice has called him away to the country for several days. So at the beginning of the series, gone is the married Dr. Watson visiting his friend and former roommate, to be replaced by a bachelor who still resides at 221B Baker Street. The iconic partnership is unbroken.

The episode then replaces the banter about marriage and medical practice with a sequence that was originally from the opening of The Sign of the Four, wherein Dr. Watson criticizes his friend for his drug use, the famous “seven-per-cent solution” of cocaine. The scene closely mirrors this passage from The Sign of the Four:

I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer. “Which is it to-day?” I asked,—“morphine or cocaine?” He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. “It is cocaine,” he said,—“a seven-per-cent. solution. Would you care to try it?” “No, indeed,” I answered, brusquely. “My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it.” He smiled at my vehemence. “Perhaps you are right, Watson,” he said. “I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment.” “But consider!” I said, earnestly. “Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable.”

Although it is quite different from the beginning of the original story, it is quite effective at setting the scene. And I was impressed by how intelligent David Burke’s Watson is, especially when compared to the old Nigel Bruce model. When Holmes asks him to examine the letter he has received, Watson is more than capable of some pretty nifty deduction of his own. But, of course, one of the more striking elements right away is Jeremy Brett.

Brett is a marvel: every mannerism, every gesture, every word creates a version of Holmes that, at the time the episode aired, had rarely been seen its match in the faithfulness to Doyle’s character. I remember thinking, when I first saw some of the Granada episodes when they first aired on PBS during my teen years, “This is it! This is how Holmes is supposed to look and sound.” Indeed, throughout this first episode, the production values, the costumes, the sets, all reflect to a remarkable degree the nuances of Sidney Paget’s original illustrations.

It’s all extremely well done. For the reader of the original stories, the attention to detail, the fidelity to the original, the acting and the writing, are all top notch. That’s not to say that this is the perfect opening to a Sherlock Holmes series. To begin with, “A Scandal in Bohemia” is kind of an unusual Holmes story: there is no real mystery to be solved, and despite a little bit of deductive prowess towards the beginning of the episode (figuring out where the letter had come from before his client arrives, that sort of thing), there’s not a whole lot of the deductive prowess one expects from the legendary detective. In fact, even in the original story, one may come to the conclusion that Holmes is working for the wrong side. Irene is clearly the wronged party, and the King of Bohemia is not a very nice guy. By the end, Irene has tricked Holmes rather nicely. But his delight at having been tricked (by a woman, of all people!) is delightful to read, and it’s delightful to watch in the episode.

Meanwhile, we are also treated to Jeremy Brett as Holmes showing his talent in disguise, as he portrays a stable groom and an elderly clergyman. The actress who plays Irene (Gayle Hunnicutt) is quite good, a real Victorian heroine. The only thing I find puzzling is that she speaks with a British accent, even though Irene is clearly described as an American from New Jersey, and the actress was from Fort Worth, TX! Why not let her do an American accent? Still, watching the episode for the first time in a couple years, I was pretty impressed by how this one sets the scene. We know right off the bat that this series will set a very high bar as far as its faithfulness to its source material. The acting and the writing is all top-notch.

Even though I think there are more exciting episodes to come, I find “A Scandal in Bohemia” to be a very fine opening to an excellent series. Very high marks in every respect.

[leekimdramas]

It's Okay to Be Sensitive 3 Review

For a drama with this name, it really said it's actually NOT okay to be sensitive.

A story about four friends trying to navigate through life and issues. Dating life, being an idol trainee, worrying about your siblings.

I have also reviewed the second season: It's Okay To Be Sensitive 2 (Every season is told with different characters, so you can watch it without seeing previous ones)

This review will have spoilers because I just wanted to rant about how I disliked it.

This season disappointed me so much that I don't even know where to begin... I'm pretty sure, the writer was changed because I have no other explanation.

The first episode talks about a scandal in which an idol had sex with someone. It is a good topic, but the way they dealt with it, was just embarrassing.

This episode has two points of view: that it's okay and it is not... And we never got to learn if it IS right or wrong...

This drama did not have to spell it out for the viewers but the other seasons are all about learning. For example what is considered sexual harassment, how women feel in those situations etc.

In the previous ones, they also talked about feminism and how it is okay to be a feminist. However, this season we're not really sure anymore???

Yes, they did say, they're all feminists at the end of the episode but it doesn't teach viewers anything.

The viewers just see 4 friends saying: "Feminism is bad because my date said so..." A second later it's good because that's what the second male said...

"Oh, we also sometimes feel shamed! Let's be feminists!" What is this writing????

This is such a current topic in S. Korea and all around the world, so why not take the time to teach something?

My only favourite thing was the whole drama with the idol trainee who got a sex tape leaked. It also was deepfake (I think), which is also an interesting topic.

Another great episode was when they said that a girl shouldn't feel pressured to have sex. That episode seemed like the old seasons.

The characters of the drama were.... Not that great? My favourite was the traine Do Eun and the men were okay.

But Ah Young was the most annoying person ever... They're 26 (around that age) but she's acting like a 5-year-old. Mostly it is aegyeo that she's always doing but she also seems to not have any thoughts.

After all of this, you would think that maybe, friendship would fix a tiny bit. But I'm not sure they were even friends???

Back to the first episode topic... They have a friend who was in a similar scandal (an even worse one). Why as a friend bring it all up??Especially than one of them is advocating that idols should not even love someone.

They also don't know each other's Instagram which I found weird... Again THEY'RE FRIENDS.

These are just two situations but there are more... At this point, they might be just strangers.

To sum it all up, this was a terrible season. Maybe, if you haven't watched others, it might be alright. However, knowing what this drama is supposed to be, makes me angry.

Just get a new drama with a new name.

2/10

[ausetkmt]

Before “The Other Black Girl” had even hit bookshelves in 2021, Hulu had already snapped up the rights to bring Zakiya Dalila Harris’s fictional thriller to the small screen. Praised as a timely reckoning of thelargely White publishing industry, “The Other Black Girl” was touted as an heir to “The Devil Wears Prada” and Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.” Two years later, Hulu’s adaptation has arrived, keeping the spirit of Harris’s debut novel — and the well-deserved buzz around it — firmly intact.

The show introduces Nella Rogers (Sinclair Daniel), an ambitious editorial assistant at the fictional Wagner Books, where she is the only Black staffer. We quickly learn that the publishing househas only ever had one Black editor in its decades-long history. Taking in the drab executive portraits that line Wagner’s lobby, Nella’s eyes inevitably drift to the only Black face on the wall: Kendra Rae Phillips.

Kendra Rae looms large as the editor who championed and nurtured Nella’s favorite book, “Burning Heart.” Paradoxically, the groundbreaking 1983 novel — by Kendra Rae’s childhood friend Diana Gordon — helped put Wagner and its eponymous founder/editor in chief, Richard (Eric McCormack of “Will & Grace” fame), on the map. But four decades later, that legacy is wearing thin. So Nella is almost too excited when Hazel-May McCall (“Riverdale’s” Ashleigh Murray) appears one day in the cubicle adjacent to hers.

As Nella tries to discern whether she can trust Hazel, she starts feeling as if she’s being followed and receives notes advising her to “LEAVE WAGNER NOW.” Hazel seems oddly cozy with Richard, and seems to effortlessly get along with Wagner’s editors, including Nella’s boss, Vera (“Scandal’s” Bellamy Young).

With help from her boyfriend, Owen (“Weeds” alum Hunter Parrish), and BFF, Malaika (Brittany Adebumola), Nella keeps careful — even paranoid — tabs on Hazel, investigating what she fears could be a dangerous corporate conspiracy. Though the series veers into vaguely supernatural territory, the challenging tête-à-tête at the center of “The Other Black Girl” is very real. Nella is relieved to see another Black face at Wagner, but she’s also wary of sabotage. As the saying goes, “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk,” a variation of a quote attributed to Zora Neale Hurston.

Like Peele’s feature debut, “The Other Black Girl” punctuates its thrills with social commentary — casting racism as the story’s Big Bad. The hairs on your neck might stand up after seeing Nella run confused through Wagner’s dimly lit office after hours, hearing menacing voices, but any sighting of Nella’s try-hard colleague Sophie (Kate Owens) sets off a similar, if slightly less urgent, level of alarm. If you know, you know the type: shows up at your desk to discuss anything vaguely Black — hip-hop, Beyoncé visuals, the latest Telfar drop; uses words and phrases she probably shouldn’t; and offers only the most performative displays of allyship for her BIPOC (and it’s always BIPOC) colleagues.

The plot can get a bit unwieldy throughout the course of its 10 episodes, and there are some tone issues (forgivable for a series that straddles drama, comedy and thriller), but the show is as timely as its source material in the wake of a so-called racial reckoning that, among other discourse, brought to light the inequities that Black and other employees of color face at predominantly White companies.

“The Other Black Girl” might sound triggering for those who know the experience of being Black in a predominantly White office or industry. But the show is clever in its sendup of those homogenous environments and never feels like an outsider’s guide to tokenism. In one early scene, a White editor breezily notes that “Hazel mentors underprivileged studentsup in Harlem.” “We use the term opportunity-challenged,” Hazel says without missing a beat. “Our job is to embolden them beyond their circumstances.” It’s not inconsequential that there are Black women at the helm of the series: Harris, who adapted her own novel for television; executive producer Rashida Jones, who co-wrote the first episode with the author, and Jordan Reddout, who served as showrunner alongside her longtime writing partner, Gus Hickey.

The realities of being Black at work haven’t been widely explored on television. Notable exceptions include Issa Rae’s “Insecure,” in which Rae’s protagonist struggles through her aimless underemployment at a nonprofit geared toward Black and Latino youth. “The Other Black Girl” is about publishing, but Hollywood doesn’t go unchecked in a story that centers Black women and offers multiple Black actresses dynamic lead roles. When Garcelle Beauvais (known for memorable turns on “NYPD Blue” and “The Jamie Foxx Show”) shows up as the Diana Gordon, you get the sense that she has more to do here than in most of the other unscripted roles she’s held since breaking out in the late 1980s.

“The Other Black Girl” reflects a workplace culture that quietly tolerates discrimination. The show comes as some corporations that stumbled over themselves to hop on the diversity-and-inclusion train have quietly let go of the executives they hired to hold them accountable. Black women still work in environments where they are told to be confident (but not too confident) and that consistently undervalue their talent, expertise and financial worth. “The Other Black Girl” zeroes in on the absurdity of it all, but also the complexities.

[cleoenfaserum]

DEAD RINGERS

SEASON 1 EPISODE 2

A Dinner to Remember

LISTEN or READ or LISTEN&READ

Episode 2 of Dead Ringers begins with Elliot conducting the embryo transfer to Beverly. We then cut to Rebecca, sitting on a table across from the twins. Elliot is in a bathrobe with wet hair while Beverly is in a t-shirt, looking haggard. Rebecca asks Beverly if she really wants this. Reluctantly, Beverly admits she does.

17 hours and 37 minutes earlier, the FDA is all over Tom’s lab as Elliot and Tom watch. He says they’re here because of a 16-day embryo in an incubator, which is very illegal. Elliot promises to get him a job. He admits the embryo was beautiful.

At home, Elliot listens to moans coming from Beverly’s room and slurps on a lime, moving in rhythm with them.

Later, Greta sees the twins off as they go to meet the Parkers. In the car, Elliot taunts Beverly about Genevieve. Joseph calls them but any conversation with him is lost in Elliot’s remarks about Beverly. She even throws Beverly’s neatly compiled notes out the window.

We then see Elliot and Beverly meet a host of people at Rebecca’s place, accompanied by the information Joseph gave them earlier. There’s Gwen Anderson, who runs a wellness empire and used to date Rebecca. When Gwen asks Beverly about children, she claims she doesn’t want them anymore.

Joseph claims her husband is just a husband and not much more. There’s also Ju-won, a Korean man who is a board member. He works in robots and AR and VR and is accompanied by his translator. When Elliot makes a joke about gaming, Rebecca and some others remark that the twins’ proposal is boring. Behind Rebecca, is a giant painting of a vagina that belongs to one of her exes (and mother of one of her many children). There’s also an older woman, who’s Rebecca’s lawyer and has heavy sway over Rebecca’s decisions.

At home, Greta steals tampons and blood soaked tissues from the bin. She then takes samples of hair and skin from all around the house.

The dinner party also includes McKenzie, Rebecca’s niece, whose side of the family was involved in the opioid scandal. She invented one product and earned a lot of money for it. When Beverly tries to make small talk, McKenzie calls her out for pretending to not know about the opioid crisis.

When Beverly is taken aback by a display of meat, including horse, Ju-won calls her a hypocrite for enjoying the chicken well enough. Elliot then gets handed a card with game rules on it, saying she has to kidnap Beverly at some point in the night. When Susan asks Beverly to treat one of their pregnant maids, Beverly’s pleasant exchange with the maid leaves everyone disappointed.

While Rebecca’s children sing a song for the crowd, one of the men tells Beverly she has a period stain and even offers her a tampon. In the bathroom, Beverly tells Elliot she wants to go home. Elliot says they all hate Beverly but they love Elliot and so she can get the funding for them.

Susan speaks to Beverly about how Rebecca has enough children but opening the birthing centre will make her feel like a mother. Later, Beverly and Elliot together pitch their centre to the board members. They are bored by Beverly’s desire of making it accessible for everyone and are instead intrigued by Elliot’s penchant for innovation — delaying menopause, making test tube babies and more. Rebecca accuses Beverly’s desire to help people as simply a way to make her feel good about herself.

At home, Greta is gathering up all the collected samples when the twins’ mother phones and leaves a message on the recorder. Greta switches out the tapes.

At Rebecca’s house, an alarm rings four kidnappers kidnap four people as part of the game. Elliot kidnaps Beverly.

Rebecca takes her lawyer’s opinion. She says the Mantle twins could be a liability but it could also be quite fun.

Elliot dumps Beverly, whose hands are tied, into the cellar and tells her to make it back to the bonfire. She then proceeds to watch Ju-won and his translator as they fight (the translator was to kidnap Ju-won). She tells Ju-won to take off his pants. They have sex and Beverly looks straight at the translator the entire time.

Inside the cellar, Beverly screams. She climbs into the vents and finds her way back to the bonfire. Everybody cheers but Beverly goes off on all of them for being terrible humans and claims she doesn’t want any money. She then pushes Elliot into the pool.

This takes us back to the present, where Beverly reluctantly admits she does want the money. Rebecca agrees to give them more than the money they were offered for a flagship birthing centre that would then lead to a chain of centres across the country. She makes it clear that this is only for the money.

In the morning, Greta picks the twins up. The silence in the car is tense. Beverly doesn’t want it, but Elliot does. Elliot asks Beverly about her comment on children again and asks if things with Genevieve are serious. Beverly calls Rebecca and accepts the offer.

The twins get off by their apartment and Greta takes the car to her house. An old lady sleeps on a chair inside. Greta takes her bag of collections to a room downstairs, where she pulls out a tampon and puts it in a larger jar. She then listens to the tape recording of the twins’ mum’s message.

At the support group, Beverly talks about being with a new woman who Elliot, her late sister, wouldn’t have liked. She asks if it’s awful to feel relieved her sister isn’t around. The guide tells her it’s okay to remember loved ones as flawed people and she doesn’t have to miss every aspect of them.

The Episode Review

Episode 2 takes the plot further by offering a group of what seem like literal sociopaths. Each one of these rich and accomplished people have their own idiosyncrasies and as a viewer, you are likely to be as repulsed as Beverly, and as fascinated as Elliot. What’s really interesting is the mishmash of dialogue from so many different people and how it still is coherent, and gripping, for the viewer.

Beverly and Elliot seem more different than ever in this episode, which is not what I was expecting. Going by the source material, the 1988 film, I’d assume Beverly is as eccentric as her sister. It’s intriguing to see her play the goody two shoes in this episode but I’m hoping her character is more fleshed out in the coming episodes.

The editing continues to ensure the show has a high-speed feel to it although, a few jump cuts do leave one a bit confused and needing to fill the gap on their own.

[cocochannel00]

The Azoff Family: A Case Study on one of the Music Industry’s Most Connected Families

(ft. a breakdown of the Grammy voting process and problems)

This is very long so I will try and split it up into categories for everyone (sorry I got carried away- I spent like 2 hours writing this) but enjoy!

*Disclaimer: I want to preface while the majority of this is based in research, some parts may be speculation. I don’t know the family personally so I can’t tell you what goes on behind closed doors but I can tell you how parts of the entertainment/music industry work. I’ve had 5 internships in the industry (one in marketing at one of the big record labels) and the rest of my work is publicity (what I enjoy) and events and a former advisor used to run in the same circles as Irving Azoff (and he spilled some tea last year) I’m not out here to diminish the hard work of any artists or their teams, I’m simply here to showcase parts of the industry that aren’t always shown.*

Please also see: Story Time: How Fan Pages Directly Impact Columbia Records Decisions and Harry Styles Image

IRVING AZOFF: NEVER STOP THE GRIND

Let’s begin with the great business man himself Mr. Irving Azoff Irving Azoff is the literal posture child for connections and power in the music industry (he was also inducted into the 2020 rock and roll hall of fame class which is like a huge fucking deal for a manager to be inducted so you know he's the real deal)

In conclusion, I love Irving Azoff and his drive.

Irving Azoff: Early Years Run Down:

He came up middle class (dad was a pharmacist, mom a bookkeeper) in Danville, Illinois

He dropped out of college to run a small Midwestern concert-booking empire and managed local acts in the era

Opportunity came knocking and he got the chance to manage the Eagles and the rest is history

He's one of the best negotiators and has negotiated business on behalf of stars like Stevie Nicks, the Eagles, and Jimmy Buffet

Azoff has been an incredible manager and his drive to always advocate for his clients while basically not giving two sh*ts about what people think of him has gotten him the incredible reputation he has today.

All of Irving Azoff’s Major Job Positions:

Former President MCA (major label)

Former CEO of Ticketmaster and executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the behemoth formed from Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation.

In 2013 he and Cablevision Systems Corp. CEO and New York Knicks owner James Dolan formed a partnership, Azoff MSG Entertainment (Currently still CEO)

----> Azoff also ran the Forum in Inglewood under Azoff MSG Entertainment after MSG purchased it in 2012 (it was sold in 2020 to the owner of the Clippers) — why do you think Harry played the forum for the Fine Line show? Azoff connection

Azoff MSG Entertainment encompasses all of the other companies including Full Stop Management, Global Music Rights (performance-rights org), and the Oak View Group (arena developing company)

He also is the co-founder and manager of the lobbying group Music Artists Coalition, a group that helps lobby for artists-rights issues such as royalty rates, copyright issue and healthcare insurance (see he's not all bad)

Essentially what I'm getting at is this man knows anybody who's anybody. He's the man you want on your team to help promote your music, plan your tour, and get you on that Grammy nom list.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

JEFFREY AZOFF: THE CHILD OF NEPOTISM

So for those of you that don't know, Jeffery Azoff is Harry's current manager and the son of Irving Azoff (the third of four kids). He's currently a partner at Full Stop Management, the company owned by Irving and the one artists such as Harry, Haim, the Eagles, Kings of Leon, and Meghan Trainer are signed to.

Jeffrey graduated from the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business and started working fresh out of college at his father's old Management company (Frontline Management) working under Maroon 5's manager Jordan Feldstein (the only way you get that kind of internship/job as a 21 year old fresh out of college is if your family or family friends gives it to you). He worked here for 5 years.

Direct Quote from Irving Azoff to Jeffrey (really tells you a lot): "Listen carefully, because I’m going to say this one time. You have a phone and you have my last name. If you can’t figure it out, you’re not my son."

After working for his father, Jeffrey moved on to the talent agency CAA (Creative Artist Agency) where he worked for roughly 3 and half years before joining his dad in forming Full Stop Management in 2016.

While he was at CAA, Irving moved over clients like Christina Aguilera and the Eagles to the talent agency to help with tour booking instead of doing it internally through LiveNation (he was CEO).

Even though I'm sure Jeff has had to work somewhat hard to get to where he is (or at least to mess up his dad's work as he doesn't seem like the type to take laziness well), the door into the industry and every job was basically handed to him on a silver platter.

Not to mention if you watch episodes of keeping up with the  kardashians (like myself) you can actually see Jeff hanging out with kendall and the rest of the fam at their Palm Springs house (you know you're a nepotism kid if you have an in with the Kardashian crew). Invite me next time Jeffrey!!!

Think of the Azoff's as the mafia family of the music industry, you don't mess with the mafia

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE GRAMMY AWARDS: STUDENT COUNCIL ELECTIONS ON STEROIDS

Ok so here's where we’re going to get into a bit more of the speculation/grey area. I don't need to tell you that award shows are corrupt (See the Golden Globes Emily in Paris scandal) and the Grammys are not an exception. Think of the Grammys as one big student council/government elections where despite the fact the teachers tell you six times to vote for the best candidate, you're still going to vote for your friends even if they aren't the best.

A simplified break-down of Grammy voting:

1) Recording Academy voting members (artists, producers, musicians- anyone involved first hand with the creation of music; All voting members must have been producers, performers or engineers on six or more tracks of a commercially released album (or 12 or more digital tracks) and record labels will submit nominations in various categories to the grammys (songs need to be released commercially between October 1 of the previous year and September 30th of this year). You can also become a voting member by either winning a grammy or being endorsed by a current voting member (hint hint)

2) Once received, the recording academy with have the academy of trustees and its reviewers organize them and approve any changes to the 30 categories/fields (aka they can add new categories or remove old ones; so no best ukulele album of the year -- this is where things get funky)

There's speculation that during this stage when these special groups of 8-10 people are organizing genres, there's an "unwritten rule" that you need to be careful what album you green light (especially for famous artists) if you don't want them to win) (Rob Kenner said this- he used to be on one of these committees). Famous people tend to get more votes from clueless or lay Academy members that don't know the specialized categories or don't care enough to listen to songs that aren't radio trending.

3) After the nominations occur, Voting members begin their first voting. Members can vote for the four general categories of record of the year, album of the year, song of the year and best new artist and a maximum of 15 categories, all within their areas of expertise. Now the interesting thing is that while these are the guidelines there is literally nothing stopping them from voting in whatever categories they want (i.g. a rapper voting in the opera category despite not listening to opera). Theses ballots are all tallied and the top 20 entries are determined in each category (funky moment #2)

In 12 of the 84 categories those top 20 go to the ballot and it's done; for the rest it’s not like that. 59 categories including the big four go to a "nomination review committees" (identities are protected so they can't get lobbied... sure) who take a look at the top 20 and narrow it down to 7 or 8. (these are the special committees the Weekend talked about when he was snubbed). They're supposed to choose the nominees "based solely on the artistic and technical merits of the eligible recordings" which lets be real if that was the case Watermelon Sugar (along with most of the others in the category) I don't think would have been nomimated as they are very generic pop (none of them are special... sorry to the WM lovers out there).

This committee is basically held to THE HONOR CODE SYSTEM... I mean tell me when the last time the honor code system worked in literally any scenario (literally wtf). Don't take my word for it though the former CEO of the Academy Deborah Dugan (a queen) filed a complaint against the Recording Academy basically claiming that the nomination review process was rigged (she was fired after 5 months on the job).

Quote from Deborah Dugan "Members of the board [of trustees] and the secret committees chose artists with whom they have personal or business relationships... It is not unusual for artists who have relationships with Board members and who ranked at the bottom of the initial 20-artist list to end up receiving nominations."

These review committees can also exploit there power by adding up to two nominees that don't appear on the top 20 list to the final voting ballot (except in the 4 big categories - which watermelon sugar that one wasn't nominated for)

They also have craft committees for like non performance stuff (like album notes, engineering and arranging) that don't even get voted on by the academy voting members

4) After all of that fucked up mess, the grammy's decided is ok, the ballots go back to the voting members for the final vote. Deloitte (an accounting firm) then counts all of them, seals them in envelopes, and delivers them to the Grammy award show.

** The Grammy's just announced this year they're removing the "secret committees" so let's see how things shift in the next couple of years**

So obviously I'm not saying this to discredit Harry's nomination or his win as Fine Line was in the US top 20 albums for the majority of 2020, however, we must acknowledge privilege. Harry has a big name to him and a huge following, and while all of that shouldn't be taken into account, it does. He also has the Azoffs, a very well connected family with friends in lots of places that would be able to put in a good word here and there to get support behind Harry. Harry won best pop solo performance for Watermelon Sugar in a category with Doja Cat, Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, and Dua Lipa. Look at the names there, the songs (ya'll can try and remember them cause I'm too lazy to write it out) and tell me that those top names with all of the music produced didn't get there through some connections.

Do with all this information what you will and if you are interested in learning more about the entertainment industry on your own Endeavor (owners of WME, a big talent agency like CAA) is hosting a free online program called the Excellence Program to help guide the future generation of industry executives. The program is a-synchronous and starts on July 12th. Highly recommend giving it a go if you're interested!!!

Alright ya'll that's it. Feel free to message me with your thoughts!

Extra Sources if you'd like to read:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdndn/how-grammys-voting-actually-works-and-where-the-alleged-corruption-lies

https://www.grammy.com/grammys/awards/voting-process

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-11-05/irving-azoff-eagles-manager

https://celebrityaccess.com/caarchive/jeffrey-azoff-exits-caa-to-launch-new-management-company/

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/grammy-awards-secret-committees-945532/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grammy-awards-eliminate-secret-committees-voting-changes-1163887/

[meimae]

1/12/21

Time for my November Immersion Overview!

Admittedly, I'm four reviews behind, but I was so much in the immersion zone this month that I kept putting off writing them all. No regrets, since that's four completed reads and a million monthly streak still going strong! I'll try my best to put them out for you guys before the year ends.

As usual, I'm excited for a brand new month of immersion, especially because a bunch of stuff I've been waiting to finish releasing are now ready for me to binge over the holidays.

Books

I was self assessing a lot recently, and I figured out that I've been quickly gaining speed reading in 横書き but going slowly for 縦書き, which makes sense because I've spent a lot of my time reading visual novels. Can't beat reading horizontally for most of my life I guess.

To combat the problem, I tried reading books again with some success, since I actually finished one that I stalled for months on end. Tried to use pomodoro, but because every chapter is a different length, I find it very easy to break concentration as compared to visual novels that, despite having to make choices, I can just continue reading 'til the point of almost exhaustion before quitting for the day.

Not giving up though, because I discover new interesting reads everyday, and do have the desire to read all of them one fine day. Just have to keep pushing forward.

My reads for the month totalling 103.32k characters: 本好きの下剋上 司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません 第ニ部 兵士の娘II, かがみの孤城, 君の名は, くまクマ熊ベアー 2, and 三日間の幸福 (completed finally! Review soon.)

Drama

Only one drama?! Pathetic, I know. An absolute shame that all of the things I wanted to watch were either hard to find or still airing. I have come prepared for December though!

着飾る恋には理由があって

So happy that what I did watch was pretty good though! 横浜 流星 keeps playing chef characters in the shows I have seen with him as lead, and its so attractive it should be illegal. (.////.)

Really enjoyed this show; it hits my standard for 女性向け dramas - relatable and cool female lead, interesting side characters, and to top it off, the goodest dog you ever did see! Just a bunch of young adults figuring out their lives like normal people without all the unrealistic drama and scandal that's usually in romance shows.

Podcasts & Youtube

I've also come to realize that all the reading I have been doing have actually started to put my listening behind a bit, and because I've been learning to bake a lot of different things recently, I needed something to listen to while waiting for things to rise in the oven. Figured podcasts were the way to go, because I haven't touched them in a while, and they're relatively much harder than watching content, since they have no context aside from maybe a short description per episode.

4989 Shiku Hakku American Life Podcast

Easy to follow and relatable since she talks a lot about her English language learning journey in America.

ひいきびいき

Probably still my favorite podcast despite only listening to a few episodes since it requires me to concentrate on it a lot more than American Life, but I really love that this is basically two people having a conversation, and their banter and verbal expressions are a really good reference to imitate for future output attempts.

自分に換えるゼロ空間

Stumbled upon this on Spotify, and listened to a few episodes. Can't tell if I like it or not yet, but there are so many episodes that she could easily be potential shadowing material for me, so I'm hoping I get into her content more.

フェルミー漫画大学

Technically, this is not at all a podcast but I like listening to it in the background as if it is, and honestly I've been kind of surprised at the range of non-fiction topics this has.

Visual Novels

Read 1.02 million characters.

At this point, I've come to accept that I've truly fallen deep into the 乙女ゲーム hole, and that there are no signs of me stopping or finding a way out.

Finished both あやかしごはん おかわり, 紫影のソナーニル　-What a beautiful memories-, and I will try my best to write my reviews for them as well. (´v｀;)

The tricky one here is エンジェルビーツ!, something I stalled way back in July. For the most part, I agree with the sentiment that if you're not enjoying something drop it and move on (and I technically did for 4 months), but I'm also stubborn, and it upsets me that everyone raves about how good Key VNs are and I have yet to finish even one.

I said earlier that choices in VNs do not break my concentration, but if it is as many, as pointless, and as close to each other like it is for Angel Beats (and for the couple of other Key VNs I did start and stall as well) then it becomes a problem.

Starting this again, I realized that despite following a guide, it just goes all over the place, sometimes choices bringing me to the middle of a different route - I was not ready for that kind of chaos at all. Still, I have goal before the year ends, and I'm going to do my best to beat this game despite it being a skip hell fest and unfortunately only mildly funny for my taste (the jokes in this got old so fast I...٩(๑`^´๑)۶).

-☆-

Thanks for stopping by and reading! I'll catch you all again next time.

Now to actually go write those four reviews....ヾ(｡>﹏<｡)ﾉﾞ

[zalrb]

Did you watch the new gossip girl? I'm surprisingly intrigued. It has sibling rivalry, drama, tension. I know a lot of people don't like the 'wokeness' of it, but we're in different times and the show would have to change. I really like it and hope that Leighton Meester will come on for a cameo, just wondering what you thought of it?

I've read the reviews of it and I'm good:

Review: HBO Max's 'Gossip Girl' reboot is a stunning failure through an Instagram filter. XOXO.

Gossip Girl review: The HBO Max reboot is a sheep in wolf's clothing

Gossip Girl Is Having a Very Glamorous Identity Crisis

HBO Max's Gossip Girl Reboot Is Perfectly Fine for a Show That Shouldn't Exist

Because everything these reviews are saying is why I would have an issue with the show, like this analysis:

All that social warfare is…pretty tame? The new Gossip Girl is vastly more sensitive about everything, in a way that feels at once wholly sincere and brutally boring. The hedonistic cad has an immediate heart of gold. Major scandals keep ending in hugs. "You don't have to drink!" Julien tells Zoya on the new girl's first night out at the club, "We don't peer pressure!" I'm a dad who stays up nights worrying my kid will get bullied someday. But I have to ask: What even is the point of Gossip Girl without peer pressure?

Given our current era of cyberbullying and brutal teen toxicity, it feels wrong to say it, but I'm with you, Darren: This Gossip Girl simply isn't nasty enough. Sure, characters vow to exact revenge on their frenemies multiple times an episode, but so far, all the détentes end with poignant personal epiphanies. ("I am a bully!") The original allowed the awful characters to own their awfulness. (Blair: "You're disgusting." Chuck: "Yes, I am.") Here, everyone's always apologizing.

I'm with this, 100%, and this is why I knew I'd hate the show. This:

In addition to overloading their shows with too many characters, streaming dramas often rely too heavily on speed-plotting. Gossip Girl burns through more story in the first four episodes than the original did before February sweeps (Google it, kids) — and as a result, too much of that story feels half-baked. Soapy dramas are nothing without suspension of disbelief, but "just go with it" developments need to be the garnish, not the main course.

is an issue I have with most shows now so that's not surprising. I read that there's a line that says something like "We're supposed to be fostering Obamas not Brett Kavanaughs" and I just rolled my eyes because that's just trying way too hard.

Nothing about this show seems appealing to me, if I at least thought there was a sense of irony in the age of Gen Z "wokeness" where they make fun of how performative and hypocritical it can be and often is -- much like how Single Parents made fun of working millennials -- then that could be interesting but it's this and I am sooooooo good not watching that.

[crowdvscritic]

round up // JULY 21

‘Tis the season to beat the heat at the always-cold theatres and next to fans set at turbo speed. While my movie watching slowed a bit with the launch of the Summer Olympics on July 23rd, I’ve still got plenty of popcorn-ready and artsy recommendations for you. A few themes in the new-to-me pop culture I’m recommending this month:

Casts oozing with embarrassing levels of talent (sometimes overqualified for the movies they’re in)

Pop culture that is responding or reinterpreting past pop culture

Stories that get weEeEeird

Keep on-a-scrollin’ to see which is which!

July Crowd-Pleasers

1. Double Feature – ‘90s Rom-Coms feat. Lots of Lies: Mystery Date (1991) + The Pallbearer (1996)

In Mystery Date (Crowd: 7.5/10 // Critic: 6/10), Ethan Hawke and Teri Polo get set up on a blind date that gets so bizarre and crime-y I’m not sure how this didn’t come out in the ‘80s. In The Pallbearer (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10), David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow try to combine The Graduate with Four Weddings and a Funeral in a story about lost twentysomethings. If you don’t like rom-coms in which circumstances depend on lots of lies and misunderstandings, these won’t be your jam, but if you’re like me and don’t mind these somewhat-cliché devices, you’ll be hooked by likeable casts and plenty of rom and com.

2. The Tomorrow War (2021)

I thought of no fewer movies than this list while watching: Alien, Aliens, Angel Has Fallen, Cloverfield, Interstellar, Kong: Skull Island, Prometheus, A Quiet Place: Part II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, The Silence of the Lambs, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and World War Z. And you know what? I like all those movies! (Okay, maybe I just have a healthy respect/fear of The Silence of the Lambs.) The Tomorrow War may not be original, but it borrows some of the best tropes and beats from the sci-fi and action genres, so much so I wish I could’ve seen Chris Pratt and Co. fight those gross monsters on a big screen. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 6/10

3. Dream a Little Dream (1989)

My July pick for the Dumb Rom-Com I Nevertheless Enjoyed! I CANNOT explain the mechanics of this body switch comedy to you—nor can the back of the DVD case above—but, boy, what an ‘80s MOOD. I did not know I needed to see a choreographed dance routine starring Jason Robards and Corey Feldman, but I DID. All I know is some movies are made for me and that I’m now a card-carrying member of the Two Coreys fan club. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 6.5/10

4. Black Widow (2021)

The braids! The Pugh! Black Widow worked for me both as an exciting action adventure and as a respite from the Marvel adventures dependent on a long memory of the franchise. (Well, mostly—keep reading for a second MCU rec much more dependent on the gobs of previous releases.) Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

5. Liar Liar (1997)

Guys, Jim Carrey is hilarious. That’s it—that’s the review. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

6. Sob Rock by John Mayer (2021)

It’s very possible I’ve already listened to this record more than all other John Mayer records. It doesn’t surpass the capital-G Greatness of Continuum, but it’s a little bit of old school Mayer, a little bit ‘80s soft rock/pop, and I’ve had it on repeat most of the two weeks since it’s been out. Featuring the boppiest bop that ever bopped, at least one lyrical gem in every track, and an ad campaign focused on Walkmans, this record skirts the line between Crowd faves and Critic-worthy musicianship.

7. Double Feature – ‘00s Ben Affleck Political Thrillers: The Sum of All Fears (2002) + State of Play (2009)

In The Sum of All Fears (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), Ben Affleck is Jack Ryan caught up in yet another international incident. In State of Play (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10), he’s a hotshot Congressman caught up in a scandal. Both are full of plot twists and unexpected turns, and in both, Affleck is accompanied by actors you’re always happy to see, like Jason Bateman, James Cromwell, Russell Crowe, Jeff Daniels, Viola Davis, Morgan Freeman, Philip Baker Hall, David Harbour, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Liev Schreiber, and Robin Wright—yes, I swear all of those people are in just those two movies.

8. Loki (2021-)

Unlike Black Widow, you can’t go into Loki with no MCU experience. The show finds clever ways to nudge us with reminders (and did better at it than Falcon and the Winter Soldier), but be forewarned that at some point, you’re just going to have to let go and accept wherever this timeline-hopper is taking you. An ever-charismatic cast keeps us grounded (Owen Wilson, Jonathan Majors, and an alligator almost steal the show from Tom Hiddleston in some eps), but while Falcon lasted an episode or two too long, Loki could’ve used a few more to flesh out its complicated plot and develop its characters. Thankfully, the jokes matter almost as much as the sci-fi, so you can still have fun even if you have no idea what’s going on.

9. Double Feature – Bruce Willis: Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995) + The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

Before Bruce Willis began starring in many random direct-to-DVD movies I only ever hear about in my Redbox emails, he was a Movie Star smirking his way up the box office charts. In the third Die Hard (Crowd: 10/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), he teams up with Samuel L. Jackson to decipher the riddles of a terrorist madman (Jeremy Irons), and it’s a thrill ride. In The Whole Nine Yards (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), he’s hitman that screws up dentist Matthew Perry’s boring life in Canada, and—aside from one frustrating scene of let’s-objectify-women-style nudity—it’s hilarious.

10. This Is the End (2013)

On paper, this is not a movie for me. An irreverent stoner comedy about a bunch of bros partying it up before the end of the world? None of things are for Taylors. But with a little help of a TV edit to pare down the raunchy and crude bits, I laughed my way through and spent the next several days thinking through its exploration of what makes a good person. While little of the plot is accurate to Christian Gospel and theology, some of its big ideas are consistent enough with the themes of the book of Revelation I found myself thinking about it again in church this morning. (Would love to know if Seth Rogen ever expected that.) Plus, I love a good self-aware celebrity spoof—can’t tell you how many times I’ve just laughed remembering the line, “It’s me, Jonah Hill, from Moneyball”—and an homage to horror classics. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10

July Critic Picks

1. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Television Could Not Be Televised) (2021)

Even director Questlove didn’t know about the Harlem Cultural Festival, but now he’s compiled the footage so we can all enjoy one of the coolest music fest lineups ever, including The 5th Dimension, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder, who made my friend’s baby dance more than once in the womb. See it on the big screen for top-notch audio. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

2. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Robin Williams takes on the bureaucracy, disillusionment, and malaise of the Vietnam War with comedy. Williams was a one-of-a-kind talent, and here it’s on display at a level on par with Aladdin. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

3. Against the Rules Season 2 (2020-21)

Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, adapted into a film starring Jonah Hill), is interested in how we talk about fairness. This season he looks at how coaches impact fairness in areas like college admissions, credit cards, and youth sports. 

4. Bugsy Malone (1976)

A gangster musical starring only children? It’s a little like someone just picked ideas out of a hat, but somehow it works. You can hear why in the Bugsy Malone episode Kyla and I released this month on SO IT’S A SHOW?, plus how this weird artifact of a film connects with Gilmore Girls.

5. The Queen (2006)

Before The Crown, Peter Morgan wrote The Queen, focusing on Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) in the days following the death of Princess Diana. It’s a complex and compassionate drama, both for the Queen and for Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen, who has snuck up on me to become a favorite character actor). Maybe I’ve got a problem, but I’ll never tire of the analysis of this famous family. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9.5/10

6. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

This month at ZekeFilm, we took a closer look at Revisionist Westerns we’ve missed. I fell hard for Roy Bean, and I think you will, too, if for no other reason than you might like a story starring Jacqueline Bisset, Ava Gardner, John Huston, Paul Newman, and Anthony Perkins. Oh, and a bear! Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 10/10

7. New Trailer Round Up

Naked Singularity (Aug. 6) – John Boyega in a crime thriller!

Queenpins (Aug. 10) – A crime comedy about extreme coupon-ing!

Dune (Oct. 1) – I’ve been cooler on the anticipation for this film, but this new look has me cautiously intrigued thanks to the Bardem + Bautista + Brolin + Chalamet + Ferguson + Isaac + Momoa + Zendaya of it all.

The Last Duel (Oct. 15) – Affleck! Damon! Driver!

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Nov. 11) - I’m not sure why we need this, but I’m down for the Paul Rudd + Finn Wolfhard combo

King Richard (Nov. 19) - Will Smith as Venus and Serena’s father!

Encanto (Nov. 24) – Disney and Lin-Manuel Miranda making more magic together!

House of Gucci (Nov. 24) - Gaga! Pacino! Driver! 

Also in July…

Kyla and I took a look at the classic supernatural soap Dark Shadows and why Sookie might be obsessed with it on Gilmore Girls.

I revisited a so-bad-it’s-good masterpiece that’s a surrealist dream even Fellini couldn’t have cooked up. Yes, for ZekeFilm I wrote about the Vanilla Ice movie, Cool as Ice, which is now a part of my Blu-ray collection.

Photo credits: Against the Rules. All others IMDb.com.

[clandestine-j]

Gossip Girl, EP. 4 Reaction & Review

Finally, I've gathered all of my thoughts for ep. 4! I had this really cool extra post to the intro and had more thoughts but then I lost the entire thing so I had to re-write the entire post SO, yeah, this is all I have for this part. Also, if anyone has those bts photos please let me know, i’m looking for the ones that have the audience reacting to max’s dick pick from the fashion show, aki biting his lip. please send. 

ADULTS:

Kate & CO: JAIL JAIL JAIL. We had that one teacher being turned on by incest and ruining kids lives. DO BETTER IN JAIL. I'll say tho, the male teacher makes a better gossip girl, he doesn't feel bad and is enjoying it. Kate could never.

Rafa: JAIL. JAIL. JAIL. JAIL. JAIL. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU, WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU. I hate that they showed us this man having common sense. This man, pushing Max away sexually but understanding that he needs serious help. I hate that they just didn't have them flirting and show us him saying no, I'm so upset. I'm even more upset that I fell for him being the character to subvert the trope. I can only blame myself but blame HBO as well. I also hate the comments saying it's okay or well, the show needs scandal and spice. They could've been photographed together in normal clothes, just standing next to each other. Max could lie to GG. There are a bunch of ways these could become an IC scandal without having them cross the line. If you support this, you need help.

OUR KIDS:

Max: My boy needs therapy, lots of it. Maybe rehab. On one hand, he's being taken advantage of because he's clearly going through something and more than just his dads and he has been for a while. His escapism is dangerous and anyone would be able to prey on that. On the other hand, I need someone to beat his ass. His lines to Rafa about money and career were punch worthy and out-right willing to lie about Rafa doing something to him, even just to press Rafa's buttons. He needs help, he needs to be taught boundaries, he needs a lot. And why were the only two people concerned for his week-long disappearance Aki and Audrey, the whole squad should've had the guns out, friends since childhood, sure.

Obie: My boy, I get that you didn't like where you saw Zoya headed. I get that in some aspects you were right about her being a little too involved and suspecting Julien. That being said, she was having real problems and troubles and needed support. Do better. Obie still isn't the worst character on the show and many of them are SOOOO much worse. He doesn't deserve the all of the smoke he's been getting when their are better people for it.

Monet & Luna: I hate them as people and love them as characters that move the plot. I guess I could see how they thought the fuck school thing was horrible (and Julien too since she planned on showing Obie). The directors cut, I don't think they thought it'd ruin Zoya, they're just fucking cruel and found it funny. Let's box. Also, why are ya'll so pressed over this CHILD. Like get over it, find a real up-coming social media star. 

Aki & Audrey: My good sis, you brought a gay man to make Aki jealous. I'm sick, it was fucking funny. Her comments at first were off the wall, I wish the writers would've done something else but a lot of woman don't see it as normal so I sort of get it. I'm glad she came around by the end. And Aki...he was a little spicy this episode, my boy was ready to pop off a bit AND I AM HERE FOR IT. My dude said, 'I don't regret kissing him' I was THROWN. Aki being with Audrey helps me like her more because she's a bitch that's still ready to gun for a now 15 year old girl but her and Aki's relationship is cute. They could break up and be fine which is great, I love that their relationship is really more than just dating and the friendship is strong. I'm here for it.

Zoya: It's just bad writing but my head canon is trauma. Trauma from her moms death death, trauma from the past and current bullying that caused her lash out. I felt like this was her breaking point (so far) and anything gossip girl related as always came around to Julien. If she trusted Julien more, she wouldn't have thought of her as the person causing her issue's but she doesn't trust her. They were civil but even at the end of ep 2. Her 'hell yeah' to Julien about bonding was too dry, too dry. I think a big part of her just doesn't trust Julien and she'll always think the worse because she's seen mostly the worse. And that video, horrible, I'd hate everything about my birthday too after that and even before. Her emotions during the scene and the talk with Julien, ouch. And while I'm happy that Zoya found herself in the end, YES GIRL POP OFF. THIS IS WHAT I WANTED. THIS IS THE FLAVOR. I WAS WAITING FOR THIS AND I WANT MORE. I DEMAND MORE. I SEE A SPARK OF A BITCH, LET HER OUT GO, GO ALISON DELAOTRUINES ON THESE BITCHES.

Julien: Once again, I love Julien as a character, I know she's supposed to be struggling and for that, It's fun to watch her BUT. Julien could never be on my team, she's too wishy-washy. That is my issue, she's too, just...flip-floppy with no substance. Like, when she does things wrong, they're expected  to be forgiven / are forgiven without true reflection or anything on her part. She fucks up, she see's its wrong and then she says sorry and goes on it does it again. This episode was just the worst example, like, the moment she heard buffalo, she was ready to send in a tip. Instead of just doing the party normally and being best because she's hear, she sends the video to Monet. She believes Luna and Monet (Monet talking about her throne being taken when Zoya isn't even an influencer) and she eats it up. They were the ones who did the dick pick thing, like girl, THINK. And why does she never get the full plan, why would she not watch the video or why is she so shocked that Luna and Monet would play something like that? She knows them. Friends since childhood? Sure. Using your moms name to make the party about charity? SIS, THE FEUD IS NOT WORTH IT. She says she wants to be sisters but then she switches up so fast and the witches up again, it's whip-last and I'm sick. I hate that she's doing this to her and I hate even more that's is the writers fault. I don't mind a character having personal conflict but make it a conflict. Like after four episodes, why is she still friends with her sisters bullies? At the end of the episode, she says she's gonna tell them to lay down their weapons, NO, shut it down. correct them. make it clear and make it known. I love my girl because she's flawed but I wish they'd linger on things and have her really think about it. I was fine with the i'm sorry speech up until the camera part.

Other random thoughts

fuck the rafa max thing again, i'm not over, i will never be over it

evan mock isn't the best but he does give me face at times, his 'wtf stare', little sly looks, the 'wtf' moment when audrey first asked him if he was gay like 'this bitch' also, give him more annoyed, irritated scenes, he gives in those

have julien go full nice or full evil for a while, pick a side and stick with it for more than one episode

i wish zoya was a bitch at her old school but i'm fine with this too, it explains why she was so reactionary when it came to the bullying at constance, not again!

i wish we could've seen julien talk with davis after that stunt

nick and davis, KISS, the ride scene was 100%

don't talk about obie so soon

i like that she chose to be with julien for the night, it was cute

emily makes these faces that i can't get with

eli brown is a good actor, that shot of him during the traumatic reveal

i will say, zobie might be boring but when they talk, they talk, their communication is p good, i don't hate it

i’d be here for obie x aki bc they’re friends, they got chemistry, aki was giving look lil up and downs this episode, aki was giving a lot of looks this ep, honestly, idk i just don’t want him heart broken 

aki menzies is still my comfort character

i couldn't take rafa serious with his ass out,

whitney's acting in that talk scene, perfect, my girl had me in tears because DAMN

jordan is pretty good but in that scene, go girl, give me nothing

fuck max and rafa

max lied about his dads or at least one, AT LEAST one, i don't think they'd do that, he saw his in and took it

aki and aud, just have that open relationship, ya'll will make it, the way he tucked into her, it was so sweet

davi and nick secret relationship plot

jail for all of the teachers, once again

the hallway scene was great, the cinematography is been clutch overall

music wasn't as jarring

that's about it! i have more thoughts on the show overall that might be another post, they have a lot of amazing ideas but they need to stick with one and flush it out is the overall gist, i'm still into it!

can't wait for five bc i love the angst that's about to hit.

[thecrownnet]

*Spoilers*

Early in its fourth season, The Crown finds Britain at a low. It’s 1982, and the so-called Winter of Discontent still lingers over the country as unemployment numbers soar and a war brews in the Falklands. But inside Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II (played by Olivia Colman) has a more personal catastrophe on her mind: She’s not sure which of her four children is her favorite.

And so Her Majesty invites each of them to lunch, hoping one will impress her more than the others. It’s a frivolous but revealing endeavor—the four meetings show the gaping emotional distance between Elizabeth and her royal progeny, who all look stunned to be spending time alone with “mummy.” Edward (Angus Imrie) immediately inquires after his Civil List money, as if she were a bank teller. Andrew (Tom Byrne) boasts of a young “actress” he met, a tawdry subject that shocks the sovereign. Charles (Josh O’Connor) and Anne (Erin Doherty) rue their marriages, talking over her advice. Colman plays Elizabeth with a dignified embarrassment, forcing smiles through her obvious disappointment. Later, she vents her frustrations to Philip (Tobias Menzies), who tells her not to fret—their children are all adults, and she needs to concentrate on being a mother to a nation. Still, the damage has been done. Philip reveals that all of their children had been “perplexed” by their lunches, and Elizabeth is convinced they’re lost. In the meantime, the country remains in decline.

When it comes to the Queen, The Crown tends to forgive easily. Across the Netflix drama’s first three seasons—blanketed in a warm nostalgia and postwar idyll—The Crown argued that her flaws made her only more sympathetic, that she faced unknowable pressure as a monarch and the head of an esteemed institution. The writer and executive producer Peter Morgan treated the drama’s first two seasons as a character study of a young woman struggling with immense, but fragile, power. Its third installment held her at arm’s length, turning her into a supporting character to Philip and Charles, while still emphasizing the burden of her role.

But in its sharp and splashy fourth season, the show finally criticizes Elizabeth for her ignorance, characterizing her as a ruler whose stubborn devotion to tradition makes her and her family out-of-touch fools caught off guard by change. Yes, fools: Throughout Season 4, The Crown ridicules the royals, mocking their entitlement. During her first audience with Britain’s new prime minister, Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson), Elizabeth skips past policy updates and instead reads Thatcher her list of guesses for the cabinet, delighting in the exercise as if governing were a game. Before a public engagement at Buckingham Palace, Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) demands that the royals have “no actual conversations” with their subjects. The entire family invites Thatcher on a trip to the countryside to play drinking games and hunt bucks while the country suffers through a recession.

Diana’s entrance lays the groundwork for a cutting Season 5. (Des Willie / Netflix)

Perhaps, four seasons in, Morgan realized that the last thing anyone wanted to watch going into the more tabloid-gossip-laden eras of the royals’ history was a recap of them reveling in their wealth. Or perhaps with its story headed toward scandal and tragedy, The Crown needed to stop treating the Queen as a faultless heroine. Whatever the case may be, the show suggests that by the ’80s, the royals, as led by Elizabeth, had become caught in an existential crisis: They believed that their duty meant staying visible, not accessible. They took their subjects for granted, and assumed that the family’s relevance was a given. Yet their lifestyle couldn’t be further from that of their people: In one episode, for example, Elizabeth learns of the human cost and psychological damage of the country’s economic challenges only after a disgruntled, unemployed man infiltrates Buckingham Palace to speak directly with her in her bedroom. The Crown observes that the royals’ failures can more often than not be self-inflicted—and in doing so, the show produces its most thrilling and biting season yet.

The drama is, of course, only getting started. Season 4 introduces Diana (Emma Corrin)—arguably the series’s most anticipated figure—whose depiction helps the show not only uncover new insights into Elizabeth’s character, but also lay the groundwork for an even more cutting Season 5. Morgan had tackled the subject of the Queen and the “people’s princess” before, with the film The Queen, but the 2006 drama covers the aftermath of Diana’s death, sympathizing with Elizabeth as she learns to change her perspective on public opinion. In this season, he’s less generous with the Queen, showing how her rigid adherence to duty contributed as much to Charles and Diana’s crumbling marriage as the young couple’s affairs and incompatibility did. Elizabeth’s determination and perseverance helped her marriage with Philip thrive; those same traits pushed Charles too far, forcing him to move too quickly with a woman he barely knew. While Elizabeth’s stoicism and stiff upper lip helped her develop a rapport with world leaders, those same qualities translated into coldness toward Diana, who was only 19 when she became engaged to Charles, struggling with her place in the pecking order, battling her eating disorder, and yearning for the Windsors’ approval.

The Crown isn’t so critical that it diminishes the Queen; rather, it shows how the same forces that can help a figure like her succeed professionally can produce blind spots personally. Instead of seeing Diana as a luminous young woman who is changing the British people’s (and the world’s) impression of the royal family, Elizabeth sees her as an outsider who must either bend or break to the family’s will. The Queen can advise and even chastise Thatcher during their weekly meetings, but does everything she can to avoid talking to her daughter-in-law. She can charm the leaders of the Commonwealth at a global summit, but cannot take her children to lunch without scaring them. She can “meet normal people all the time,” as she puts it to the intruder who makes it into her bedroom, yet she has no idea what he means when he tells her of his poverty. The Crown spent years unraveling the story of the human underneath the regalia. This year, it finally interrogates the effect of the formidable power and influence Elizabeth has amassed, foreshadowing the royals’ difficult journey into modernity.

Toward the end of the season, Philip—one of Diana’s few allies in the family—tries to comfort the princess after her latest failed attempt to speak to the Queen. Like Diana, he’d entered the family reluctant to assimilate. And also like Diana, he’d been intimidated by their customs. He advises her to think of Elizabeth as the fuel of the family, a force that everyone must not only accept but help maintain and serve by setting their personal woes aside. He compares her to, of all things, oxygen. But maybe that oxygen, The Crown argues, suffocates more than it sustains.

[aion-rsa]

Cassandra Cain Steals the Spotlight in Young Justice: Phantoms

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Young Justice: Phantoms review contains spoilers.

Young Justice Season 4 Episode 6

It doesn’t take a lot to bring me back in, and Young Justice: Phantoms found the sweet spot this week with “Artemis Through the Looking Glass.” It turns out all they needed to do was toss me a couple of crumbs of Cassandra Cain content and everything would be better. 

It helps that this week was actually animated. The story still feels rushed, but the kinetic energy of the show is back to its normal level. A huge chunk of the episode is dedicated to a fight between Black Spider (Young Justice’s Spectacular Spider-Man knockoff) and Rictus from the League of Shadows, and Tigress, Onyx, Scandal Savage, Orphan, and Cheshire on the other side. Tigress had brought in Cheshire last week to help her figure out which of Onyx and Scandal was a potential mole, and they got jumped by the League crew during the interrogation, leading to Tigress letting both go free to use whips and heavy punches in an outstanding action sequence, full of great choreography and actually moving figures instead of last week’s weird motion comic.

One would expect the League to be after Scandal and Onyx, and they kind of are, but their immediate goal was to kidnap Orphan. Cassandra is Lady Shiva’s daughter, one of the big bosses of The Light, and she wants her kid back. Most of the emotional heft in this episode is spent on flashbacks to Artemis and Jade’s childhoods, but the point of the whole episode is to draw parallels between everyone in this new hero group. Jade and Artemis had terrible, abusive childhoods, which we see multiple times this week.

Then we have Scandal and Cass’s brutal childhoods described to us – Scandal tells us about her father, Vandal Savage, stealing her from her mom when she was four, raising her into ruthlessness, killing her sibling and eventually driving her from the League, while Cass had her vocal chords severed as an infant by her HORRIBLE mother, Lady Shiva, so she would only understand violence. This is fairly in keeping with Cassandra’s backstory in the comics, where she was (I might reiterate) the best Batgirl (and is currently, as she’s co-starring with Spoiler in a Batgirls story running through a few Bat-books).

I think then that the one in the group who’s up to something is Onyx. She’s the only one who had a not-abusive childhood, and Jade is onto her pretty well from the start, but Artemis decides she needs all the hands she can get for the fight, so Onyx and Scandal end up headed to Infinity Island with Tigress to get Cass back from Lady Shiva, who shows up at the end of the fight to take her daughter back. It’s simple and effective, but it ended up being the best episode of the season so far.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

PHANTOM PREMONITIONS

A ton of new faces popped in this week, even if we didn’t get any new hints at the season’s main baddie.

The telepath trying to get into Scandal and Onyx’s brains is Looker, an original member of the comics Outsiders created by Mike Barr and Jim Aparo. She’s kind of a low-grade Jean Grey – red hair, telepathy, telekinesis – until she got turned into a vampire in the New 52.

Jason Bard is a pretty nice pull. He was created in 1969 by Gil Kane and Frank Robbins as a good cop in the Gotham PD. He was forced to leave the force after Killer Moth blew his knee off, and he spent a bit as a Batgirl love interest. It’s a nice touch that he’s Artemis’ boyfriend, as she’s kind of the Batgirl of this show.

We’ve seen him before, but just a reminder that Black Spider is voiced by the best Spider-Man, Josh Keaton.

That cyborg looking guy with Black Spider is Rictus. He is basically evil DC Vision – he’s a super strong, flying, density controlling cyborg who’s making himself more robot as time goes on, rather than crying and having babies to prove he’s a real boy like his Marvel counterpart. He’s relatively new – his first appearance was in 2013’s Red Hood and the Outlaws #21 by James Tynion IV and Julius Gopez. I’m not sure he was less humorless there.

Onyx’s backstory in the comics was not this cool. Her grandfather here is Amazing Man, a character created in 1983’s All Star Squadron by Jerry Ordway and Roy Thomas. Will Everett was what you’d get if you crossed The Flash and Jesse Owens: an incredible Olympic athlete who, via an accident at the lab where he worked, gained the power to take on the properties of anything he touched. He’s showed up a bunch since then, most recently the Injustice: Year Zero digital first comic. You know the one, it’s got the Joker talking about how much he hates Nazis.

The post Cassandra Cain Steals the Spotlight in Young Justice: Phantoms appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3CcqCE2