#schlock and drivel

[thouartachoochootrain]

Yah to be fair to the big studios, there was almost nothing they could do to compare to the sheer quantity and quality of fan made Minecraft stories and series and films that are out there. Skill issue.

Why do we constantly have to have “humans get transported to another world” storylines when it comes to live action adaptations? Why can’t it just be in-media-res? Why can’t the Minecraft movie follow the novelization where a guy randomly awakens in Minecraft with no idea who he is and just needs to learn how to survive… you know… LIKE HOW THE GAME IS. Why do we gotta bring people from outside the game world into Minecraft? Why do they look human but everything else is a CGI nightmare? You couldn’t pull a Detective Pikachu and just set your god damn plot IN Minecraft from the start?

And most importantly …

WHY CAN’T THE WHOLE MOVIE JUST BE ANIMATED? You’re already animating like 95% of the film already, just fucking make an animated film.

[coolmachetefacts]

I distinctly recall this profoundly stupid fight some years ago about "YA lit" and whether or not people were taking it too seriously and hanging onto it too long. At the time, I didn't care. For the most part, I wasn't a "YA books kid", I had no skin in the game and thought the argument was stupis.

Now, as a transgender person directly impacted by weirdos beating us to death with their obsession with never letting go of what a banal series meant to them as children, I think I get what the failure to reach any coda in that discussion really meant.

There is "YA literature" that is somewhere above (whatever that means) the place of what can best be described as YA pulp. Goosebumps, for instance, books I really enjoyed as a child, are YA pulp. They don't have a lot of depth, but they're fun, they're trashy, they're popcorn entertainment. They at least teach kids the importance of schlock in literary form.

A vital lesson, mind, but not a deep one.

Literature, really, is what we put on a pedestal. It's what we're if anything a little snobbish about. It's a status of exclusion. It's a realm of broader meaning and import. In the case of young adult literature, I think it's unfair to place things among it that are solely for people to get some fleeting, shallow meaning out of once that they only bring to it because of who they are as an unfinished person and then never again except for nostalgic revisiting.

That isn't literature, that's an amusement park.

There's an entire canon which can be painted with brushes of varying breadth and described as having something meaningful for children, young adults, unfinished people, however you want to word it, but still very much worth reading as an adult for reasons other than light, fluffy fare.

At some point, people decided enjoying fluff, schlock, and the occasional drivel was beneath them but not worth moving on from, so they had to build not just their identity around it to prove it's worthwhile, but the world had to embrace them for it.

[nightcoremoon]

yeah unsurprisingly terrifier’s visual effects are. bad.

tell me how movies from 20 years ago look better. tell me how movies from 30 years ago look better. TELL ME HOW MOVIES FROM 40 YEARS AGO LOOK BETTER.

I don’t even like the original my bloody valentine and it has better effects! same for friday 1 and nightmare 1 and even TCM 1. saw 1 looks better. hostel looks better.

I’m giving so much leeway to shit tier gore porn mainstream horror schlock fans and genuinely actually trying to give you a fair chance but good lord why is every popular slasher film so gimmicky overrated badly-written and BORING. AS. SHIT. every single one is ass of some variety. the conjuring? ass. sinister? ass. insidious? ass. these movies aren’t good. stop telling me “oh just give them a chance, the effects are so good” NO THEYRE NOT! Tom Savini is good effects. John Carpenter is good effects. George Romero is good effects. Clive Barker is good effects. David Cronenberg is good effects. THE RAIDERS OF THE GODDAMN LOST MOTHERFUCKING ARK ISNT EVEN A HORROR MOVIE AND IT HAS BETTER GORE EFFECTS THAN HORROR MOVIES. so don’t tell me that the salvation of your piece of drivel is some misunderstood masterpiece of cinema because it realistically depicts what it looks like to saw a naked chick in half, because IT DOESNT DO THAT. a regular normal plain-ass hacksaw is not going to cut that cleanly through a human pelvis spine and skull. unless you bring in supernatural elements because you have the writing skills of ebony dark’ness dementia raven way, but somehow even more edgy and cringe.

if you didn’t have a mascot that checks all the boxes to be marketable, you wouldn’t have a movie at all.

the writing is shit. the pacing is shit. the plot is shit. and the effects are shit. complete and total fucking waste of time. I would rather watch paint dry.

it’s so sad and pathetic to me that genuinely good horror doesn’t get any recognition but simulated snuff films get all the awards and all the attention. motive got shitcanned because dead space didn’t sell well enough but this franchise got $50,000,000 in the box office. i guess movies really do appeal to the lowest common denominator, huh.

like if you like the movie I don’t care, your taste is yours. but don’t take this as me being some rabid pearl clutching pmrc hand-wringing sanctimonious cunt who thinks all horror and gore is bad. i love rob zombie’s movies. i love killer klowns. i love chopping mall. I love (the good half of) the chucky movies. one of my favorite movies of all time is cabin in the woods. i fucking love mortal kombat. i like the nightmare on elm street movies everyone else hates. I think jason takes manhattan is easily the best friday the 13th movie by a long LONG shot. i love horror, and I have standards dammit. and terrifier does not meet a single one of them. terrifier, more like terriCRYer, because I was crying because of how shit it is. fuck this movie. i don’t wanna think about it anymore and I don’t wanna see that stupid fucking clown mask anymore. not because I’m scared of clowns mind you. I’m part clown. my maternal grandmother has literally been a pro clown for longer than I have been alive, and her house is filled to the brim with clown shit. tim curry as pennywise is awesome. for fucks sake I already name dropped Killer Klowns from outer space, I love clowns in horror because it’s fun to juxtapose horror over merriment! i love Martin Scorsese’s filmography and I especially love the trope of playing Hardcore Violent Images over classical music. Singin in the Rain is a fantastic scene by Kubrick because it overlays the silly and amusing onto something well and truly disturbing. Oldboy is one of the greatest movies of all time [what do you mean “which one” there’s only one oldboy, what remake? they didn’t remake it what are you talking about shut the fuck up] and its teeth pulling scene is one I literally cannot watch because I have a severe broken teeth phobia, it’s THAT REALISTIC and THAT TENSE and THAT DISTURBING. but terrifier? yawn, rolled eyes, heavy sigh, checks my watch, yeah oh no she sure is dead, that sure is fake blood, wow what creative camera placement and what clever editing so you can swap the actress with the fake piece of plastic, good lord this is taking fucking forever ID RATHER DO ANYTHING ELSE THAN BE HERE. KILL ME NEXT!

this is why I don’t trust anybody when it comes to anything popular. basically all popular horror just sucks, full stop. every single time I extend an olive branch, the suggestions just set it on fire and shove it up my ass.

terrifier sucks and looks like shit. nobody ever tell me about anything horror ever again

[alifeasvivid]

44, 46 for ukus

44. Who would dance in the kitchen making dinner? Would the other join in or watch from the doorway?

Well America is the only one allowed to make dinner XD so he'd be dancing around, it's how he keeps himself moving through it. England would watch from the doorway until America caught sight of him and pulled him into it.

46. Would they get frisky at the movies by themselves?

Yes, but only if it's some summer blockbuster MCU schlock and England always starts it because the movie is boring to him and what else is all that noise for other than concealing America's adorable moaning and whimpering? He usually ends up getting rebuffed because, for whatever reason, America actually enjoys watch that drivel XD

[sixty-silver-wishes]

idk maybe I'm having a bad day or something but I really don't want to keep doing this. it's hard enough to find writing work and it's a decent job; I like that I can work from home and choose my hours. but having to spend two hours writing a post, only to fill it with SEO keywords SUCKS. I told my boss for this job that one of the required keywords was misspelled, and she told me to "add the misspelling anyway so it'll show up for people who search for it." I'm kind of at wit's end here. I know people don't even read these long-ass recipe posts but if I'm writing something, I want to do a good job, dammit.

and I really like my other job. but I have to be at the top of my game for that one and I really think this corporate schlock is making my writing suffer. I don't want it to bleed into the stuff that people will actually listen to. It's really good I think to have two writing jobs, even if I only enjoy one of them. I'm lucky to have that; finding writing work is hard. but I cannot stand SEO and AI and all this corporate drivel

really don't want to write another shitty recipe for today :/ istg these things are actually making my writing worse

[welcometothepenumbra]

JUNO STEEL AND THE LONG WAY HOME (PART TWO)

SOUND: RAIN. TRAIN ARRIVES, CREAKS TO A STOP. DOOR CLANKS OPEN.

CONDUCTOR: Ah, good evening, Traveler. And welcome… to The Penumbra.

SOUND: DOOR CLANKS SHUT.

Take your seat, please, take your seat.

MUSIC: STARTS.

The junction lies ahead, so if you’ll allow me just a moment.

SOUND: TRAIN WHISTLE.

We are now passing through Hyperion City.

SOUND: TRAIN MOVING.

Our next stop?

SOUND: TRAIN BRAKES.

Juno Steel and the Long Way Home.

SOUND: DOOR CLANKS OPEN, RAIN.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: WATER DRIPPING, RIPPLING.

THEIA: (DISTANT, OVERLAPPING) Target located. Alerting central office. Exchanging map data. Sector is clear. Recharging. Recharging.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Here’s a lesson that never sticks, no matter how many times you learn it: even when you’re not around, the world keeps movin’ without you. Never feels that way. When you leave, you take a frozen version of the place with you in your head, and that feels real, but… then you get back and find the place is melting right in front of you.

SMALL FRY: (WHIMPERS, QUIET BARKS)

JUNO: Yep, I’m pretty wiped too, Small Fry. How ‘bout a snack break?

SOUND: SPLASH.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I remember these sewers as an escape, if you can believe it. When things got too rough topside I would lose myself down here, where things were simple. Where the monsters looked like monsters, big furry ones with long teeth and mean eyes. They were scary, but… that was part of the escape.

SMALL FRY: (IN BACKGROUND) (BARKS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): When you’re so young you think monsters are the scariest things out there… what could feel better than teaching the boogeyman to eat out of the palm of your hand?

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: Whatsamatter? You don’t like salmon chips?

SMALL FRY: (YIP!)

JUNO: Don’t tell me you’re picky.

SOUND: CRUNCHING, CHEWING.

(GARBLED, MOUTH FULL) Aw, man, these’ve got the freeze-dried soy dust and everything! You’re outta your mind, Small Fry.

SMALL FRY: (SNIFFS & SNORTS)

JUNO: Oh, what’s that? Now you want one?

SMALL FRY: (SNORTS)

JUNO: That’s what I thought. Take the bag, it’s yours.

SMALL FRY: (GRRRR)

JUNO: (SIGHS)

SOUND: CRUNCHING, CHEWING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): I wonder sometimes if having that escape as a kid felt a little too good. Like I’d go underground and feel like all the world’s horrors could be tamed, then, come back up and think that feeling should last forever. It felt like I could make it last forever if I tried. But, things change.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

SOUND: CREAKING.

JUNO: What’s the matter, Small Fry? You hear some… thing…?

THEIA: Target sighted.

JUNO: Damn it! Get in…

…that pipe, quickly! Hide under my coat!

SMALL FRY: (SNUFFLES)

THEIA: Target recognized. Target is—

JUNO: (OVER THE BELOW) Juno Steel, yeah.

THEIA: —Juno Steel. Directive: do no—

JUNO: (OVER THE ABOVE) Do no harm, Mayor O’Flaherty requests my presence, you can’t capture me nonviolently so I’m supposed to go there on my own, that it?

THEIA: (AFTER A PAUSE) This is your only—

JUNO: Right, thanks, almost forgot, this is my only warning. I’m workin’ on it now, but thanks for the reminder, bye!

THEIA: Farewell. Juno Steel.

SOUND: CREAKING FADES OUT.

JUNO: (QUIETLY) Going… going, aaaaaand gone. Psst!

Hey kid! Coast is clear!

SOUND: HEAVY CREAK.

Small Fry?

SOUND: SPLASHING.

…The hell is this?

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS.

Another room?

SMALL FRY: (SNORES)

JUNO: (GASPS)

SOUND: GUN COCKING.

…Oh.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The rabbit was asleep. Just… tuckered out.

Then I felt the exhaustion piling on me too, so I sat and let her nap awhile. And if I got some rest out of the bargain, so be it.

Small Fry had found a good hiding spot. The pipe I’d shoved her into led through a shattered wall, which opened up into another one of the sewer’s old chambers. Must have been a false start from some earlier construction job, walled-up so it’d just go away, but… that never kept anything hidden forever, did it?

The Theia bots were tearing this place apart, and soon one would find Small Fry. But even if they did clear out and we did get outta here, what the hell was I gonna do with her?

MUSIC: STARTS.

My name’s Juno Steel. I’m a private eye, and that means I’m supposed to reserve my blaster for whoever pays my bills. Money hasn’t mattered to me for years, but even so, it… was a rule, and rules are comfortable.

I keep feeling like I don’t know any of the rules anymore, but… I need ‘em. Because if you try to save every sorry soul who hops into your life…

…that might make you a hero, and… right now I’m not sure there’s anything worse.

MUSIC: ENDS. STARTS (FROM COMMS).

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Welcome back to Questions Unanswered: Where is Jack Takano? Tonight’s episode: Part 11 – “The Mask.”

Jack Takano was famously a very private man: until the end of his time at Northstar, he never kept a home address on file, or spoke to anyone about his friends and family outside the company. Even his face was private, as Founder and CEO of Northstar Miranda Fairbanks wrote:

FAIRBANKS ACTOR (FROM COMMS): It was known around the office that Jack daily wore makeup thick even by Hyperion’s standards… I once came into the office quite early to find that he had fallen asleep, drooling, onto his desk and hand. It was almost sweet… until he moved that hand and a layer of skin peeled off his face, only to reveal another, much paler skin beneath. Or so it seemed, until I saw the foundation smudges on the table. When I woke him, he covered his face, mumbled something about not looking decent, and ran off to reapply. A skin condition, he told me later. I never bought it. The difference between the skin beneath and the mask over it was so extreme that it seemed like there was another man under there, buried alive.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): But even a man with a hidden face can’t hide everything. Takano may not have left an explanation for his disappearance in his famous farewell note, but his coworkers did notice a change.

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Well, we all expected something was going to happen. Just not… something that extreme.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): What about his behavior seemed like the first sign, Dr. Vega?

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Isolation, first. Irritability, some days, although he’d always apologize soon after. But I think the first unquestionable sign for me was Andromeda 3.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): If you didn’t see Andromeda 3 at release, it’s unlikely you ever will: the film was panned so universally that Northstar established an Anti-Informations Department just to erase every copy they could find. Or as one reviewer put it:

VOICE 6 (FROM COMMS): Schlock and drivel. Its characterization is so flat it approaches concave. Its pacing makes death seem a fond alternative. And worst of all, it appears Takano has no idea what made Andromeda so compelling in the first place, and what remains are only echoes of the Turbo nonsense that nearly put Northstar into its early, and perhaps deserved, grave. Takano needs to get his head out of building tourist traps and back into telling stories, because this was clearly rushed.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): The only thing atypical of this review is its lenience: the reviewer gave Andromeda 3 the highest rating we could find. But that last sentiment, that the film was rushed, is repeated by nearly every review on record, despite the fact that it is completely untrue.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): I don’t think I ever saw Jack work harder on a project. Besides the park, obviously.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): That’s Jocelyn Chen, former Head of Animation at Northstar.

MUSIC: ENDS.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): I remember seeing pages of script and sketches of Andromeda 3 a few weeks before the first film came out, but he was never satisfied. It was just rewrite after rewrite with him.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Was his process similar for Chainmail Warrior Andromeda or Sea of Sinners?

CHEN (FROM COMMS): Not at all. He had full storyboards for both ready when he first pitched the project, and he only had a month on those. But the third one… I don’t know. He kept talking about the responsibility, and… I tried to help, but, the pressure must’ve gotten to him.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): You came under fire for that film, too.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): I did.

I– I wasn’t mad at him for having writer’s block. I was mad at him for not listening earlier, for not giving us something, anyway. I had to steal his notes just so we could start work on time for a sloppy release, and… that was the only time I’ve ever heard him get angry.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): A recording of Takano’s tirade was leaked a few months after Andromeda 3’s release:

SOUND: BACKGROUND STATIC.

JACK (FROM COMMS): We are doing something important here. Am I the only one who sees that? Am I?!

CHEN (FROM COMMS): Jack, we have a deadline—

JACK (FROM COMMS): Damn the deadline! You’re exactly the problem, Jocelyn, focusing on the smallest issues when you should be solving the big ones, taking the solution now over the solution that works– DO NOT SPEAK while I am speaking!

No. Keep the damn notes. It’s too late already.

SOUND: STATIC FADES OUT.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): The company could have scrubbed this leak like they erased the film, had Takano himself not acknowledged it, in a press conference the day after it spread:

JACK (FROM COMMS): …I would like to apologize, of course. I’ve already apologized to Jocelyn, but, like it or not I’ve been thrust into the public eye; and as a result, my responsibility extends to each and every one of you.

SMALL FRY: (SNUFFLES & SNORTS)

JUNO: Mmm… quit it.

SOUND: WATER DRIPPING, BUBBLING.

JACK (FROM COMMS): Three years is not a very long time to grow old, and, yet I find that, compared to the early days of Andromeda, I feel precisely—

JUNO: (OVER THE BELOW) I said quit it!

JACK (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE ABOVE) —how I expected an old man must: very tired, and only slightly more wise.

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

JACK (FROM COMMS): What strikes me as most beautiful about Andromeda is how she works not just on the world, but also on herself. Tirelessly. When Andromeda discovers that her magic chainmail is empowered by the suffering of others, she sees immediately how this might corrupt her… and she steels herself against it.

I see now the power I have in Northstar. And I see the heavy responsibility that power bestows upon me. We will use it for good, from here out. For Polaris.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

SOUND: SLAP.

JUNO: (OVER THE BELOW) Damn it, Rita, I’m taking a nap, you—!

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

HAWK (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE ABOVE) Takano’s apology was very well received—

JUNO: …Oh.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE BELOW) —as Jocelyn Chen recalls.

JUNO: (OVER THE ABOVE) Small Fry. Right.

SMALL FRY: (GROWLS)

CHEN (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE BELOW) He could do that, apologize and have all forgiven—

JUNO: (OVER THE ABOVE) What’s the matter, kid, you hungry?

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

JUNO: What the hell? Get off me!

CHEN (FROM COMMS): —really forgiven. You could always tell he meant it, that it really had eaten him up inside. He—

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

SOUND: CLICK, COMMS CUTS OFF.

JUNO: The hell?

Did you… take my comms? Out of my ear?

SMALL FRY: (BARKS, GROWLS)

JUNO: Don’t eat it!

Well, looks like we’re awake now, doesn’t it? Here, come close. You just put it up to your ear like this, and—

SOUND: FEEDBACK SCREECH.

JUNO & SMALL FRY: (PAINED YELLS)

JUNO: God dammit, what did you do?

SMALL FRY: (WHIMPERING)

JUNO: You know how long it took me to figure that thing out? Now look, it’s wet and it stinks and I can’t even listen to it and I don’t know where anybody is or what the hell I’m gonna do to keep you safe and—

SOUND: PLOP, SPLASH.

There. It’s trash now. Just like this whole stupid idea. Whatever.

SOUND: SPLASHES. DISTANT FEEDBACK.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: I told you, the comms is broken.

SOUND: FEEDBACK STOPS. ELECTRONIC SCROLLING.

JUNO: You’re just gonna hurt yourself. Make it explode or something.

SMALL FRY: (GROWLS)

SOUND: BEEPS.

JUNO: Damn it, don’t you listen?

SOUND: ALARM BEEPS.

It’s busted. See?

SOUND: JINGLE (FROM COMMS).

VOICE 7 (FROM COMMS): Welcome to your comms. Please enter your name.

JUNO: Wait, what?

SMALL FRY: (GROWLS)

JUNO: You… there’s no way you know how to use this. You can’t.

SMALL FRY: (YIPS)

JUNO: Alright, take it.

SMALL FRY: (RRRRR!)

SOUND: BEEPS.

JUNO: No. Way.

SMALL FRY: (GRRRS, YIP!)

SOUND: LOUD JINGLE (FROM COMMS).

VOICE 7 (FROM COMMS): (VERY LOUD) Bienvenue à votre comms.

JUNO: (HISS OF PAIN) Nevermind! (SIGHS)

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: But… you did have it for a second.

SOUND: BEEPS.

SMALL FRY: (SNUFFLE, GROWLS)

JUNO: No, no, I’m gonna try this time.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: And, uh… thanks, Small Fry. I needed that.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO (NARRATOR): While I messed with that comms I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about Rita. She’d been telling me what Small Fry just had for years – that I didn’t need her to set everything up, that I wasn’t even trying, and… I’d yell at her that I got it, but I was just busy. And then sit alone, like an idiot, while she set up my comms, my monitor, everything.

Ma never let us have that stuff. And then I just got too proud to admit I didn’t get it, and… I got better and better at asking other people to work around me, I guess. Anyway, I… had the thing up and running again soon.

SOUND: BLIP.

JACKET (FROM COMMS): We may look backward only to ensure we have not walked this path before.

JUNO: Yeah, thanks, big guy.

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: Just… give me one more minute.

JUNO (NARRATOR): Maybe I’d gone mad with power, but… I had an idea, and I was hungry for another win. I knew the comms could get on the net, and I knew the sewer system’s layout was a public document. The rest was just guesswork. Learning and mistakes.

SOUND: ERROR BEEP.

JUNO: (GROWLS)

SOUND: ERROR BEEP.

Aghhhh!

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): …a whole lot of mistakes. But, still.

It took me an hour to do what Rita could’ve done in two seconds, but, I was proud of it.

SOUND: BEEP.

JUNO: Ha! Got it! Look, it’s a map, and I think I found a manhole that’ll take us…

SMALL FRY: (SNORES)

JUNO: …out of the… sewer.

Hey. Hey, c’mon, Small Fry. C’mon.

SMALL FRY: (SNUFFLES AWAKE)

JUNO: We gotta go, kid. I think I found a way out of here. And after that…

We’ll have to figure that out together, I guess.

SMALL FRY: (MEWLS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): I split the comms so I could carry it in my hand and my ear at the same time. It was gonna be a hike to get to that manhole leading out of the sewer, and… to Oldtown.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): (FADING IN) The year between Andromeda 3’s release and the opening of Polaris Park marked a shift in how Northstar was run. Takano removed himself from the film production process completely, hiring previously-terminated Northstar writer Kenni Okombe and rock-star-slash-poet Rajavi to co-write Andromeda and the Dragon’s Peak, based on some of Takano’s early sketches. In the meantime, Jack Takano redoubled his efforts on Polaris Park, and though he spent many, many hours in that office – staying for days or weeks on end, according to some – his coworkers saw him less than ever.

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Always in his office. It was as though we’d taken on a staff hermit. (LAUGHS) Not that it was a funny situation, of course, Jack was clearly troubled. But, well… we all just thought that if the tortured genius needs his space, give him his space.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Many of Takano’s former coworkers expressed similar sentiments. But not Jocelyn Chen.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): Everyone always said yes to Jack, and it wasn’t good for him. So when he started hiding, working himself sick, all that… I wasn’t having it, and I said so.

He gave me some line… something about how he had to figure out the problem by himself, that he couldn’t compromise on the park any more than he already had. And I said, “Jack, you can take all your toys, and go hide in your room if you want. But if you keep working like this, you’re going to get yourself killed, and—”

After that… after I said that, he just… looked at me and waited. Like I hadn’t gotten to my point yet. Like that wasn’t even enough reason t—

Anyway. I ended the conversation there, because I wasn’t getting anywhere. But clearly he wasn’t done.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Ms. Chen is referring to a public charity event at which Takano spoke to raise funds for Martian fire departments. Though the speech was largely typical of his optimistic oratory, there was a tangent that was met with confusion in the press:

JACK (FROM COMMS): But the most beautiful thing about Andromeda, I think, is… that she always goes it alone. She recognizes that heroism is a blessing for the world and a curse for the hero, who must live with the weight of every decision they make, the pain of every loss they fail to prevent. And yet she never stops. And she never shares this burden with another, because she knows it is better for one to suffer than two. Goodness is her charge. And she lives up to it alone.

CHEN (FROM COMMS): Which isn’t even true. Aries, the Ramblers, Captain Cancer, Queen Pisces – by that point, Andromeda had relied on others twice a movie! Well, minus Andromeda 3, but… (SIGHS)

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Jack never spoke to me directly about his design problem, but I could see it amongst the lines, as it were. Something at the core of Polaris Park had gone wrong for him, somewhere. Some of his work orders implied that the problem had come from compromises he’d made, and so he tried hiding the gift shops, changing the logo so that ‘Polaris’ was much larger than ‘Park,’ that kind of thing. Then a week later, all those orders would be undone, and he clearly felt that the problem came earlier than his compromises… from the park’s initial contraception, perhaps.

I knew that he expected me to decode that subtext. I like to think I was rather a confidant for him in that way – the only one he could undress even part of his heart to.

SOUND: WATER DRIPPING, RIPPLING FADES IN. DISTANT BOOM.

SMALL FRY: (BARK BARK!)

JUNO: Huh?

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Despite Dr. Vega’s claims, the work orders we’ve unearthed state Takano’s frustrations directly to every head of every department. Polaris Park was not doing what it was supposed to – though Takano was never clear about what its actual purpose was.

SOUND: DISTANT BOOM.

JUNO: What the hell was—

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

HAWK (FROM COMMS): And as Takano tried to solve it—

SOUND: DISTANT BOOM.

—the days to Polaris Park’s opening – and the man’s disappearance—

SOUND: TWO DISTANT BOOMS.

—drew closer and closer.

SMALL FRY: (BARK BARK!)

SOUND: CLICK, COMMS CUTS OFF.

JUNO: Shhh!

JUNO (NARRATOR): We were close to the exit by then. There was just one last pipe we had to pass through, one big enough to stand and walk in. We hadn’t heard a Theia bot in half an hour; it was quiet here.

Until that thumping started, down at the end of the pipe.

SOUND: DISTANT BOOMS.

As quickly as I could I searched the wall around me for weak spots – cracks, openings, anywhere at all to hide – but there were none. This thing had picked the one solid spot left in the entire Oldtown sewer system to corner us.

SMALL FRY: (WHIMPERS)

SOUND: DISTANT BOOM.

JUNO: (QUIETLY) Get behind me, kid, it’s alright. You’re gonna be alright.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The noise kept coming. I tried to make a plan: hide Small Fry in the sludge and try to talk my way out? No, the Theia bots were chatty, and she couldn’t hold her breath that long. Take a shot at it before it saw us? Maybe, but I doubted I could connect without a Theia on my side.

It got closer.

SOUND: SPLASH.

And closer. And then it rounded the corner.

SOUND: SPLASH.

?????: (GROWLS, PANTING)

SMALL FRY: (YIPS & BARKS)

JUNO: A rabbit…? Alive?

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

RABBIT: (GROWL-BARKS)

JUNO: You know him. You know that rabbit, don’t you?

SMALL FRY: (YIPS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): So, that was it, then. Some of the rabbits were alive. I’d brought Small Fry home, and… I felt just… awful.

Looking into her big black eyes, one hand on her matted fur, I realized I already cared about this little rabbit. Protecting her made me feel useful, and loved, and… it was hard to put that away.

I let myself live in maybes for a second. A little rabbit munching snack food under my desk. A big one asleep in the corner of my office – ‘the muscle,’ I’d call her, but really… her name would be Small Fry. Even when she got huge.

I never really would’ve taken her, not really; but… it was nice to pretend, for a second.

JUNO: You can trust that big fella over there?

SMALL FRY: (BARK!)

JUNO: Then go home, kid.

Go home.

SOUND: SPLASHING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): So I watched her hop away. She seemed… happy.

RABBIT: (IN BACKGROUND) (GROWLS)

JUNO (NARRATOR): And that’s when the big rabbit ran over and socked me in the face.

RABBIT: (ROARS)

SOUND: PUNCH.

JUNO: Oof!

SOUND: BIG SPLASH.

H-hey, come on! I know you were scared, but—

SOUND: PUNCH, SPLASH.

Oof!

The hell do you want from me? Money? I got creds, but you have to get off me—

RABBIT: (ROARS, GROWLS)

SOUND: PUNCHES.

JUNO (NARRATOR): This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how the rabbits were. They’d never turn down creds and they never made those noises and they were never… this angry.

I reached for my blaster. But the rabbit had a desperate quickness I’d never seen before and in a second my gun was spinning over his shoulder.

RABBIT: (ROARRRRRR)

SOUND: PUNCH. PLOP.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The rabbit reared back to howl. He still had crumbs and frosting in his fur, big soft belly for scratching, just like all the rabbits I knew. But this one was burned, too. Charred trenches of fur and skin running along his sides, part of one ear gone.

And he looked… so scared. Pissed-off and powerless; like if he couldn’t pin down and punch all those Theia bots, or the human race, or death itself… he was ready to settle for me.

I still had my plasma knife, but I couldn’t stab him. I couldn’t let Ramses make me kill again.

RABBIT: (ROARS)

SMALL FRY: (SQUEAKING)

JUNO (NARRATOR): Small Fry ran up to the rabbit and tugged on his tail. The rabbit nearly jumped out of his fur, and didn’t even look behind him before he kicked one of those huge legs back at the kid.

RABBIT: (RAHHH!)

SOUND: PUNCH. PLOP, SPLASH.

SMALL FRY: (WHIMPERING)

JUNO (NARRATOR): I’ve never seen a rabbit do that. This rabbit had never seen it, either. Looked like he’d spend the rest of his life wishing he hadn’t. Then he turned, and I saw that he was ready to blame it all on me.

RABBIT: (PANTING, BIG HOWL)

JUNO (NARRATOR): A few months ago I might’ve let him, too. That’s what a hero’s for, right? Taking all the hits so the innocent don’t have to, while the ones causing all the pain sit in the stands and watch, blood and popcorn butter sticky on their fingertips.

I was done with that. Instead, I was gonna give the rabbit some advice. So I turned the volume on my comms all the way up.

SOUND: INCREASINGLY LOUDER BEEPS.

RABBIT: (ROARRRR)

JUNO (NARRATOR): And right when he was about to crush my skull… I jammed my comms into his ear and pressed play.

SOUND: FEEDBACK SCREECH. BLIP.

JACKET (FROM COMMS): (VERY LOUD, OVER THE BELOW) We may look backward only to ensure we have not walked this path before.

RABBIT: (OVER THE ABOVE) (HOWL OF PAIN)

SOUND: BLIP. SPLASH.

JUNO: Whaddaya know? Looks like that advice just saved my life, too.

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS.

Stay down, cottontail. I’m not kidding.

SOUND: LOW ELECTRIC HUM.

(OVER THE BELOW) See this? Plasma knife. Real hot; real sharp. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you come any closer, I’ll have to.

RABBIT: (OVER THE ABOVE) (GROWLS)

JUNO: Take the kid and go. This’ll kill you, you understand? Dead.

Stop! Neither one of us wants this!

RABBIT: (BIG GROWL)

JUNO (NARRATOR): But he kept running towards me. And he knew he wouldn’t win. I’m just not sure he cared.

He was almost on top of me. I knew I’d do it if I had to, and… that’s when I heard the first shot.

SOUND: BIG BLASTER SHOT. ELECTRIC WHIR.

THEIA: (AFTER A PAUSE) Targets detected.

SOUND: CREAKING.

JUNO (NARRATOR): A big Theia bot stood in front of me and its first laser sizzled in the wall behind.

The bot had Small Fry pinned between a wall and the end of its cannon.

SMALL FRY: (BARKING)

JUNO: Dammit, no, no, no…!

RABBIT: (GROWLS)

THEIA: Come closer. Rabbit.

JUNO: …What?

RABBIT: (GROWL?)

THEIA: Come closer. I will tell you. When. To stop.

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS.

Closer. Just. A little closer. Real close. There.

SMALL FRY: (YIP!)

SOUND: PLOP.

THEIA: Your little one.

SMALL FRY: (BARKS, MEWLS)

RABBIT: (GRRRRRR)

THEIA: Now please leave. And be careful. Bunnies.

SMALL FRY: (BARKS)

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS FADE.

JUNO (NARRATOR): The two ran, and Small Fry never looked back. I was proud of her. We may look backward only to ensure we have not walked this path before, right? Wherever those rabbits were going, whatever home awaited them… they’d definitely never been there before.

THEIA: You. Stay there.

SOUND: CREAKING.

JUNO: (HEAVY BREATHING)

SOUND: CREAKING STOPS. HISS OF STEAM.

THEIA: Are you injured. User. Mista Steel.

JUNO: Mista…

(STARTS LAUGHING, OVER THE BELOW)

THEIA: Because. Um. Ramses wants to see you aboveground. And. Somethin’ somethin’. No. Don’t say. Somethin’ somethin’. Say—

JUNO: Rita?!

THEIA: —somethin’, you—

JUNO: Rita, is that really you?

THEIA: No. I’m. Um. What’s this thing called. Tara. Teyona. Let me. Look it up.

JUNO: Rita! God, I am glad to see… whatever the hell robot this is.

THEIA: This is. The Theo’s Spectacles.

JUNO: Wait– you yelled at the bot for saying “somethin’ somethin’,” which means you must be able to hear it.

THEIA: Nuh-uh.

JUNO: Rita…

THEIA: Who’s that. She sounds nice.

JUNO: Just drop the joke, alright? I’ve been looking for you for days, I’m filthy, I’m tired, so just tell me where the hell you are!

THEIA: Oh. Does it make you worried. Not knowing. Where very pretty user. Rita is?

JUNO: Rita, I said—

THEIA: ‘Cause maybe. Then. She should disappear for weeks instead. Not say anything. ‘Cause that would definitely make you. Less worried. And not way more worried. Ain’t that right. Boss?

JUNO: (AFTER A PAUSE) Oh, I…

(QUIETLY) What did I do?

Rita, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

…Rita?

THEIA: The Theia Order. Is shutting. Down.

SOUND: POWERING DOWN.

JUNO: Rita? Rita?!

…No.

Please…

SOUND: THUMPING ON METAL.

No! Damn it, no! No!

I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Rita; and, I know that’s not enough. I know how sour a sorry tastes when it comes from someone who’s apologized before and never changed a thing. I know you’ve got no reason to believe me, but…

SOUND: METAL CLUNK.

Please don’t leave me here, Rita. You’ve got every reason to, but… I’m tryin’ to get better. I really want to get better, maybe for the first time in my life since the HCPD, and… I’m just so scared that it’s too late, and everybody’s already smartened up and gone, and maybe you should, but please, please—

RITA: Hi Mista Steel.

JUNO: (YELPS, PANTING) How long were you behind me?

RITA: Just for the last ‘please please.’ I miss anything you wanna say again?

JUNO: I, uh…

I’m sorry, Rita. I’m just… so sorry. It won’t happen again.

…Rita?

SOUND: THWUMP.

Oof!

RITA: I missed you, boss. I was real worried.

JUNO: I know. I hear you. For once. (DEEP BREATH) And I missed you too, Rita. Really.

RITA: (SNIFFLING)

JUNO: What? What’s the matter?

RITA: (SNIFFING/CHOKING BACK TEARS) We just… ain’t never hugged this long before, boss. (SWALLOWS) It’s nice.

JUNO: Oh. Yeah, it’s…

(CLEARS THROAT) Anyway, uh… I got a map, and it says there should be a way out just over—

RITA: Oh, yeah. The whole system’s bein’ shifted around, boss. None’a your maps are gonna work anymore.

JUNO: Shifted around for what?

RITA: Oldtown, I guess. But anyway, I figured out the way up before I even came down here because you know me, Mista Steel, I’m all for an adventure but as soon as it’s one that might get one’a my three S’s wet, I gotta get in and out. That’s right, my shoes, snacks, and salmon sausage snacks, so—

JUNO: You know a way up?

RITA: I do! Wanna go see? I was hopin’ we’d be able to bring that big puppet I hacked into with us, but it ain’t exactly gonna fit through the manhole. Or up the ladder, which I learned ‘cause at first I had two ways out but then I broke one, you’re never gonna believe how, boss, it was—

JUNO: With the big robot, right. Listen, Rita, I want to hear that whole story, I really do, but can we do it someplace we’re not covered in slime?

RITA: That’s a great idea, boss. This way.

SOUND: SPLASHING FOOTSTEPS.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): (FADING IN) …let’s look at that moment one more time. Opening day at Polaris Park. Moments after Takano’s last employee check-in. The silent, solitary moment in which his departure flipped from an idea to an action.

We can’t know what he was thinking in those moments. And in the end, trying to understand every minute detail of the departed’s psyche tells us more about ourselves, in many ways, than about them. Just ask Lorenzo Vega:

VEGA (FROM COMMS): Jack was… a perfectionist. He’d made so many compromises with his park, had seen his vision so diluted. One can only conclude that the sight of it, his creation so malformed… who wouldn’t leave?

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Or Jocelyn Chen:

CHEN (FROM COMMS): He was a visionary, and that meant he had no idea what he was doing. He could help us up to greatness, but him? His sights were always going to be aimed up about a dozen feet over where he ended up, and he was always going to be bored by whatever he made. Always.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): Or Miranda Fairbanks, who wrote in her memoir:

FAIRBANKS ACTOR (FROM COMMS): Humanity needs people like Jack, I think. People who can just see how things should be, without the reality of what they are getting in the way. That’s how progress happens. And so I assume he must have seen the true way forward somewhere other than us… and run towards it.

JUNO: This ladder?

RITA: Mm-hmm.

SOUND: GRUNTS, METAL CLANKING.

HAWK (FROM COMMS): We’ve presented you with theories over these many hours, but we will probably never know why Jack Takano left us behind. The only clue we have is the audio note found in his office, once he was gone. And to conclude our program, we will play it in full.

MUSIC: STARTS (FROM COMMS).

JACK (FROM COMMS): The thing I find most beautiful about Andromeda, in the end, is this: that she can never be satisfied. I wonder now, if Orion’s curse wasn’t really a blessing for our Homeless Hero. He turned her from a protector of one city, to an active force of good the world over.

RITA: (OVERLAPPING WITH THE END OF ABOVE) What’s the holdup, boss?

JUNO: Found the manhole cover.

JACK (FROM COMMS): To find home—

JUNO: (GRUNTS)

SOUND: METAL SCRAPING.

JACK (FROM COMMS): (OVER THE ABOVE) —Andromeda always looks backwards. Polaris. Nostalgia. The paradise left behind. And this works in our stories, when we only show the shining city for a few seconds at a time. But in life, no such place exists.

RITA: Mista Steel?

JACK (FROM COMMS): If it did—

RITA: Mista Steel?

JACK (FROM COMMS): —we would already live there.

JUNO: This… this isn’t Oldtown.

RITA: I’m pretty sure it is, boss. I counted paces an’ everything.

JUNO: No. The map’s right. I’m happy to explain in a minute, Rita, just as soon as I get this cannon out of my face.

THEIA: Remove yourselves. From. The sewer. Help. Is on the way.

JACK (FROM COMMS): But there may yet be such a home. I believe we can find it. But we cannot turn our heads if it is not what we expected, or if we fear what we see when it opens its gates.

RITA: Oh no oh no oh no—

THEIA: Now put your hands up. Please.

JACK (FROM COMMS): Home is not in the past. It can’t be. And that means when we find home, when we find the perfect place we yearn for… I doubt we will even recognize it.

RITA: What is this place? What happened to Oldtown?

JUNO: Says it right there on the sign, Rita.

“Welcome to Newtown: The City of the Future.”

JACK (FROM COMMS): And so now I leave. I go now to seek the true way home, as any hero should. And I urge you to do the same. Or, at least, to accept it when it comes. I look forward to meeting you there. Jack Takano.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

***

SOUND: TRAIN MOVING, MUSIC.

CONDUCTOR: If you’ve enjoyed this tale, please consider donating to The Penumbra on Patreon. Our artists work tirelessly to bring you these stories, and if you have the means, we hope you will support our efforts. Every dollar helps. You can find that page at patreon.com/thepenumbrapodcast. If you support us on Patreon at the $10 level or higher, you’ll receive access to commentary tracks like this one, from actor Matthew Zahnzinger and co-creators Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert:

SOUND: TRAIN STOPS, DOOR SLIDES OPEN, RAIN.

SOPHIE: …There’s not anything more to it than it’s like, yeah, well I thought of it, and I’m smart, and how do I know that? Well, ‘cause I’m me, I just know.

KEVIN: Mmhmm.

SOPHIE: And there’s nobody… above him to tell him, y’know. And there’s no way of knowing for sure… what is good.

MATTHEW: Although to that point, and, to get… back on my bandwagon of every commentary complimenting Kevin’s writing, um—

SOPHIE: Could you compliment me a little bit, for once?

MATTHEW: (LAUGHING)

SOPHIE: What is this?!

SOUND: DOOR SLIDES SHUT.

CONDUCTOR: You can also support The Penumbra by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter @thepenumbrapod, following us on Tumblr @thepenumbrapodcast, telling your friends about us, telling your friends to tell their friends about us, and especially by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. Every rating, comment, and kind word spreads our stories further and inspires us to keep creating more and better tales to come.

We would like to give special thanks to all who support us on Patreon, but especially to Minchowski, Camille Blanton, Christine Kim, Rowan Collins, Garrett M, Jay Iannuzzelli, Karin Z-H, Canteloupe, Fiona Parker, Regan, Ko, Kim Zeugin, Atha Lang, Vron, Charlie Spiegel, and Jaimie Gunter for their incredibly generous contributions per episode. Thank you.

Did you know that The Penumbra has merchandise for sale? It’s true! The Penumbra has partnered with DFTBA to bring you the posters, shirts, and pins your heart desires. Just go to dftba.com and search for The Penumbra Podcast.

This tale, Juno Steel and the Long Way Home, was told by the following people: Joshua Ilon as Juno Steel, Matthew Zahnzinger as Jack Takano and Ramses O’Flaherty, Marge Dunn as Hawk Hackett, Bob Mussett as Lorenzo Vega, Melissa Barker as Jocelyn Chen, Allison Choat as the Miranda Fairbanks reader, Sophie Kaner as the Theia and Small Fry, and Kate Jones as Rita.

The Penumbra is created and produced by Sophie Kaner and Kevin Vibert. If you wish to know more about our ever-expanding, infinitely-creative team of artists, musicians, editors, designers, and managers, you can read about them in the show notes of this episode.

I’m afraid this is the end of the line for today, dear Traveler. We hope you will ride with The Penumbra again soon.

ALL SOUNDS: FADE OUT.

[theswartzreport]

Aquaman

                                        Jason and the Aqua-Nots: Aquaman

Oh Zach Snyder was the keeper of the DCEU's light – slept with a mermaid one fine night! Out of this union, there came this: a wild-eyed beefcake who talks to fish. Yo-ho-hooooo, Marvel can breathe free – there is no threat to their hegemony!

You'll have to excuse the obscure sea shanty reference, but after two and a half hours of a cartoon light show – punctuated by dialogue more weightless than all the “underwater hair” effects – it is the highest level of intellectualism that can be mustered. Aquaman, the first DC film since the resounding “meh” of Justice League, dispenses with all pretensions and revels in it's B-movie trappings, from the omnipresent yet laughable special effects, to the hero of the oceans with his brow cocked and muscles rippling like the sea that birthed him. (Get ready for a lot of water puns.)

Technically, Aquaman is the product of Queen Atlanna and a Maine fisherman with an inexplicable and unplaceable accent (Temuera Morrison, the only actor in this film able to convey a sense of gravitas – admittedly, attempting a Mainer accent probably would've torpedoed that small blessing). But despite the endless monologues about his parentage, it doesn't really matter. The dude (and he is, unmistakably, a DUDE) can swim fast, punch hard and, yes, talk to fish. Other than that, his raison d'être is that he's played by Jason Momoa, flexing his hair alongside his muscles as he flounders through an overstuffed and inscrutable popcorn flick that is undeniably fun, while also being laughably ill-conceived.

Momoa has never been an actor with range, and here he's not asked to do much besides smirk, growl, and be unimpressed by the CGI schlock surrounding him. Far more interesting is the question of who tricked Nicole Kidman onto the green screen set, as she is laughably out of place as Atlanna, Aquaman's long-lost mother. Her best moment comes in the prologue, when she awakes to find herself alone with a golden retriever puppy: they proceed to shadow each other for a beat, providing the most realistic interaction between two warm-blooded creatures the film has to offer. She quickly disappears, until resurfacing for a couple of glorified pep-talks. One hopes that Kidman knocked her scenes out in less than a week, because Aquaman doesn't deserve any more of her time.

Kidman has no reason to be here. But it's the perfect refuge for overblown B-movie actors like Patrick Wilson and Amber Heard, who spout the inane dialogue with gusto. As much as Wilson was a bland dead-end as Night Owl in Watchmen, he's spot-on for the bombastic and motivated-just-because King Orm of Atlantis. With his aggrieved face constantly floating between digital hair and a cartoon body, he snarls and blanches operatically in the midst of incomprehensible shenanigans, the perfect paper tiger for Momoa's bro-cean king to brush aside. And spare a thought for Heard, who has not yet hit the A-list she so clearly strives for, and instead is stuck with lines like:  “We're not dead yet, but I'm hoping he'll think we are.” With a live-action remake of The Little Mermaid on the horizon, we can only assume that Heard's red-headed Mera is a dud of a test-run, as her brief sojourn in Sicily is clearly this film's wannabe Ariel moment where a princess of the sea discovers the wonders of the land. It loses something in translation, however, if only because Mera is nothing but an exposition-spouting deus ex machina – eating roses is less an endearing misunderstanding than proof of her overriding lack of identifiable personhood.

It's not Heard's fault, though. It's hard to fault any actor here: even the estimable Willem Dafoe, who helped usher in the modern superhero film with his cackling Green Goblin, can't chew scenery that is this effervescently computer generated. The seemingly endemic lack of stakes in effects-heavy blockbusters reaches it's nadir with Aquaman, where a tidal wave intended to destroy a seaside village elicits a bemused “huh,” while the colorful underwater kingdoms waste splashes of inspired design in an overflow of anodyne throne rooms and faceless armies.

Speaking of: yes, there is a clash of Disposable CGI Armies, and it's actually not bad, as far as these things go. Unlike the DCEU's previous attempts as “grounded” visual palettes, the armies are helpfully color-coded, so at least it's generally comprehensible who is fighting whom. Unfortunately, the big, fun smash-up battle is short-circuited by the arrival of our hero and his de rigueur 1-on-1 smack down with Orm. It's all predictable, anti-climactic drivel – the fight scenes rival Super Smash Brothers in their cartoonish disregard for physics, stakes, or lasting damage. There is a brief spark of an interesting premise (the idea that a hero fights for everyone, while a king fights only for those who follow him), but it's too little, too late in this sea of nonsense.

And therein lies the failure of Aquaman, which (with a shorter run time and a campier tone) could have been DC's bouncy answer to Thor: Ragnarok. Instead, we're supposed to take this mishegoss seriously, and it's just too removed from any grounding to do so. For all the smattering of gorgeous shots from director James Wan (credit where credit is due: Aquaman and Mera leaping from a boat into a boiling sea, their way lit by a lone red flare, with lightning flashing and an army of undersea demons in pursuit, evokes a classical painting of an ancient myth), there's too much of a junk cartoon ethos to the whole endeavor. Despite volumes of backstory, the plot doesn't matter – Aquaman finally embarks on a quest at the halfway point, and it's resolved within 30 minutes – and the characters are insipid to the point of parody. But instead of leaning into camp (I can't emphasize this enough: Willem Dafoe RIDES A HAMMERHEAD SHARK, and it's played straight), we're supposed to gasp in wonder at the Arthurian myth transposed into water, a splashy spectacle down where it's wetter. It doesn't work, and aside from a both on-the-nose and out-of-nowhere cover of Toto's “Africa” complete with rap break, the whole enterprise could've benefitted from more singing crustaceans, and fewer delusions of grandeur.

Ed. note: I just had so many punny titles for this post, I had to share the rejects: Sea-GI Man. Release the Crappen. Aquabro. Swim Fanboy. The Rise of Vinnie Chase. Clash of the Tridents. Patrick Wilson's War. The Sword in the Bro.

[kingpurrlion-blog]

I found what they left me. This... Schlock. This sorry excuse for a banquet for a King such as I! Am I to live off this dry, crunchy, tasteless drivel? I would sooner cough a hairball on their pillow than consume another bite of this!

[cultml]

...The rebels may have left the stage. They still heavily populate the audience. The little people want what the big people want them to not want. A great rebellion among the audience against the industry exists even if the industry pretends that it does not.

So why notice retromania all these years after it first appeared when the peculiarity of songs blaring right-wing lyrics suddenly occupy spots high on the popular music charts? The former, old-news, albeit still disturbing, phenomenon obscures the latter, new, unheard-of occurrence that proves inconvenient for an industry in which supply demands much from demand.

The preference for past over present and the popularity of performers who rebel against the industry’s politically correct ethos both stem from the same source: consumers saying “no, thanks” to what producers spoon-feed them, which includes, yes, politicized drivel, but more so lazily made, paste-pudding schlock. It turns out popular music isn’t very popular. How many people out of 100 could hum along, let alone recite the lyrics, to any song currently in Billboard’s top 10? Many people from 9 to 90 could do this during the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.

Our DJs don’t take requests. They issue commands.

black swan

[paranolives]

1, 5, 48 and 69!

Thank you for indulging my music obsession. WOAH I rambled more than I thought I would; thanks in advance for reading my drivel!

1. A song you’re ashamed of likingYikes. I interpret this question in two different ways, in terms of what is meant by “ashamed of”: either a guilty pleasure, which is mostly harmless, or “I straight up should not be listening to this stuff”. So I’ll give an answer in terms of both meanings. A mostly harmless guilty pleasure for me would be anything that has reached the Top 40 Pop charts, haha! I’m one of those pretentious fucks who likes to pretend their music tastes are more diverse and interesting because they’re not played on radio. Actually I’m exaggerating. I just genuinely don’t tend to like a lot of what’s on radio these days; I won’t call the entire pop genre a sea of vapid mindless schlock, because that’s just not true, but it is true that I’m not exactly the biggest Taylor Swift fan. So when the occasional pop hit comes along and I find myself liking it, it comes as a surprise - a pleasant one, though. Poker Face is still in my collection, for example. And The Killers are pretty dope. Hell, even Linkin Park and Evanescence have been in the charts a few times - this was a poor frame for comparison-Speaking of: I will never dislike pop punk. I know no one’s going to take my undying love for the genre seriously, ever, but I don’t always take it seriously either, so that’s okay. I will never be able to bring myself to dislike Linkin Park, Evanescence and My Chemical Romance. Just got too many good memories tied to those bands and those songs.As for a song I’m genuinely ashamed of liking… I don’t think there are any that I feel real shame for listening to. I just wrote and deleted a spiel about how I feel I shouldn’t like Mindless Self-Indulgence’s Bring the Pain, but then I Googled it and found it it’s actually a cover, so is it so bad that I like it…? Probably not. Though I do have to be careful when I’m sharing music with people. I wouldn’t want some rando looking through my music collection, and coming across MSI’s “2 Hookers and an Eight Ball” without giving me a chance to explain “No you don’t get it, it’s totally a joke, I swear!”(… But for real, it’s a joke- load up the track, and the vocalist will mock you for listening to it. “Can you believe that I write this shit?” “Stupid people thinking I am cool!” are some of the lyrics. MSI are hilarious for how many fucks they do not give.)I wrote too much. Moving swiftly on!

5. Latest song that made you smileI owe a huge thanks to Epic Rap Battles of History for keeping me smiling this week, haha! Miley Cyrus vs Joan of Arc, Gordon Ramsey vs Julia Child, and oh my God Marilyn Monroe vs Cleopatra is just straight up vicious.

48. A song that demands lip syncing and a makeshift microphoneAnything by Kamelot and The Offspring. Give me Forever and Centre of the Universe and Veil of Elysium; give me Hit That and Why Don’t You Get A Job and Dammit I Changed Again - and I will have a damn good time. Oh, and Bowling For Soup. Shut up they’re fun. I Can’t Stand LA is just hilarious, and 1985 is a classic fight me.

69. A song that reminds you of youAwww yeeeaah, let’s get this narcissism train a-rollin’!Ahh… I will admit there are a couple of songs I attribute to certain times in my life, songs that have really resonated with me and what I was going through at the time. It’s all projection, of course it is, but that’s what songs like these are for. Music is entertainment, and entertainment is meant to provide us some escapism for a while, and there is some inherent selfishness in that. Good selfishness, needed selfishness, because we all need to get away sometimes.Now that I’m done justifying having a sense of self and my right to a healthy ego, I will confess that the song I attribute to my teenage years is the very blatantly titled Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been by Relient K. Honestly, this is still a song I relate to today.And just to get really emo, here’s one I relate to right now: Roads Untraveled by Linkin Park. 

“Give up your heart left broken, and let that mistake pass on. ‘Cause the love that you lost wasn’t worth what it cost, and in time you’ll be glad it’s gone.”

Wah wah, go cut yourself emo kid. 

[criticalotterstudies]

A funny inspection of where that line is happened when the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail sued Dan Brown over The Da Vinci Code. One is a wild fabrication posing as historical scholarship; the other, a thriller supposedly based in said historical fact. It’s a hard sell to claim someone is violating your copyright when they pretend to fall for your scam. Although the two books function almost identically, their authors occupy different points on the spectrum between the schlock artist and the con artist. Hubbard, who started out as a two-bit sci-fi writer, is an interesting case of someone devolving from one to the other. ... lon Musk’s mythology is full of Promethean tasks for mankind, and as with any religion, they are spearheaded by the Prophet himself. Yes, the chance that everything you know is not just a cosmic computer game is “one in billions” — but this is good news, sayeth Elon, since otherwise the world might be coming to an end. Better safe than sorry, though, which is why Musk is transforming us into an “interplanetary species” by 2024. As for our godlike sentient computers (they’re almost here!), those will eventually spawn endless new virtual realities, in a glorious cycle of recursive creation stories, originating with demiurgic geeks jerking off to their PlayStations. “The singularity for this level of the simulation is coming soon,” Musk has declared. No wonder the doctrine is often described as “the Rapture for geeks” — and not just ironically. It’s one thing to make metaphysical statements that cannot be tested, but whatever happened to all of Elon Musk’s more immediate predictions and promises? At this point, he was supposed to have been ferrying space tourists on sightseeing trips around the moon for over three years, since 2014. That’s the same year he had “vowed” to have his third-generation electric car available for less than $30,000, with 100,000 of them on the road already since 2009. ... Every story about the Way of the Future mentions Elon Musk as another high-profile singularity adherent, a thought leader on a similar mission to mitigate the coming transition over to our new robot overlords. There can only be one high priest of Silicon Valley mumbo-jumbo, though, and Musk has stated his stern opinion that Levandowski is the last person who should even be allowed to conduct such dangerous research. “You know those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water?” he asked the audience at an MIT symposium. “And he’s like — yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out.” That’s meant as a funny analogy, but there is really no difference: Silicon Valley executives are like kids freaking themselves out with a Ouija board. Though Levandowski’s spiritual order is competition rather than a sectarian ally, Musk, too, is no stranger to avoiding taxes. In a twist befitting the times, our modern-day prophet’s biblical missions come with market-based solutions. We need to incentivize tech billionaires to save the species, because it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s good business! Except that it’s not. Musk wants to project the image of a self-made man, even while his business empire is on a steady diet of government subsidies and tax breaks (to the tune of at least $4.9 billion). His latest publicity stunt — shooting his own car into space — was perfectly timed to distract from the announcement of Tesla’s biggest quarterly loss ever. It’s a good use of public resources, of course, if George Clooney can save some money to be “stuck on the side of the fucking road,” pretending to care about the environment. And we’ve also greatly reduced the cost of building rockets that explode before reaching orbit. (Don’t blame Musk for that one time it might have been caused by a UFO, though, as he mused.) ... Leave aside the fact that electric cars won’t solve the perils of our planet, and that Mars fantasies are a costly distraction. How much does having Elon Musk at the helm of these projects contribute to the production of usable new technologies? Is his leadership extremely helpful, somewhat detrimental, neutral, something else? With all the federal assistance it receives, SpaceX has sometimes been described as a de facto arm of NASA. What would be the difference if NASA built its own rockets? Or if the research was led by an actual rocket scientist, maybe one who didn’t make it about himself? If you are a mere mortal like me, there are only two things to go by. One is to evaluate his past predictions and promises. It’s not a good look. The other is to inspect the “vision” he expounds in public, which is drivel: a mix of nerd New Age and neoliberalism. And it’s dangerous. Musk’s idea for urban transportation is a uniquely American nightmare of three-dimensional underground car traffic, which will probably turn out to be another (literal) pipe dream. As for Mars, even if we consume all the fossil fuels we can yet unearth, then have an all-out nuclear war for dessert, Earth will still be a vastly more habitable planet. As a practical plan, terraforming Mars makes about as much sense as trying to colonize the bottom of the ocean. I can’t think of a more suitable use for the phrase “capturing our imaginations”. There’s such a legion of people around the world, including in business and politics, whose dreams and ambitions are held captive by Elon Musk’s personal mystique that our collective fate may actually end up mirroring his whims. Cults are notoriously hard to quit. In this case, leaving is not an option, even if you never wanted to join.

[deltamovies]

Infinity Chamber Free Full HD watch online & movie trailer

Release Year: 2016

Rating: 6.2/10 ( voted)

Critic's Score: /100

Director: Travis Milloy

Stars: Christopher Soren Kelly, Cassandra Clark, Chuck Klein

Storyline A man trapped in an automated prison must outsmart a computer in order to escape and try and find his way back to the outside world that may already be wiped out.

Cast: Christopher Soren Kelly –

Frank Lerner

Cassandra Clark –

Gabby

Chuck Klein –

Father

Brandon Loomis –

Gunman

Garrett Behnke –

Gunman

Andrea Annie Owens –

Coffee Shop Patron

Susan Belkin –

Coffee Shop Patron

Brian Ragovin –

Coffee Shop Patron

Amanda Lau –

Coffee Shop Patron

Louis Klotz –

Coffee Shop Patron

Arturo Gonzalez –

Coffee Shop Patron

Vanessa Gonzalez –

Barista

Rufus –

Himself

Jesse D. Arrow –

Howard

Harley Flores –

Young Frank

Details

Official Website: Official Facebook |

Official Site |

Country: USA

Language: English

Release Date: 3 Jan 2016

Filming Locations: El Mirage Dry Lake, California, USA

Technical Specs

Runtime: 143 min

Did You Know?

Trivia: With a limited budget, the director Travis Milloy built the set himself using the most inexpensive materials he could find. To create futuristic walls in the prison cell he used plastic crates that are used to carry 2-liter soda pop bottles which he found next to dumpsters behind grocery stores. Not realizing the crates were re-used by the bottling company, unknowingly having stolen them, after the film was completed he returned the crates to the grocery stores where he found them. See more »

User Review

Author:

Rating: 3/10 This movie had just about everything going for it– acting, suspense, intrigue, twist surprises… until the last 10 minutes when they threw it all out the window with a plot line that took a plunge into the nonsense dumpster. The ending made no sense, tied into the movie in no manner and totally contradicted everything prior… leaving the viewer scratching heads or trying desperately to come up with some explanation as to what the blazes just happened.

This is an excellent example for cinema students of how to let your directorial ego go to your head and totally throw away an otherwise brilliant and inspired film. Watch this or don't watch it as you will… you will get over an hour of enjoyment only to regret wasting your time on this senseless-end drivel. It's not abstract, it's not cerebral. It's just plain schlock from a writing / directing team who coughed up a hairball and called it a story.

Then on top of that, throw in a couple of bogus high-star reviews on IMDb to try and convince everyone of what a masterpiece you've made. Yes sir, that will guarantee the future of cinematic excellence.

I give this 3 stars because I reserve 1 and 2 stars for films with no redeeming factors. This one gets a 3 because any redeeming factors this film had go down the drain with the last 10 minutes.

The post Infinity Chamber appeared first on The Movie Entertainment of the 21st Century!.

from http://ift.tt/2fIijIl

[deltamovies]

Infinity Chamber Free Full HD watch online & movie trailer

Release Year: 2016

Rating: 6.2/10 ( voted)

Critic's Score: /100

Director: Travis Milloy

Stars: Christopher Soren Kelly, Cassandra Clark, Chuck Klein

Storyline A man trapped in an automated prison must outsmart a computer in order to escape and try and find his way back to the outside world that may already be wiped out.

Cast: Christopher Soren Kelly –

Frank Lerner

Cassandra Clark –

Gabby

Chuck Klein –

Father

Brandon Loomis –

Gunman

Garrett Behnke –

Gunman

Andrea Annie Owens –

Coffee Shop Patron

Susan Belkin –

Coffee Shop Patron

Brian Ragovin –

Coffee Shop Patron

Amanda Lau –

Coffee Shop Patron

Louis Klotz –

Coffee Shop Patron

Arturo Gonzalez –

Coffee Shop Patron

Vanessa Gonzalez –

Barista

Rufus –

Himself

Jesse D. Arrow –

Howard

Harley Flores –

Young Frank

Details

Official Website: Official Facebook |

Official Site |

Country: USA

Language: English

Release Date: 3 Jan 2016

Filming Locations: El Mirage Dry Lake, California, USA

Technical Specs

Runtime: 143 min

Did You Know?

Trivia: With a limited budget, the director Travis Milloy built the set himself using the most inexpensive materials he could find. To create futuristic walls in the prison cell he used plastic crates that are used to carry 2-liter soda pop bottles which he found next to dumpsters behind grocery stores. Not realizing the crates were re-used by the bottling company, unknowingly having stolen them, after the film was completed he returned the crates to the grocery stores where he found them. See more »

User Review

Author:

Rating: 3/10 This movie had just about everything going for it– acting, suspense, intrigue, twist surprises… until the last 10 minutes when they threw it all out the window with a plot line that took a plunge into the nonsense dumpster. The ending made no sense, tied into the movie in no manner and totally contradicted everything prior… leaving the viewer scratching heads or trying desperately to come up with some explanation as to what the blazes just happened.

This is an excellent example for cinema students of how to let your directorial ego go to your head and totally throw away an otherwise brilliant and inspired film. Watch this or don't watch it as you will… you will get over an hour of enjoyment only to regret wasting your time on this senseless-end drivel. It's not abstract, it's not cerebral. It's just plain schlock from a writing / directing team who coughed up a hairball and called it a story.

Then on top of that, throw in a couple of bogus high-star reviews on IMDb to try and convince everyone of what a masterpiece you've made. Yes sir, that will guarantee the future of cinematic excellence.

I give this 3 stars because I reserve 1 and 2 stars for films with no redeeming factors. This one gets a 3 because any redeeming factors this film had go down the drain with the last 10 minutes.

The post Infinity Chamber appeared first on The Movie Entertainment of the 21st Century!.

from http://ift.tt/2fIijIl