#she has a little bit of that pixar mom syndrome though

[mentathemint]

MRS.EMILY AU FACTS/HEADCANONS:

*Mother of Charlotte and Sammy Emily *Married to Henry Emily

-Her name is Rose Clark . (Personality type: ESFP-A)

-175cm (5’7)

-Born 3rd of July, 1955 in Austin,Texas. . She moved to San jose,California when she was 15 and went to an art school there where she met Henry(Who at the time was taking a few classes there along side his university classes) They got engaged in 1977, and after Henry graduated from uni they moved to Hurricane,Utah together.

-Considers herself a freelance artist though she has never worked a day in her life for anything except when she helped do all the paintings/murals and advertising for Fredbear’s family diner.

-Started smoking at 18 and is a heavy smoker.

-Owns 2 guns, a pistol and a shotgun. Henry is very cautious about making sure they’re in a safe spot and no one has access to them except her.

-Not an empathetic or caring person, though she really tries to be. Even as a kid, if someone she thought was important to her came up to her and started crying and telling her a heartbreaking story, she wouldn’t feel anything, or any sort of emotion. As she grew older she learnt that she has to show atleast some kind of emotion or else people would think she was rude and stay away from her. . She has dated a lot of people before, a lot of them for a very short time, in hopes of ‘maybe if I fall in love with someone I’ll actually care about them and won’t have to pretend’ but none of her previous relationships really worked out, she stayed with Henry because he was just nicer than anyone else and she could somewhat sympathize with him. But it was easy for her to just leave him out of the blue because she didn’t recognize how upset he’d be and if she did, she couldn’t bring herself to truly care, even though she did love him a lot (My first language isn’t english so sorry if this didn’t make a lot of sense..)

-Her hair is naturally straight but she always and I mean always curls it

-Sammy was kinda like her favorite child, only because he was quiet and never made a mess, unlike Charlotte who from the moment she learnt how to walk, was very energetic and made a lot of messes everywhere.

-Left Henry the night that Charlotte was killed because he got very emotional and just completely mentally destroyed and she thought he was “too much” to handle. (She stayed in a hotel for a couple days then went to live in her parents house back in Texas)

-The day of her 30th birthday, she decided to visit Henry, after 2 years of leaving him. He wouldn’t answer the door and his front door was open so she decided to walk in herself, after a couple times of calling his name she heard him scream, she went in the living room and found that he had stabbed himself. With the knife that was meant to be on the robot he had built to kill him, though before turning it on and finishing it, Rose had come by and he kind of just snapped after hearing her voice and did it himself without the robot thing.

-Mrs.Afton(Mary) was her closest friend for many years, they met in highschool after she moved to California.

-She got along very well with Afton.

-She was alright with Jen, but would never consider them friends though, just acquaintances who may or may not slightly hate eachother.

-Knew how to sew really well and made a few clothes for Charlotte and Sammy. One of which Henry went on to give to Ella after Charlotte died.

-Would only ever buy Henry Roses and/or Rose shaped chocolates for Valentines because she thought it was funny

[minaminokyoko]

The Incredibles II (A Spoilertastic Review)

Oh, there’s just something special about the feeling you get when you wait an extremely long time for something and it’s completely worth it. It’s rare, especially in films. Most of the time an ultra-late sequel is a cheap cash-in that gets rid of all the original movie’s charming aspects and just regurgitates nostalgia all over your face in the hopes that you’ll mistake it for quality. However, one thing I appreciate about Disney/Pixar’s collaborative films is that for the most part, they give a damn. They don’t always (*side eyes the Cars franchise*) but when they give a damn, they give a good goddamn.

I’m in the camp with many people who would argue The Incredibles is Disney/Pixar’s best film. Granted, I also waffle back and forth between Incredibles and Toy Story 3, but I’d be happy to say either film wins the title as their Best in Show. Thus, the bar is set extremely high for the sequel, and I can see why D/P would be hesitant to follow up what is not only their best film, but a film so well written and executed that it stands toe to toe with some of the best superhero stories period, like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers, or The Dark Knight. 14 years is a long damn time (almost reaching the infamous Syndrome line of “15 years too late”) but I can happily say they weren’t just sitting on their hands. They actually knocked it out of the park and made a worthy sequel, leaving the ending open enough for a third film if they so desire to go after it.

Overall Grade: A-

Pros:

-Well, any of you who know me know what’s got to go here first: Helen fucking Parr. She was already a bomb ass bitch in the first movie when she infiltrated the facility to rescue Bob, and then throughout the rest of the movie busting heads protecting her family. They take Helen Parr’s general badassery from a 10 and crank it up to 10,000. Helen is ridiculously talented, sharp, acrobatic, intelligent, and amazingly adaptable. It was an absolute joy to watch her on missions. She wowed me over and over again with how she handled the emergencies that came about because of the Screenslaver. Helen is a force to be reckoned with. I love her genuine enthusiasm and confidence. I love that she knew something felt off about the missions even though she was just a little too trusting to stop our villain before she got to her. I’m really excited to know that little girls are going to grow up with this three dimensional badass mom out there breaking glass ceilings and subverting expectations. Helen Parr is the best of the best and no one can touch her. That’s the biggest takeaway I had for this movie. I appreciate her in a whole new way after seeing what she’s capable of just on her own.

-Married to Helen’s badassery is the action sequences. Wow, wow, wow. From Jack-Jack fighting a freaking raccoon in a death battle to the final Avengers-style climax, Incredibles II rocks it with some truly inspired fight scenes and chase scenes. I loved it. I wish I wasn’t broke right now so I could go right back in and see it again. It’s some fantastic action from start to finish, and each piece is well thought out and well staged. It’s never too close and it doesn’t cut away. You’re in the front seat for all of it and it’s incredibly engrossing, to use an inevitable pun.

-The return of Edna Mode. I was worried that since she was somewhat of an Ensemble Darkhorse in the first movie that they wouldn’t be able to make her as funny and charming as her first appearance, but I fell right back in love with Edna in this film. She’s just fantastic. I was in tears when Bob came back for Jack-Jack and the baby was actually mirroring Edna, and Edna loved him so much that she gave the baby clearance to her design lab. It was just the cherry on top of an already wonderful sundae. God bless Edna and Jack-Jack’s interactions. It was just too funny.

-Bob learning to be a stay-at-home dad, while cliché, was amusing and ultimately (mostly) heartwarming. The exhaustion was just so realistic and I know there were some hearty guffaws from the parents in the audience of my theater last night seeing his antics with the kids. I really did feel for him when he collapsed on the couch next to Violet and admitted he just wanted to be a good dad. It hit me right in the heartstrings, as I’ve spent many a late night on the couch with my exhausted father in the past. Bob also got a bit of development in terms of setting an example for the kids and not letting his impulsive nature get the best of him, i.e. with the car.

-The heroes that were gathered together for the climax. I really enjoyed seeing their different powers. None of them were anything I’d never seen before, but I just appreciate how each of them were used and presented a damn credible threat. I also like the smaller touches of their designs, like how I’m pretty sure the little belcher guy was an homage to Ernest Borgnine (who sadly passed away in 2012) and the crusher guy I think was an homage to Mike Tyson (but don’t quote me on that, he looked like him to me). I loved Void and I have a prediction from my time on Tumblr that she’ll be the new fan favorite aside from the villain Evelyn. They were colorful and competent and interesting, and I’d love to see them in the next movie if there is one.

-Violet was both more and less annoying here than in her first appearance. I don’t know if I can put it into words, but I’ll try. In the first movie, she was weak and whiny, and while she ended up becoming competent, I was still sort of just irritated by her. She’s still whiny here, but at least she’s not weak. She had a reason to be upset and it’s good that she stepped up to the plate when it was time to go to work. My suggestion is that they go ahead and do a time skip if they choose to make a third movie so she can outgrow her irritating preteen qualities and be a full blown early adult to resolve those lingering things about her that annoy me. Just let her grow up already and I think she’ll be a fine character on her own.

-Jack-Jack in general was handled brilliantly. I didn’t get tired of the slapstick. He was genuinely surprising the entire time and it almost makes me wonder how they’re going to proceed with him in the future because once he grows up, he might be the most powerful Super we’ve ever seen at all. I mean, someone’s going to do a count of how many abilities he has, but seriously, it would be good fuel for a sequel for Jack-Jack to get older and people want to take advantage of all the things he can do. Though if I were writing it, I’d write that he can only do these amazing things one at a time only for a limited amount of time a-piece, so like he can do them for less than 60 seconds. That would at least help resolve the overpowered problem he could create. But I digress.

-Is it weird that I just really think the Screenslaver is like the most clever villain name and schtick ever?

-I liked the monologue that the Screenslaver gave while Helen was tracking him. It did bring up an excellent point about consumerism and hero worship. I for one know I’m guilty of the latter to a ridiculous extent, but I also have some pretty deep emotional and psychological problems that cause me to fixate on fictional heroes so it’s probably why Screenslaver’s rant hooked me. It’s intentionally ironic and brilliant commentary from the writers.

-I loved the small touch of including Helen, Bob, and Lucius’ theme songs at the end credits. So cute.

-The short film before the movie was also very creative. (Though another reason I think humanity is destined to die out by self-destruction is the whole audience laughing when the mother ate the dumpling baby. I sat there stunned thinking, “What the actual fuck, guys. I don’t think that’s the emotion that they were going for. I think it was supposed to be upsetting, not funny.” It was awkward as hell and I think humanity is doomed even more than I usually do.)

Cons:

-Bob Parr’s aborted character arc. This wasn’t a fully aborted arc, but it was definitely a partially aborted arc. I think that the biggest criticism anyone could throw at this movie is Hero Decay for Bob Parr. He’s broken down pretty badly and he only gets to do hero work twice in a two hour film. The rest of the time he spends as the comedic Butt Monkey stay-at-home dad, and while that’s fine, it rubs me the wrong way that the film sort of picks up a big central issue with him and then drops it entirely. First, I was irked at Bob’s implications when the Deavors wanted Helen. She gives him a dirty look, but I don’t like that the film doesn’t have Helen confront Bob about almost insulting her in front of their potential employers and implying that she’s not as good as he is or not as right as he is for the job, and I further don’t like it that he’s so selfish and egocentric when she does a great job that he doesn’t really congratulate her and actually mean it. Helen pretty much did the impossible. When the movie shows us what she’s able to stop, there’s no way in hell Bob could have done what she did. Yeah, strength is great, but it’s not everything. That’s what the first movie showed us, that Bob has great uses, but he needs to be complemented by other heroes to be effective. Helen is fully capable on her own and doesn’t need help. So it irks me that Bob’s so dismissive of what she’s able to accomplish. Second, it felt a lot like Bob just assumed he’d temporarily be doing the stay-at-home dad thing until Helen opens the gateway for him to do what he really wants to be doing. It didn’t feel like he was ready to make the sacrifice for hero work to raise his kids. It didn’t feel right to me. I thought the film would offer a choice where Winston said he could join her in hero work and Bob says no, he’d rather take care of the kids and let her do her thing because she’s great. I think that was the biggest missed opportunity in the film. I don’t feel as if Bob learned anything. He cares about the kids and Helen, but it still felt like he just wanted self-gratification in the end. He wants to be a hero because it’s all he knows how to be, and the conflict just sort of vanishes once the third act kicks in. I’ll see if anyone else notices this or if it’s just me, but I found myself disappointed in him this time around.

-Evelyn was way, way too obvious as the villain. Granted, it’s not like the first Incredibles was subtle. We were thrown right in with Syndrome and he was a Card Carrying Villain with zero regrets. I just didn’t think it would be so obvious that it was her, but nope, it was her. As soon as Winston told us the backstory, it was like there was a huge blinking sign over her head that it was going to be her. There was an off chance it was Winston, but after a certain point I figured he really was just a big excitable kid who wanted heroes legal again, so by default it was Evelyn. It was too transparent, so the whole movie I was just checking my watch for her to turn evil, and she finally did. There was no attempt to make her seem like she wanted anything other than to see the heroes fail based on that rotten attitude of hers, so maybe it was just a rare spot of laziness from the writers not to hide her very clear intentions.

-Frozone felt a bit underused. Once he put Helen and Bob in contact with the Deavors, I thought maybe we’d see more of him, but he just disappears until the third act. Odd. Not a dealbreaker, just odd.

-I actually though the bodycam thing would be used in a different way than to eventually tip Helen off that something was wrong. I thought that Evelyn was going to manipulate the footage to make it seem like Helen attacked the ambassador and went rogue so she’d be hunted down or something. It just ended up falling short of my expectations, I suppose.

-Although it’s accurate to our actual society, the cops yelling at Bob and Helen for not catching the Underminer really ticked me off. Are you telling me there were zero casualties when he blew the bank through the ground? I find that hard to believe. And it also sounded like they were just mad they didn’t catch him, not that they were mad about them violating the law. Look, fuck off. Cops can’t even handle simple burglaries sometimes, and you want to give these heroes lip about trying to stop someone who drove a drill the size of a building up through the ground and then blasted a whole-ass bank? Whatever. Y’all sippin’ the same Kool-Aid as the people who came up with the Accords in Captain America: Civil War. Your argument is dumb. Go sit down somewhere.  

Honestly, I’m really looking forward to seeing this film again and to finding out if they intend to follow through with a third film to make it a trilogy. After all, if anyone can make three phenomenal movies instead of two good ones and a dud of a third like the status quo, it’s Disney/Pixar. I suggest you run right out to see Incredibles II, because it was well worth the wait.

[wits-writing]

Incredibles 2 (Movie Review)

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After fourteen years, Brad Bird has finally delivered a sequel to his superhero animated Pixar feature, The Incredibles. Picking up directly from the ending of the original, the Parr family is quickly faced with the reality of the fact that even after saving the day last time, none of the laws banning superheroes went away. Mr. Incredible and Elasti-Girl, aka Bob and Helen Parr, (still voiced by Craig T Nelson and Holly Hunter) are offered the chance to rekindle positive public perception of superheroes by media mogul Winston Deavor (voiced by Bob Odenkirk). However, they’re both caught off-guard when he reveals that the best chance to build that public profile back up would be putting Elasti-Girl in the spotlight. So while she’s going on missions to generate public faith in superheroes, Bob must adjust to being a stay at home dad.

[Full Review Under the Cut]

The parallel central arcs for Bob and Helen are good, even if Bob’s leans a little too far into the clichés of the “Mr. Mom” trope towards the start. They start in a place of opposition about what they should be willing to do with their powers for the sake of their family’s future, especially after the resolution to the battle with the Underminer goes poorly for them. Bob wants them to find a way to continue being superheroes, while Helen wants them to find some way to return to living a normal life and not risk their whole family facing the consequences for breaking the anti-superhero laws. Once Helen’s back out in the field and Bob’s taking care of things on the home front, the movie ends up being about how they are both responsible for managing the work/life balance for their family.

Brad Bird’s skill for directing animation hasn’t lost a step in the eleven years since his last directorial animated feature. Action beats strewn throughout the film are well thought out and choreographed with creative power usage on display from the various colorful characters present. The Elasti-Girl sequences while Helen doing solo work out in the field are the best of what Incredibles 2 has to offer in this regard. The various ways the animators have come up with for her to put her pliable body to use during the rescue operations we see her go on are impressive and energetic, especially with the added element of the Elasti-Cycle in her first mission (though it unfortunately gets destroyed during that mission as well.) Other action sequences in the movie are still entertaining, but don’t quite match these well executed early beats. Part of that comes from the fact that the new heroes that get introduced in this movie start to play more of a role in the later sequences. Since none of the new heroes get much established about them as characters, there’s a lot less invested in how they get involved.

Outside of the action, the most amusing bits of animation come from the sequences involving Jack Jack and his randomly activated powers. The first major beat involving the super baby, where he gets into a confrontation with a raccoon in the Parr family’s backyard, has the humor and tone of a classic Looney Tune short mixed with a Maggie-heavy subplot from The Simpsons. Humor carries through this subplot as Bob keeps trying to figure out new ways to handle whatever his infant son is going to throw at him next. When it seems like the potential humor for this element of the story has reached its limit, the return of Edna Mode, still voiced by Bird himself, comes around to give some new fun twists to it as she quickly becomes fascinated by Jack Jack’s apparently unlimited potential as a new challenge for her superhero fashion designs. The cameo makes a cute addition to the movie and works to bring this subplot to a close.

Subplots do a lot of filling time in this movie as the central story and plot feel oddly thin at certain points. The way subplots are introduced and resolve throughout the movie feels like they put a bunch of ideas for a potential Incredibles animated series and cobbled them together to create the screenplay. Incredibles 2 ends up feeling less substantive than the first due to this fact. Not helping matters is the fact that what ends up being the central villain plot lines up a little too well with Syndrome’s plot from the original, at least in the broad outline of a character being offered a chance to be a superhero again ends up being part of the machinations to facilitate the grander villainous plan. It also ties into the problem of the place the Par family ends up by the end of this family being pretty similar to where they ended up by the end of the original, with the added benefit of superheroes being legal again.

The only way Incredibles 2 manages to really be a disappointment is how there’s a bit of a “that’s it?”-factor for the story being what it is after the decade plus of waiting for it. As another adventure for the Parr family to go on and grow closer together, there’s plenty of fun to be had here. The character/background designs, the music from Michael Giacchino and the animation are all strong, which keeps things entertaining. It never feels slow, which is par (pun not intended) for the course with animated family films. The story is a little loose and the twist is pretty obvious, especially in light of similar reveals from other animated Disney features, but remains a good framework for the animation, action and jokes to revolve around. If you’re like me and have been waiting for this for years, you’ve probably already decided to go see it, but it’s definitely worth seeing.