#so yeah classical is only for fests and all which has that theme in mind

[ramayantika]

Why is my mother telling me to prepare classical dance covers on English songs knowing that isn't my vibe at all. We gen Z indians are still attached to bollywood songs to put up a classical cover on it.

She thought I will do a jathi or any of my odissi items for dance clubs and parties and I was like: maa what do you think your daughter to be. I don't have the intention of the entire student body going to sleep

[earthstellar]

Earth Music on the Lost Light: Human Music That Cybertronians Like

we know for a fact that the Lost Light has access to human media, primarily movies, TV shows, and music-- and we know they generally seem to fucking love most of it, or at least find it interesting

but what would everyone's tastes be, in regards to Earth music?

time to talk about music for a long time!!! strap in, enjoy some tunes

we already know Cyclonus has impeccable taste and enjoys some of the best jams the 80s had to offer.

I can't help but imagine Rodimus being given a media archive of Earth tunes to approve for the Earth Dance would only result in chaos

(it's not like he would say no to anything, he absolutely blanket signed it all, it's just an obligatory thing-- or Ultra Magnus tells him it is, solely to keep him away from Important Captain Things that he would rather handle himself or hand off to Megatron, lmao. the shit that really needs to get done)

and this is how Rodimus discovers the somewhat questionable yet amazing genre of "mid-90s underground techno rave mix tapes"

(somewhat related, I still think Testarossa might as well be Rodimus' theme song, although it's not a 90s track and has more of an 80s synth vibe)

Rodimus would love that "computers are the future, fuck yeah let's make Digital Cool Future Music" mid-90s shit, there is no way he would not. it has the exact energy level that appeals to him and is also cheesy and weird and chaotic. and has like 500 different sub-genres, so his selection is endless, lmao.

he would probably find it cute that this is what humans imagined to be the peak of "digital sound" at the time. like lmao this was the best humans could do when asked to create music that sounds like it was made by robots or other mechanical space future cyber lifeforms--high concept!!! he would probably find it interesting and endearing. this is what organics think non-organic music is like!!

anyone acting as DJ at Swerve's on any given night would be so, so mad that Rodimus keeps requesting shit like "DJ MASSIMO ITALO DISCO BEST RAVE TUNES LIVE FROM LONDON 1995" or "DJ ARMPIT SLUDGE FEST HOUSE-RAVE-DRUMS N BASS SET 1996" for them to play, lmao

not individual tracks. the whole album. entire mix tapes of random, somewhat questionable mid-90s techno house rave bullshit.

that having been said, that good ass early 90s trance techno might send him into a spiral depending on his mood at the time, lmao (it's been known to happen)

but at the same time I can imagine him sharing tracks like Solar Quest - Space Pirates with Drift and they'd both just sit there and jam out, but quietly, thinking about shit while sitting in a port window next to each other (this was peak sleepover party techno, Back in My Day-- many deep conversations were had while listening to stuff like this, lol)

Drift would probably find some of Rodmus' recommended stuff to be pretty good for meditation-- although once he finds out about the human drug culture involved and certain concepts of experimental consciousness etc. that surrounded techno/rave and other related genres, it might cause him to pull back a little bit

(until he finds out about kandi culture, in which case, Drift would love the idea of hand-made unique bracelets and sentimental trinkets being made and exchanged at warehouse shows purely out of Good Vibes and Love for Fellow Beings and it turns out actually he fucking loves this shit, a chill vibes based "expand your mind" kind of music subculture appeals to his Spectralist sensibilities and he likes sharing tunes with Rodimus in return)

Drift picking tracks on his own would likely lead him down more of a classic rock road, but more of the chill side of things, more of the folksy type of classic rock -- I can see Drift really enjoying Spirit in the Sky - Norman Greenbaum or California Dreamin' - The Mamas and the Papas. or like, Incense and Peppermints - Strawberry Alarm Clock.

I mean, Drift might even go Full Earth Hippie and end up liking Green Tambourine - Lemon Pipers, lmao. in fact I am fairly certain of this.

I can see Drift loving Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In - The 5th Dimension. the whole vibe would probably appeal to him.

he'd quite possibly also like I Need a Dollar - Aloe Blacc, but it hits him in a place that still hurts to think about. so it's in rare rotation.

meanwhile Ratchet would probably be fine with classic rock too, like the good Dad Rock shit, just a lot of tracks from the 70s/80s -- a couple tracks he and Drift could probably agree on would likely lean more into the experimental/psychedelic rock side of things, like White Room - Cream or something like Wheel in the Sky - Journey

Rodimus tries to troll Ratchet by recommending Old Time Rock n Roll - Bob Seger, but joke's on him because it turns out Ratchet loves it, lmao

Swerve would go all out on classic bar jams for the evening playlist. Chill, good shit like Do It Again - Steely Dan.

Megatron would love Sinnerman - Nina Simone; He'd send it to Drift in a command crew level secured data packet, and they would both feel the hell out of this song. They don't need to talk about why. They never mention it to each other.

Megs would also probably love These Old Bones by Dolly Parton (mostly due to the lyrics, rather than the upbeat tune, but he would find it relatively relaxing), as well as 9 to 5 (of course), and similar music. Country from back in the day when country music was more about the struggle of poverty and the working life of rural people. Country music from back when songs told all the untold stories. He can respect that.

He'd listen to You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive by Patty Loveless and it would get him right in the fucking spark. Megatron is the Cybertronian equivalent of an Appalachian miner, god dammit. He understands.

Megatron would also like Johnny Cash; He would overthink Ghost Riders in the Sky and it would depress him, partly because it reminds him of Seekers... sigh.

I think he'd also like Cold War - Janelle Monae. He'd be way into good lyrics; What's being said in a song matters most to him. "This is a cold war, you better know what you're fighting for..." Indeed.

anyway I like thinking about what jams Cybertronians might like from their available selection of Earth tunes

[consistentsquash]

Catullus 16 by eldritcher

Harry/Voldemort. Rated M. 168000 words.

Fest - @hprecfest. Day 13 - A fic over 100k.

This is a special rec because Cat16 is a really special fic. One of my all time fav fics! The fic was originally written in 2014 and it returned to AO3 in 2023 after it was taken down in 2018. This is a fic I avoid reccing because I don't really think I can do it justice. Lots of prep work went into this rec <3

Cat16 is a glorious love story. Also a scary war story. Also a story about grief, living with the ghosts of the people you lost.

This fic is hard to categorize. It has everything. A depressed, grieving villain avoiding war. A depressed, lonely headmaster avoiding war. A frightened, brave hero who has to walk a pretty fine line between morally good and not so good but doesn't succeed sometimes. Compromises on top of compromises but how do you even with somebody who killed your parents? The grief is visceral/unending/painful to read/painful to think about. Love clasps grief as only love can. This is a repeating theme in every single eldritcher fic. But it really is the biggest ghost haunting Cat16.

The war framing is Grindelwald’s invasion after he escapes from the prison. But the real war is the heart and mind war Harry, Voldemort and Dumbledore have to fight everyday as they make compromises. Dumbledore is charismatic and brilliant. Voldemort also. Their depression, grief and sensuality are the other side of the coin. Definitely not inhuman. Harry is so brave, so hopeful, so flawed, so everything.

You can’t talk about Cat16 without talking about the smut. Because Catullus wrote this poem about sodomy and face fucking. Because eldritcher's love for ficdick isn't like a secret or anything. The opening scene has serious Kill Bill vibes. The fic starts hard, goes hard, doesn’t really stop going hard. Honestly Harry and Voldemort have got to be nonstop dehydrated because of their dickchasing. So much dick. Sexposition is dickposition here :D

Also the character progression. Harry’s character gets layers as he deals with new challenges everyday. Dumbledore’s and Voldemort’s characters work in reverse with them losing layers when they trust Harry more and more. It’s a really brilliant and unusual exposition technique I don’t see a lot in fic. Works for the fic 100%.

The relationship arc has a lot of literary clues about the progression. The locations also show the relationship evolution and the real scale of the fic. The fic starts in Hogwarts, next London, next Canterbury which is really important for Dumbledore's arc, next some war locations, next Hungary in the Carpathians which is the classic Grindelwald setting in eldritcher's fics and the finale is in France locations in Rheims and Verzenay.

Also Grindelwald. The Grindelwald/Dumbledore confrontation in Canterbury with the backstory of Thomas Becket/King Henry is really intense. OMG. This fic. Like any eldritcher fic you can use it to prep for history trivia. Probably better than learning history on Twitter :D Also more fun. Less shouty more smutty. Zero preaching. Zero pretension. Somebody on reddit compared this to hpmor done right which I feel is insulting Cat16 but yeah I get the comparison.

The finale, Acheron, is one of eldritcher's best longfic finales and that's a really high bar right there. The ending is bittersweet and haunting. They are in love, they are together but you finish reading with this loss of innocence melancholy, sweet ache which is going to haunt you for the rest of your life.

Love love love this dickpoetry epictragedy soaringlovestory fic <3

art source

Recs I made for this fest

[wackology]

Dumb HBCU/WR movie ramblings

Ok so I've been thinking a bit about the HBCU and a potential Wacky Races movie in development a bit and I got a lot of shit to say about this so buckle your seatbelts and hold on to your hats as you witness my incoherent ramblings and fanon headcanons.

So it pretty much agreed upon that any next installment of the HBCU is gonna take a while to come out considering how WB has put the HBCU in standstill for their dr seuss cinematic universe and liveaction-animation hyprid movies. Hell even the director of Scoob said that. The possibility of us getting another cinematic HB film in the next 5 years are close to none but if we were to get a movie it would probably be wacky races themed. Why? Cuz the Scoob film left off with Dick escaping prison with the wacky races on his mind (or in this case, his prison cell) and it would make sense for WB to continue the HBCU (which they probs don't plan to) with a character we are pretty familiar with and the only likable character in Scoob. Which begs the question, where would the plot go narrative wise?

Dick probably won't be the main character of the story but I can practically guarantee it will be Penelope Pitstop. I mean they already got concept art and i think they have models too that were unused and the people on scoob said they didn't add her to the film because they planned for her to be part of something bigger. Basically, I bet my left arm that the protag will be penny because apart from dick and muttley, she was the most memorable character of the show. We must also consider how they would tie up other hanna barbera characters and properties into a WR film thats part of an HBCU installment.

So basically, with this in mind I have created a few theoretical plots/premises that might happen in a WR movie

1. A Hooded Claw driven girl power film

Claw is an og and classic antagonist for penny, and if they really wanted to make a film centered on her the hooded claw is the perfect character to play the bad guy. I feel like the plot would go a bit like this: In order to kill penny and get her inheritance, Claw sponsored/set up the wacky races to kill penelope under the guise that good ol uncle sylvester was supporting Penny's girl power dreams to be a racer. Basically, he acts all supportive and shit for her to chase her dreams and enter this new race but under the mask actually set the whole thing up as an elaborate plan to kill her.

He lets the most deranged, insane and wacky people enter the race, from a gangster mob, to literal monsters to a pilot racer and a military tank duo with guns and canons thinking that Penny's survival chances in this race will be close to none, especially with it being a sausage fest and him not believing  in girl power. He even hires a professional mercenary with an evil dog to help kill penny in the WR (yes, dick, and yes he was sucessful at killing the pigeon in the scoobverse so he is actually considered quite the exceptional and competent villian in universe).

The rest of the film would be her racing and doing good despite all the odds and ends at her winning the grand finale, much to the frustration of Claw.Basically a film of empowerment for young girls to enjoy. This plot would probably be the most faithful to the original WR and most likely be a prequel to Scoob since the movie implies that Dick was doing all the skull shit after the wacky races sooo yeah.

There could also be a peter/penny subplot, perhaps not as romantic interests but as platonic friends or just some flirty exchanges between them, as well as a dick subplot with him not liking to race much at first and doing it for just the money but coming to love it as the film progresses. This plot would also probably be the least HBCU type film since it is mostly WR based and by nature would already have a ton of characters but they might try to replace some of the less memorable characters with other HB characters that are a bit more memorable than the boring racers but not as well known to have their own films (could see the country bears replace luke and blubber bear as well as any other character replace the lumberjack guy).

2. The Great Race inspired film

So we kinda get the idea in scoob that dick hasn't been in the Wacky races for a while after muttley disappeared and all the skull business happened but as we all know, dick was the character who made the races actually interesting. So the execs couldnt just have the wacky races without dick so what did they do ? They got a doppleganger of course, that being this boyyyy

Basically, the Wacky Races executives used Dick's way less famous twin brother  the Dread Baron and his dog friend Mumbly to fill in for the two once they realized Dick wasn't going to come back after prison. They were wrong of course but dick doesnt know he's been replaced and escapes thinking he was going to join the races again but when he does find out it bruises his ego a lot.

This idea technically serves better as a subplot and could be woven into the hooded claw story above if we just changed a few elements( make it happen after scoob instead of before, perhaps DB and Mumbly were hired by claw to kill penny and dick has to begrudgingly help penny and peter to get his place back in wacky races). After plot stuff happens it ends with dick being in the WR again and DB finding employment elsewhere in the Laffalympics which can easily tie into the established HBCU since it has the yogi gang, mystery gang, captain caveman and the teen angels gang and blue falcon and dynomutt.

Does this theoretical plot draw a lot from my personal desire to see DB just once. Yes. But do i care. No

3. The super HBCU plot(probs the most likely)

So the end credits basically tell us that after the scoob movie that the mystery gang and other HB characters joined the falcon force and are fighting baddies and crap.

Dick has escaped so they will probably start looking for him and in order to do so they get tangled up in the wacky races. Dick isnt the main antagonist tho( he's either trying to sabotage the other wacky racers because he is salty af or begrudgingly has to help out the heros or main antagonist) but the falcon/scooby gang discover a huge conspiracy happening within the wacky races that goes something like this: this race was set up kind of like a scavenger hunt across the world or the US to find mcguffins that are actually really powerful and crap when assembled, which is what the villain was trying to do because evil reasons. Basically wacky raceland done funnier or just Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run.

In this premise not only would the og wacky racers and scoob cast be in it but i bet there would also be a bunch of cameos and references to other HB characters and they might even join in on the action and be racers too. I have no real clue on who the main baddie would be but I think it would be a johnny quest bad guy or something:( in the end credits they are teaming up with Quest industries after all).

I feel like the entire vibe of a premise like this would be very mad max like but without all the apocalypse stuff and just pure unrefined insanity. I kinda based these ideas off some of the unused concept art in scoob and I'm pretty sure the gang and the falcon force would team up with penny cuz they were planning to do so in the og concept art.

I have a few other ideas in my head but those arent fully developed but I might post them one day lol. But yeah, thanks for listening to my dumb shit lol

[nalufever]

do you have any more nalu fic recs?

Sorry, not sorry - you’ve unleashed more than you could’ve guessed. ^^ Always happy to Recommend a List of Fics ~ And thank you for asking! Admittedly there’s a few Recs that aren’t Nalu - I got excited to share my favs. ;)

A Girl Worth Fighting For: Natsu navigates unspeakable horrors to win Lucy’s love or Natsu goes shopping, looking for the perfect white day gift. 

A Lesson: Natsu and Lucy can’t keep themselves from expressing their passions - and the results are bed breaking. Short but smutty - smexy in fact. ;P 

A Solidly Constructed Kiss: Erza strong-arms Lucy and Natsu into working the Kissing Booth to raise funds for a school trip. Lucy’s never been kissed and Natsu acts like he’s never entertained even the idea of kissing another person. Things naturally come to a head when Lucy and Natsu are given the task to build the actual booth; will they fight over construction or build themselves some kind of relationship? 

Fairy Tail Week: A collection of drabbles from tumblr prompts to celebrate Fairy Tail. Fairy, Ladies, Lads, Magic, Guild, Ultimate Team, Stronger, Mashima, Tail. Only rated teen to err on the side of caution, family friendly content featuring most of the Fairy Tail Guild! 

Feathers and Scales: Angel/Demon AU. Devils are more than they seem and Angels no less. Pitted against each other in a never-ending battle for souls, a single Angel and Devil trade mercies and fall in love. Warning: major character death(s). 

Full Moon Secret: Natsu had wanted to tell Lucy his secrets, to share his family history with the fey…it had just never been the right time. Tonight the truth was going to be revealed, one way or another. 

Okay, I could just keep hyping all of my own fics individually - but I won’t - other than to just put in a link to ALL OF THEM. ;) Fair warning, I have a few other fandoms works in all the Fairy Tail stories - from Brooklyn 99 to The Flash, Snow White with the Red Hair, RWBY, Blue Exorcist, Teen Titans and some Hakuouki. Yes, I’m a shameless self-promoter. Speaking of that - one more I need to rec!  Natsu’s Stars in Lucy’s Sky. I swear Imma finish this. 

I also have more than a few favourite authors who write for Fairy Tail (and other fandoms) ~ some have not contributed lately to Fairy Tail or chosen to concentrate on other fandoms - but I like them and their excellent writing. 

ObsessedwithNalu: One of my first fandom friends and pretty much any of her FT stories is gold. @obsessedwithnalu  

Christmas Treats: Admittedly a gift to me and very cherished for that fact - and - it’s frigging awesome. Lucy does a little holiday baking at home before Fairy Tail’s Christmas party. Natsu, as always, is there. One thing leads to another… 

Thanks, Krov: When Krov decided to relax at his favorite bar after work, he never imagined that he’d be seeing some of his old guild members, especially since he thought they had died long ago. Nalu fluff. 

Edo-Nalu love fest: Submissions for the Nalu love fest week of 2014. But instead of regular Nalu, these ones feature Edo-Nalu. Smut-tastic and delightfully mature. 

ImpracticalDemon: Another early fandom friend who’s still writing this, that and the other thing - and she’s just GREAT. Again, a link to all her works and a few that are special to me follow. XOXOX @impracticaldemon  

May the Best Man Survive: “Gray would never have in a million years thought he’d host Natsu’s bachelor party (Nalu pairing). Why is it his job to herd the bunch of rowdy mages from bar to bar, ending up at the guild where the real surprise party is? Oh yeah, the idiot had asked him to be the best man at his wedding. Hijinks, chaos and hilarity ensue.” ^^ A prompt supplied by me and I’m smirking so wide because the fic Imp came up with delivered more awesomeness than I could have hoped for! 

A Star At His Side: “Accidentally Fall Asleep Together” for Endragoneel on tumblr. Natsu and Lucy spend the day together at a festival in Magnolia. Natsu ends up watching more than just the stars when the festival is over… 

Christmas Gifts: When Erza walks Wendy home from the Guild’s Christmas Party, Wendy realizes how alone her friend and mentor is feeling. She sets out to recruit Lucy, Natsu and the rest to break Jellal out of prison for just one night, as a Christmas gift for Erza. Meanwhile, Natsu has accidentally burned some of Lucy’s writing. Will she forgive him? 

Dark Shining Light: One of the best and most welcoming writers I have ever interacted with! I’m still gobsmacked she’s a friend! She’s a legend and I don’t know what else I could add to any discourse about her writing - but the classics are classic for a reason, yeah? Here’s a few of my personal favourites of her works and just know there’s too many to list them all! AKA @ff-darkshininglight 

Mischievous Cat: Let’s just say there have been a few incidents where Happy has come in at a bad time. 

What Belongs to a Demon: Everyone knew she belonged to the great demon lord and she would prove that she deserved to stand by his side. 

The Truth Revealing Cards: Lucy should have known if there was a card that would reveal her secrets, Natsu would want it. 

Eliz1369: Got introduced to her for her Hakuoki fics but she’d dipped her toes into FT as well ~ and this is a great fic. ^^ @eliz1369 

The Light of Fairy Tail: The members of Fairy Tail may be their own brand of crazy, but their hearts are always in the right place. 

rougescribe: Shame on me for not reading more of this author’s works! @rougescribe  

Fire Sprite No 5: For him, Heaven wasn’t a place or a single moment in time. It was a feeling built on memories upon memories, past and present and a hope for future ones all tied down together. All sharing one common denominator: Her. Nalu. Tumblr Valentine’s Event. 

Fallen Ark Angel: Admittedly I only have interacted from afar with this writer. I mainly read Nalu fics but I love her take on Mira and Laxus and her next gen offspring characters. She’s got a lot to offer and it’s all superb. @fallen029

Loving Satan: Loving Satan is never easy. But when she loves you back, its twice as bad. 

Madartiste: Another one-sided love affair with someone else’s writing. And her stories are all wonderful and prolly appear on hundreds of Fic Rec Lists - but here’s one of my Favs! @madartiste  

Hoarding: Getting interrupted gets old fast. 

UranoMetria: I added her to my stable of fav authors 05-03-2014. Wow. Eons ago and even if I’m not sure she’s still active in the fandom, I salute her. Kudos. 

The Goddess Gate: With six years of partnership, Natsu and Lucy are torn apart by a mysterious visit from a secret magic council. Lucy is kidnapped and her memories suppressed. She fights her way back home to regain her life - with a startling secret revealed as she begins to remember. The lives of all Earthland hang in the balance. **Okay, this is a wicked old fic - but amazingly written and fuelled my own desires for writing. Last updated in 2018 but who knows? Some current attention may slay any demons on her back in regards to writing - and even if not - the hours of enjoyment reading this is worth giving a comment just to say, ‘thank you for writing.‘ 

Wild Rhov: Do I even need to say anything about this author? Famous, famous, famous. Excellent. Writes a lot of pairings and fleshes every relationship into something REAL. I Can’t Even. @wildrhov  

Beastly Possession: Something is murdering people in Magnolia. When Lucy is attacked, Natsu goes on a rampage to find the culprit, and everyone in Fairy Tail wants revenge. But could this bloodthirsty attacker be someone they know? Warning: High octane nightmare fuel! Do not read while eating, and beware of red eyes in the dark! 

Shell1331: Introduced via Imp. This writer is in a few fandoms and is worth reading. @shell-senji  

Juicy: Impulsivity and poorly chosen words get Natsu into more trouble than he’d expected, which is saying something for him. 

AbsentAngel: Everyone should know this writer. Been stalking her since 2014 so that says something. Tho, it’s prolly just that I’m creepy. ;) My suggested fic here is being re-written/has been? into something original and worth being purchased when it becomes available and re-read over and over. No, I am not being paid to shill but I am open to having senpai notice me. @absent-angel  

To the Flame: She stares, transfixed, as the blood runs down his fingers and begins to pool in his palm. He holds his hand up to her lips in offering, and she tears her eyes away from the blood to study his face. He is smiling softly. “Go on Luce, I didn’t cut them for nothing.” [Vamp AU] 

HawkofNavarre: Loved for awesome and delightful Gruvia content. Looks like there’s a tumblr but I can’t manage to link it. :(

You Stole the Rain: He just wanted to be friends; fine, she just needed to change his mind. Gray x Juvia 

Ricardian Scholar Clark-Weasley: Not sure I spelled that right even after checking three times! I usually short hand that to RS-CW in my head. And she’s prolific - has a tonne of fandoms and is a tower of talent. Is anyone reading all my fangirl gushing? 'Cause she follows one of my fics and comments (sorry I haven’t updated that fic in a while) and it’s a source of happiness that someone who writes so well happens to enjoy some of my content. Okay, bragging over - back to the Recs! 

Tales of Fairies: A collection of oneshots exploring different friendships, ideas, sad themes, comical scenarios, and lots and lots of pairings…but mainly Nalu. 

snogfairy: Another giant in the FT fandom. Impressive talent. @lineffability  

naughty nalus: smutty nalu oneshots B) ***Mature content!*** 

Rivendell101: Another giant in FT and other fandoms. This author would be considered required reading if I ran a fandom course in a University setting. Just sayin’ @rivendell101  

Crave: /krāv/ Verb. To feel a powerful desire for (something). They crave each other. And satiation doesn’t come easily. He growls against her again. “Beg for it,” he demands, lips ghosting against her. 

Lakerae aka @hidetheremote : Did you think I’d forgotten you? Ha! Gotcha good! You’re an inspiration to me because you’re working so hard to publish your children’s books. Kudos to you li'l sis! You’re busy but still make it a point to talk to me and I love you for that and everything.

The Gift of the Magi: A Gajevy Twist: A retelling of the classic Christmas story “The Gift of the Magi,” with your favorite Fairy Tail couple Gajeel and Levy! It’s Christmas time and Gajeel and Levy exchange gifts. They both are surprised what they receive and learn a lesson of the true meaning of Christmas. 

I could add more and more as I search my saved favs on FF.net ~ and I’m sorry to not include all of them - but this is crazy long as it is. If you read and like any of the recommended fics, please be sure to let the author know. To the authors of these and all fanfics, Thanks for everything.

[abitterlifethroughcinema]

         #ABitterLifeThroughCinema’s WOKE! Film Reviews

     The Top Ten (+1) Best Movies of 2018 and where to find them!

                                                          by

                                           Lucas Avram Cavazos

+1…11. Overlord  Having its premiere at this year’s Sitges Int’l Film Fest, Overlord not only happened to be one of the fave films screened there this past festival, but this cinematic fantasy is an all-too-real and stark portrayal of a horror that actually occurred, and it deserves a nod from the Barcelona film critic family, so here it goes. Duly noted, I’d say. It starts with an insane aerial combat mission on the night of D-Day, one which goes awry and sees only a handful of paratroopers surviving the drop when enemy fire rains hell. They land in provincial France and the plot sets out to detail some of the inner workings of the Third Reich in reference to the insane, gruesome experiments done on captured Europeans and Jews. Those stories you’ve heard about turning these poor people into guinea pigs for super soldier intent using potent, injected serums…yeah, those? They’re true, if you believe the words of JJ Abrams. Are they as utterly brutal and horror/zombie film-like as displayed here? I sure as hell hope not. (now available On Demand and DVD)

10. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs There once was a film called O Brother Where Art Thou? While this is not its sequel, there is a sharp-witted vein to this film that could only be crafted and gifted to us by the Coen Brothers. What a hoot it is, even if it is a rather darkly-tinted hue of that hoot and humour. It is also one of their finest in years. Revolving around the singing cowpoke Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) and five other tales brought to us with the commonly-threaded theme of death in often brutally funny ways, this film is a fine return to oddball form from two of the finest sibling directors of all time. Starring Liam Neeson, James Franco, Zoe Kazan, even Tyne Daly and so many in its vignettes, and that acting star power fuses this Western comedy into new territory for the brothers. Their previous works set in the west always seemed to be re-hashing works of years gone by but here, with their usage of almost comic-book-like details and witty banter make this much more enjoyable than their other historical works like O Bother and their remake of True Grit. Best western in absolute years! (available on Netflix or VOD)

9. Eighth Grade This poignant little film, which should have been wide-released everywhere the world over, is given fierce and bittersweet star power by Elsie Fisher, protagonist and student at the heart of this film. Comedian Bo Turnham has brought us the quintessential coming-of-tweenage story and along with Fisher, everyone in this film is so perfectly placed in their roles, especially Josh Hamilton as her dad, who deserves some nominations for this film but is unlikely to get any. Telling the story of 13-year old Kayla, we the audience get a sneak-peek into the minds and lives of today’s young adults. From her simple YouTube videos made to encourage other young kids to her obvious desire to fit in with older kids to her insecurity with boys, this film paints a stark reality that too many have lived through and this little indie film deserves aplomb from anywhere it can get it! (now available On Demand and DVD)

8. A Star is Born I skipped the critics’ screening of this film for the mere fact that I couldn’t bear to see if the acting and plot lines were another torrid take on a much-redone film. Even into the holiday season, I had not yet seen it and then when I did, I certainly took back any reservations. Bradley Cooper’s update of the film starring himself and Lady Gaga is just about as good as everyone said it was, and that was beyond refreshing to note post-viewing. In many ways, I feel that Cooper is likely revealing a few things about himself with the guise of “it’s a movie” being a nice cover; in some ways, he gives us what I believe are hints of his covert life, and it’s with Gaga’s turn as Ally that we really see him shine beyond the shtick of his character, country-rocker Jackson Maine. In a tad corny-tad, gripping way that takes hold the moment you see Gaga, let’s be frank and real, this film goes on to detail a Diet Coke version of the grim realities that often detail too many a tale of celebrity in Hollywood. Without revealing too many details of the film’s plot and denouement, we are looking at a necessary conversation about alcoholism, drug addiction and fame (plus a lack of ’NO’ men/women in many relationships) that needs to addressed for all ages. Well done, Mr. Cooper Goes to the Oscars. (At select screens, On Demand & DVD)

7. El Angel Incidentally, this may be the first time in a rather long time that I say something good about Argentinian men, so do take note. Telling the true story of fresh-faced boy killer Carlos Robledo Puch, played to Oscar-worthy perfection by newcomer Lorenzo Ferro, the masterful detail to which director Luis Ortega has crafted this arthouse meets dramedy-thriller is astounding and easily touches heights set by dePalma and even, dare I say it, Scorcese. We follow young Carlitos Puch, who is just nearing the edge of seventeen, as takes up with a rough and tough family of his devilishly attractive school chum Ramon, played by the spirited Chino Darin, son of Ricardo Darin. But as Carlitos comes to find out, his street crimes can easily be paved to real ones and his sadistic tendencies suddenly yet gradually paint a picture of someone who is in part desperate for attention and tacceptance and in part a fairly smart, well-to-do young adult. He parlays his sociopathy at pubescence into psychopathy with time, and this film will likely be, but should definitely not be, forgotten come awards and Best Of lists time.(available On Demand and DVD)

6. Black Panther As Oscar season comes to a head, it is worth talking about one of the most striking films that you’ll see for a while. Black Panther is that good, not only because of its genre but also because of its message: that seeking freedom through recreating systems of oppression will only extend the ill-treatment and broken nature we find ourselves in nowadays. Set in the fictional African nation of Wakanda, protagonist King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) brings us the first real black superhero from the Marvel universe. With a cast including Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker and Michael B Jordan, the acting is beyond impressive. What is even more amazing, however, is how the plot power-plays many elements of our world’s current political climate. (now available On Demand and DVD)

5. Chappaquiddick Another film which is nothing short of striking in its relevance to the current political situation in the USA. Senator Ted Kennedy was the only remaining Kennedy that I was familiar with throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. Jason Clarke as the Massachusetts senator is astounding, as is the cut of his jib and chin, although the accent was a tad weak, to be ever sincere. This is a complete revelation on the many details that were only gingerly touched upon during the course of the week following the death which this movie is detailing . As the facts are laid out in the film, it astounds me that the American people continued to vote and elect Kennedy for decades after. This is a study on arrogance, class and governmental ambiguity. And if that was the case with liberals in the Sixties, how much more so with conservatives in this digital age? My favourite film of last year’s BCN Film Festival. (now available On Demand and DVD)

4. Private Life Good Lawd this is such a heartwarming/breaking story with the finest elements of believable comedy and situational realism that define the art of the classic Gen X film from the 90s to now. May we never forget that it was Gen, and even those a few years before them, who gave us the digiverse-Netflix-instant oatmeal www.orld in which we live today and when I see a very NYC film like this one, it makes it a true reality check. Being the age that one should be married with kids, I watched Kathryn Hahn as Rachel absolutely slay the silver screen and am eager to see if she picks up any more accolades throughout the current awards season. Simple plot…she’s in her early 40s and her hubby Rich (played by Paul Giamatti) is entering his late 40s and they are fully entrenched within the confines of every single way to conceive a baby. Following the couple through their trials and tribulations really get pushed up an ante when sort-of relative Sadie (the lovely Kayli Carter) decides she will be the surrogate mum for them as things get a tad pear-shaped. This could easily be dubbed a dreamed, for in effect, it is; what needs to be known is that this is also a morality tale for a new age. The old-fashioned ethics of yesteryear just do not apply anymore, at least not in big cities, and the less is more factor easily makes this one of the finest films released within the last year. (available on Netflix)

3. BlacKKKlansman Without a doubt, this is the finest work in all too many years by Spike Lee, and he takes no prisoners in letting you know that the spilled essence of blaxploitation all over this celluloid is to egg you into knowing that this story is 100% true…and crazy. The mere fact that David Duke is literally cheerleading for the current President of the United States should scare us all and wake those who are not. Watching actor John David Washington portray Ron Stallworth, the real-life cop who slyly infiltrated the inner workings of the Klu Klux Klan 40 years ago. After signing up for the Colorado Spring PD, he realises the lack of trust in the 98% Anglo-Saxon workforce, as he’s thrown into monitoring the goings-on of any Black Panther student situations. Eventually, he takes up with a guy on the force that he can dig called Flip and played to skilled excellence by the oddest of lookers Adam Driver. Basically, the plot follows the twosome, as they tag team the aforementioned white supremacist movement, Ron being the voice and Flip being the wingman as they start an investigation on grand wizard bastard himself David Duke, played to troubling perfection by Topher Grace, evoking all of the calmness and utter sociopathic tendencies of a man reviled by most yet revered by still too many. And watching this taut film and how it rolls through such a daunting story with comedic aplomb and vicious realness gives you goosebumps. That said, as the film gets toward its ending, is when Lee gives you the goods when he flashes to scenes from the crazy Charlottesville, Virginia, riots, AntiFa protesting and subsequent death of Heather Heyer, may she rest in peace. God Save the World…and Amerikkka.

2. Fahrenheit 11/9  Premiering a few weeks ago here in Spain at very select cinema screens across the country, this is the first documentary in some time by Michael Moore that could play across an international landscape and should be required viewing on any critic’s or person’s list. The titular oddity refers to the day after we all woke up across the world in shock and awe that Donald J Trump had won the Presidency of the USA. Even if this is not Morre’s best film to date, it is undoubtedly the one that holds the viewers’ feet to the fire and calls for them to fight the nasty funk of this administration. But, it’s when he takes it back to his roots, to Flint, Michigan, and ends up involving all local and state politics, that we start to see the more sinister undertakings happening amongst conservative parties, ideals and societies. When you add in the fact of the Parkland High School shooting and the way Moore later fuses footage of Hitler and his minions and followers with a rally speech made by the current occupant of the White House, it becomes all too obvious that things are exactly as we think they are (A HOT MESS!) and we have very little recourse rather than claiming truth. (now available On Demand and DVD)

1. ROMA There are tender moments of realism that are permitted to happen with the rise of instant cinema on VOD and direct-to-home films, and it has been a pleasure to see that sites like Netflix and Amazon and Canal+ have truly added to the foray in which great celluloid can be brought to the masses. Case in point comes the finest piece of dramatic celluloid that graced the silver screen in the last year. Being a Mexican whose father is a naturalised citizen of the US and a mother who is Chicana from the US, like myself and my siblings, the sentimentality ran deep with this film. One of the differences I experienced was the fact that we were the only Mexican-American family in a stately US country club…and we had an entire childhood spent with loving housekeepers, which is what this film inherently is honouring and depicting, using the backdrop of Alfonso Cuarón’s take on growing up in 70s-upper middle class Mexico City in the neighbourhood of Roma. Depicting the life of the house assistant Cleo (first-time performer Yalitza Aparicio in a J.Hud moment, frankly) and the family of Sr. Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), a doctor in the Mexican capital, what Cuarón has called his most personal film to date, is also a B&W modern tale in the vein of Gone with the Wind, and the fact that he centres around a privileged Mexican family is poignant for several reasons: it not only takes a focus away from how Donald bloody Trump has painted Mexicans, in general, to the world, but it also highlights a very human element to how many classes of society function and live there in the frontier regions of North America and, more importantly, EVERYWHERE…easily put, this is a sweet, oft-times simple, oft-times brutal story on humanity. What binds so many critics together on this film’s merits is that fact that Alfonso Cuarón has crafted the past year’s most enigmatic movie, leaving us to make our own answers to what happens to Lady Cleo, her best mate Teresa, and this beautiful family. Absolutely and quietly stunning! (available on Netflix and selects screens across the country)

[weneverlearn]

"Our kids were conceived to that one.”

Chewing the fat with Marshall Crenshaw about his 1983 classic, just reissued on Intervention Records

It’s not often you get one of your all time favorite albums from your dentist.

So I’m in 9th grade, and making back and forths in the parents’ station wagon to the dental school at Case Western Reserve University because my four top front teeth were all agog. (My mom figured it was because I’d fallen down the basement stairs when I was one and landed on my face.) Numerous visits that included poking, prodding, and endless numbing shots into the inside of the top jaw was no way to enter the high school years. But having a hep craw doc helped. 

Dr. Sasthma (”It’s like asthma, but with an S” -- funny guy) was his name, and between spit suction and implorations to floss more, we fit in fun music discussions. On the last visit right before the big pulling and twisting procedure, Sasthma sits me down and says, “This one today ain’t gonna be easy, but I’ve got a little prize for you afterwards.” And for the next hour and a half, I sat there with my mouth open (some would say that would not be out of the ordinary), while the doc poked around and made chin-scratching/brow-furrowing decisions, all while my jaw muscles started to atrophy.

Finally, when it was done, he reaches behind the giant dentist chair claw machine thing and pulls out Marshall Crenshaw’s debut album (Warner Bros., 1982). After I had regaled him with how much I liked “Someday, Someway” at the previous visit, he said he tracked down the album for me, though the shrink wrap had been peeled. “Well, I had to give it a listen, and yeah, it’s great!”

L-R: Robert Crenshaw, Marshall Crenshaw, Chris Donato - Photographer unknown

Not only did that little act make me much more tolerant of dentist visits going forward, it gave me one of my favorite albums. Crenshaw’s revived Buddy Holly-meets-nervous with opening pickup lines pop classicism was like a fresh, new toothbrush over all the dreary, dusty, classic rock of my Cleveland radio dial depression, until I took a sharp left into college radio that summer where I first heard Crenshaw, and a lot more. (Thanks WCSB, WRUW, and WUJC!) 

It’s hard to imagine today, hearing Crenshaw’s should-couldabeen power pop nuggets, but his clean looks and simple two-minute tunes made him a little too throwback odd for mainstream radio back then. Who knows or cares, as he still piled up an impressive major label canon before furthering into a long-running career of solid albums and consistent touring. The days of figuring out the whys and hows of mainstream radio play now seems about as useful as wondering how to get better reception on your TV.

Crenshaw’s sophomore album, Field Day (Warner Bros., 1983)? Maybe even better, filled with a slightly wider songwriting palette and production to match it. The term “sophomore album” never fit better for me, as it landed right around my sophomore year, and was a perfect companion on my journey into hook-heavy rock’n’roll obsession and mythical, sun-setting summer romance mythology/reality. 

So imagine my excitement when I got a press release about an impending reissue of Field Day. Despite it’s initial hefty, if brief, publicity push, Top 40-sniffing hit single (”Whenever You’re on My Mind”), and big time producer (Steve Lillywhite), the record didn’t (say it with me) “sell as much as hoped for.” And though Crenshaw did not fall into the usual “got dropped” holes (three more major label albums followed), Field Day did lag just a bit behind the CD explosion, having fallen out of print, and was never given a proper CD version for a few years. 

I only point this out because, goddamn it, it’s a perfect guitar pop record and is one of the best of that fleeting, early-80s moment where bright-eyed corners of the record industry hoped the world might once again embrace melancholy-flecked, otherwise blue-sky singalong songs. ‘Twas that “skinny tie” moment where loads of slacks-sporting Midwesterners parlayed punk’s energy into their pre-teen guitar lessons filled with Beatles covers. And in even that, Crenshaw did not exactly fit -- kind of the front tooth along my otherwise straight top row.

Upstart vinyl reissue label, Intervention Records -- who seem to have a knack for snaring ol’ major label titles from oblivion --  recently released a fine, vinyl-only edition of Field Day, including an extra 12″ EP of remix and live stuff, and different artwork.

I caught up with Crenshaw internet-wise to get his take on the new update of his old classic. 

If memory serves, I saw you play "High School" by the MC5 at an outdoor BBQ fest thing in downtown Cleveland in, like, 1985/6. Any memories of that, and did you cover that tune often? 

I remember that event in Cleveland, like a fried-chicken festival, right? I remember that we used "The Greasy Chicken,” by Andre Williams as walk-on music that day (and on other days). The MC5 song would've been "Tonight.” I never played "High School,” except with DKT-MC5 in 2004. I played "Tonight" a lot over the years. I grew up in the Detroit area, was a big MC5 fan. "Tonight" was sort of a local hit single, got played on CKLW. A band that I was in played it at an audition for a dance at our high school, and I can still picture a girl sitting in front of me watching me play and sing that song, really enthralled by what we were doing. That girl was Ione. She and I are still together.

You grew up in Detroit, right? When did you move, and what were some early influences from living in Detroit, music and otherwise?

I lived in the Detroit area from birth (1953) until 1977, grew up with Rock and Roll music all around me, fell in love with the music during childhood. Detroit was a big test market for records. There were lots of regional hits, on national and local labels. Two that immediately come to mind are, "When You Walk In the Room" by Jackie DeShannon, and "Mind Over Matter" by Nolan Strong and The Diablos -- both massive Detroit hits, both part of my musical DNA. As far as influences besides music go, I don't know where to start. That could turn into a book.

Though the only book Crenshaw has done so far was this excellent compendium of rock’n’roll movies; also, his musical knowledge goes deep. If you can do so, track down this amazing hillbilly compilation he put together in 1989.

Field Day, in title and cover art, was a reference to high school, I assume. But I remember some reviews saying that that record was a kind of more mature version of you -- bigger production, some more serious themes, etc. So what was your inspiration for the high school nod?

I had nothing whatsoever to do with creating the packaging for that record. When we finished recording, I went on vacation with Ione and Robert to visit Robert's girlfriend at the time. She was working on location outside Prague on the movie Amadeus (which I've still never seen. I should see it, I saw it being made). And when I got back, the album cover had been put together by my then-manager. His father co-owned a big company that published magazines. My manager had worked for that company for a minute, and thought that the presentation of images was something that he knew something about. I hated the album’s front cover, got talked into approving it. OOPS! I don't think Warners was pleased that instead of using their art department, he'd hired an expensive design firm to create such a dodgy end-product. He came up with the title; I do like the title, didn't think of high school when he suggested it. "Having a field day" is just a figure of speech, doesn't refer to high school, necessarily. It just means "having a great time,” and indeed we really had a great time making the album.

It said the art for this reissue is how you originally intended. 

I wanted to change the front cover for the reissue, was extremely happy that Intervention Records was into the idea. The only thing that made sense was to use some pre-existing artwork from the time period, namely the front of the picture sleeve for the "Whenever You're On My Mind” 7″.

I just loved Field Day when it came out. I am sure you are more than aware of the "debates" over the production -- which to me made total sense for those songs and that point of your career. What is your take on what you asked of Steve Lillywhite, and how you felt it turned out, back then?

I'm really glad that you like it. I know that the album was "controversial" in the day. I think that all the criticism it got back then was completely lame. When I listened to the first playback of the finished mixes, I had my feet up on the edge of the console; I thought, “This is an album that can kick the world's ass.” We all loved working with Steve. He was the only producer that I talked to going in, my first choice. He said yes right away, and that was that.

I'll assume you were involved in this reissue. What were your thoughts on revisiting it?

I heard about the reissue project after it was already underway, and was just delighted about it. I'd even say that I felt a sense of gratitude that somebody wanted to honor the album, which is what Intervention has done. As a career experience, "Field Day" was an instance where the party-train just ran right into the ditch. I loved the album, didn't get why some people were perplexed by it. I got the test pressing from Intervention and was knocked out. It's just a unique and beautiful Rock and Roll record, if you ask me. And the people at Intervention love it as much as I do.

Your’s truly probably bugging Crenshaw about the MC5 again, post-back alley gig, August, 2012, NYC

Any good stories during the recording of Field Day? In-studio disputes, after-session shenanigans, anything like that?

I don't remember any disputes until after the record was done -- then the shit-storm began. We had nothing but fun while doing it, and there was a festive atmosphere at the sessions. They were all at night, and afterwards we'd go out. I remember going one night to the Roxy Roller Rink disco on the West Side with Steve and a couple of the other guys. This was when hip-hop was first starting to come downtown. When we finally got out of there it was broad daylight. "Monday Morning Rock" was partly inspired by that night...

"Whenever You're on My Mind" was a demo for awhile before it appeared on Field Day, right? How come it didn't make it onto the debut?

I wrote that one before I wrote most of the songs on my first album. When I did the first album I wanted to do all the newer ones first. I'm always most excited about whatever the new thing is. But then, going into "Field Day," I was really glad to have "Whenever" in reserve. And I'm glad that it got recorded when it did, under those circumstances.

The instrumental of "Blues is King" from that era is one of my favorite instrumentals, and just has one of those, maybe accidental, gorgeous, simple demo production vibes. Was that originally an instrumental and you decided to add lyrics later, or what?

I did that instrumental version after I'd written the music; the lyrics didn't happen until a few months later. I do like it as just a piece of instrumental music. And those are Mosrite guitars, which I love the sound of.

Field Day standout, "Our Town" -- when you made Field Day, I believe you'd been living in NYC for awhile. Did you pine to get on a train back to Detroit sometimes? What were the bad and good things about trying to get your music career going in NYC in the very early 1980s?

I never pined to get back to Detroit (although I like visiting there now). That song was written about New York. I'd been on the road for most of a year when I wrote it. I did take a train to Detroit once, from NYC. It was during the last days when Michigan Central Station was still being used by Amtrak. I'd never seen the station during it's heyday, but when I got there it looked not that different than what it looks like now, like an absolute wreck. I still remember the look on my mother's face standing there waiting for me. She looked like she felt ashamed, and like, "You had to take the train and make me go through this, right?" Getting my music career going in NYC in the early '80s was a blast. The scene embraced us right away. It was like dying and going to heaven. 

Did you find yourself attracted to the CBGB scene at the time? 

Yes, we played CBGB many times. I think we even held an attendance record there for a minute, or maybe I dreamt that. But our last couple shows there were mob scenes. I really had my ears and mind open in all different directions during those years in New York, and I can't overstate how much I loved the NY scene then, with all it's diversity, innovation, etc. I'm still proud to have been part of it. And I'm including NY radio in this declaration. I had lots of great go-to stations like WBLS and WKTU ("urban"), WLIB (Caribbean music), WFMU (free-form), WKCR (Jazz), WNYU, with "The Afternoon Show,” and the "Wavebreaker" countdown on Fridays, WNEW ('cause they played us). On and on...

There were a ton of "skinny tie" power pop bands around in the very early '80s too, many from the Midwest. Did you play with the Shoes, Knack, Romantics, Plimsouls, etc.? Were there ones that stuck out for you? I feel like you weren't roped into that signing frenzy trend though.

I played with The Plimsouls in NY once. I loved them, became friends with Peter [Case] back then. But one of my fears in those days was that anybody might lump us in with that Anglophile “skinny tie” thing. I hated most of it, not all of it. I didn't like The Knack, didn't identify with what they were doing, didn't want anybody to identify us with what they were doing. I feel bad saying so, but I'm answering your question. Again, we came out of the NY club scene which was really diverse and eclectic. I wanted our stuff to reflect that as best I could. Another one of my fears, since we took off so fast in NY, was that somebody might tag us as the "Next Big Thing,” and unfortunately that did happen. I had a real sense of doom when I read all that stuff about my first album in Rolling Stone.

Oh, also, we were never part of any signing frenzy. We got our record deal by packing out every NY club we played at, getting our stuff on "mainstream" FM rock radio when they never played local bands on indie labels. We earned it the way you did back then.

"What Time Is It?" -- how did you decide on that cover? I assume you were a big doo wop fan. Once you got to NYC, did you get to play with or meet any old doo wop favorites?

I don't think that happened, but now I wish that it had. It would've been great to meet Randy and The Rainbows, for instance. "Denise" is one of those records that gets me every time. Or Eugene Pitt of The Jive Five. It's too bad I never met him, even after I covered their tune (actually a Feldman-Goldstein-Gottehrer tune, but anyway).

Can you tell me about the making of the "Whenever You're on My Mind" video? Were you one of those who was suspicious of videos back then?

Hahahahaha! By the time we did that one I was really enthusiastic about videos, wanted us to get on that bandwagon. It seemed like most of my favorite ones were British, so we went over there and found a British director. I'm laughing thinking about it now. We tried.

Finally, where would you rank Field Day in your catalog? 

I was really on my game just then. It was some kind of a pinnacle, as far as that moment in my life goes. And it seems to be my most beloved album. People tell me all kinds of things about it, like, "Our kids were conceived to that one.”

[themadnessthatis]

So, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness...

Warning, this is going to be a long-ass post, mostly me rambling about how TR6 was a game with good concepts but shitty execution. Expect a bit of non-linear ranting.

I have some serious Opinions™ on this game, now having finished it (which was a quasi-Herculean feat in of itself from fighting against the game the whole time, but more on that in a bit).

When I first got this game, eyes full of wonder and amazement, I was like “aw yeah, a new Tomb Raider for a new generation of consoles!”. Having only played it for a bit my opinion quickly soured, and the game was never played after having fallen down a hole and dying in the Parisian sewers. All I said to myself at the time was “wow, this game is shit,never playing this again :| .”

Which I didn’t, until recently.

Fast forward a bit, and a friend of mine lends me her PC copies of Tomb Raider 2-through-6 (sadly no copy of TR1  :’[ ), which I sat down and played, all while eyeing up the box containing AoD with animosity. Boy did I regret saying I wouldn’t mind if she lent me that one as well.

But after going through the other games with various degrees of ease, from the “wow it’s over already?” of Chronicles to the “Will it never end?” of TR3 (which I personally rate as the worst of the “old school” Tomb Raiders. Just....fuck that game, the best part of it is the credits, but I digress.), we were left with just one more game; Angel of Darkness, sitting there, almost expectantly.

“Well, it’s been a while, maybe I was just bad at the game, and it’s actually alright?” I said as I set about installing it, ready to give the game the benefit of the doubt.

Well the fact that controller setup was a pain in the arse should’ve been a dead giveaway that something was up. Though is was nowhere near as infuriating as Chronicles, which required a fucking JoyToKey configuration to get it to work smoothly, otherwise jumps would result in Lara just careening off to the side every.fucking.time.)

Actually, when you first play AoD, the controls are really the first thing you’ll pick up on. I.E: they’re the worst. Really they’re the biggest flaw of this whole game, and if they weren’t as clunky and gods-awful as they are, AoD might’ve been a much better experience. Lara controls like a fucking Mark IV from 1917; turns, speed, everything. It’s such a jarring shift from the previous installments that it really takes some time getting used to, and could be a reall deal-breaker. Also Lara no longer runs like she used to, more like a slow jog, only gaining the ability to sprint later in the game (you know, the thing she could do at the very beginning of TR3, 4 and 5? Like she has to learn how to use her legs, after all of her previous escapades?!). Jumping also seems to have undergone some hideous transformation; from somewhat fluid sequences to an absolutely jerky mess of a mechanic, not helped by Lara needing some space to build up momentum (from walk to jog). Like the only time she handles almost smoothly is when she’s swimming (which thank fuck no longer has her getting stuck on the walls and floor like she did in previous games.).

When you’re not busy fighting against the controls and some of the early Capcom-esque fixed camera angles, you might be able to notice some of the changes to the TR formula, for better or for worse.

Perhaps the most noticeable is Lara’s equipment; gone are her iconic (not Ubisoft iconic, mind you) pistols with unlimited ammo. In their place Lara can collect a plethora of new pistols, including a very nice taser. Though this is moot when Lara eventually loses all of her acquired weapons, as she is wont to do if TR1, 2 and 3 are anything to go by. You also get the classic shotgun and two SMGs. Though tbh, and this might just be me, but don’t all of the weapons in this game feel like the do the same amount of damage?

One thing that was a nice touch was the inventory revamp. The ring-like setup from previous TRs is gone, and now each type of item (health, weapons and puzzle clues) have their own inventory sections, making it less of an eyesore than the cluttered messes of the previous game’s inventories. Speaking of health, the repertoire of healing items has been increased, with various items granting various degrees of health restoration, which is nice, no more wasting medikits (though i do not understand how a chocolate bar could heal a person, but whatever, video game logic, i guess.). The puzzle clues section does get kinda cluttered though, as Lara doesn’t seem to want to get rid of anything she picks up, even if she no longer needs it, so her pockets are basically just full of security cards and bits of paper until the end of the game like JESUS CHRIST ON A STICK JUST DUMP THAT SHIT IN A BIN, LARA!”.

On the subject of puzzles, it’s great that that is an element that has carried over to AoD nicely, unlike some of the more modern titles (looking at you, Tomb Raider 2013). The Hall of Seasons was a great example of this, and is very reminiscent of the St Francis’ Folly from the original games, what with its God-themed rooms. Granted that there were other “puzzles” that were a little too obvious, like “push table to find mixture to kill giant plant”. But overall,  the puzzle side of Tomb Raider is definitely there. Although, there are no secrets to find (but after TR3 and 4′s “And your reward is FLARES” bullshit, I’m okay with that).

So, what about the story? To be perfectly honest, it’s as about as normal as a Tomb Raider story line can be: Secret sect looking for paintings so they can resurrect an ancient race of human/angel hybrids that was destroyed back in biblical times except not all of them, and Lara gets involved b/c they killed Von Croy and she was framed for it... Look, it’s certainly not as far-fetched as “Italian mafia dude looking for magic Chinese knife that turns people into dragons instead of corpses when stabbed with it.” (Love you, TR2, but what even...), or whatever the hell was going on in TR3 with its magical ancient Polynesian artifacts and “rapid evolution”, but it’s out there.

Mechanics wise, there have been some changes that are quite nice in concept, but are failed by poor execution (a running theme for this game). The grip meter is a new thing, and is influenced by Lara’s upper body strength (like how her jumping/sprinting and door-kicking are affected by her lower body strength), like a sort of RPG attribute. These body strength factors are a nice tough and could’ve been a plus in a good game, but here the attributes are given out at arbitrary moments throughout the game and feel forced, like at one moment Lara must gain an upper body strength upgrade by just shunting a pile of boxes around for no real reason. When you couple this with the sluggish momentum-based “running”, it’s almost like the developers were trying to go for a more “realistic” feel but didn’t really know how to go about it.

There’s also a certain Bioware-esque dialogue tree that pops up from time to time in the game. While it’s a nice touch, the fact that there’s no real change to the outcome (bar 3 exceptions) kind of makes the interactions pointless.

Going past the mechanics, the game itself (at least on PC), is a glitchy, buggy mess that would crash for no reason. Textures are missing, walls vanish in some of Kurtis’ (a boring, bland secondary character we get to play as, and I’ll get to him in a second.) levels for no reason, not to mention that one level can be skipped entirely thanks to a bug where Lara just has to roll into a fucking wall. Also, not certain if it’s more an exploit than it is a bug, but it’s kinda of an anticlimax that the last two bosses can be cheesed by just commando-crawling under their projectiles. The greatest menaces to humanity, outdone by toddler maneuvers .

Now, onto Kurtis...Kurtis is a member of an organisation dedicated to stomping out evil, particularly sorcery and alchemy (thus pitting him against the big baddie, Eckhardt, who looks like he just got done trying to audition for the part of Auron from Final Fantasy). He’s supposed to come across as some sort of bad boy with magical powers, but honestly he’s a boring, ugly, fucking Broody McGravelvoice with no personality. You get to play as him for all of 3 (or was it 4?) levels, and boy oh boy, you will hat him throughout all of them. Somehow, and I didn’t know it was possible, somehow he controls WORSE than Lara. He moves like he’s got a broom up his arse and jumps like he’s on the fucking moon. His levels feel like they were  some De-mastered edition of Until Dawn, full of enemies that serve no purpose other than to drain you of resources, and are capped off with the worst boss fight ever, thanks to twitchy auto-aim and Kurtis’ shoddy controls. Like fucking Mark Williard at  the end of TR3 was more feasible than this cavalcade of bullshit. Also the first time he meets Lara in the Louvre, the cut-scene is just so unsettling and creepy, she should’ve just beat his arse into the tiled floor there and then. I seriously hope he’s dead.

And the ending... What a bloody disappointment; Lara wanders off into a dark passage after killing the bigger bad, and then...nothing. No credits, no “the end” screen, the game just shits you back onto the “Press Start” screen.

But in the end, after all was said and done, I think my opinion of AoD has shifted somewhat. I don’t hate it like I thought I did, I’m just, I dunno, disappointed...This game had so many good ideas that were handled so poorly, and it certainly wasn’t helped that, at least on the PC version, it was a glitch-fest and the controls were piss-poor. And as a final insult? Jiggle physics. I’m not fucking kidding like Core Design  couldn’t iron out the bugs and do something about the arse-backwards controls, but they gotta make sure dem jiggly titties are in there? -_-’ Fucking hell what a dumpster fire of a game. Like I want to like it but the fuck-headedness of it all just, just no. 

[eloquenceassassinated]

This just in: MARVEL fangirl weighs in on Wonder Woman

I still can’t be sure how many people actually see my blog, but hey! To anyone who cares, sorry about the long wait. I’ve been on vacation the past few days and hardly had the time to breathe, much less post. Ironic, isn’t it?

So anyway, I said I’d give my thoughts on Wonder Woman as the Marvel fangirl who wants to like DC, so let’s jump right in!

Let’s start with what the movie isn’t, shall we? It’s not a “woohoo, girls rule, boys drool!” propaganda mud-fest in which all of the guy characters are either useless, evil, or gross to make the girls look competent by comparison (sly look at you, Frozen). Nor is it a testosterone-filled smash-‘em-up that only has a female lead because eye candy and reasons. Nor is it a Marvel movie. It doesn’t have the rapid humor, quirky villains, and sensation of history in even the most minor characters that I’m used to, and it tries to tackle deeper themes far more obviously than Marvel’s subtler undertones. It’s not an epic war movie like Lord of the Rings, and it’s not a grand, universe-spanning adventure either.

What it is, is an origins story. And a pretty dang good one at that.

Let’s go chronologically because otherwise I’m going to get lost and go on a tangent. Spoiler warning as we proceed. Act One is spent on Diana’s birthplace and also the most gorgeous set in this entire movie, the hidden island of Themyscira. If you thought the stunties in LotR were good, you haven’t seen the Amazon warriors slide out of their saddles and fire a bow while riding the horse sideways. We meet Diana as a joyful little girl who wants nothing more than to join the adults she sees around her and become a warrior herself. There’s always the inherent problem with child actors, but they couldn’t have gotten much better for young Diana. She’s a joy to see, and you get invested in her wide-eyed fantasies of heroism really quick. Who doesn’t want to be a hero?

It’s easy to see where Diana’s later self-righteousness and one-track mind come in when we see the simplistic world in which she was raised. The world has a fairy-tale flavor to it for Diana—humans good, some gods good, some gods evil, Amazons defeat evil, the end—which makes her utter confusion and disillusionment at the sight of real-life WWI all the more believable later on. Even the exposition dragging down the first twenty minutes seems to be coddling us as viewers as Diana is being coddled. As much as I wish the Amazons got better lines (their characters were so cool, they deserved it!), it does a lot to set up the tone-shift later in the movie.

We’re also introduced to my personal favorite character, Antiope—Diana’s hardcore aunt who secretly teaches her fighting stuff. She’s just all-around cool: rugged, weathered, with awesome battle scars, and an air of kindness and concern underneath all that warrior stuff. While Diana’s mom Hippolyta looks soft on the outside and is hard inside, Antiope is hard on the outside and soft on the inside, which is my favorite kind of character.

So yeah, good stuff and we’re hardly twenty minutes in. We watch Diana grow up, we see that she can cause small explosions by crossing her gauntlets, it’s hinted at that she is something more than meets the eye, and then the interesting stuff happens. An Allied pilot with an American accent (who for some reason is working for the British) crashes his plane into the ocean outside Themyscira. Diana pulls an Ariel and fishes him out of the water, then stares at him when he wakes up on the beach. (I literally sang “Part of Your World” under my breath when I first saw this scene, to the infinite amusement of none but me.) And then it turns out he’s being followed by the Germans. Again with the simplistic flavor, really. What’s more classic bad guy than Germans?

Fight scene on the beach, yadda yadda, spoilers, my favorite dies and so do a heck ton of Nazis. Interesting note: Diana hardly joins this fight. This is a nice detail, especially since we’ve seen how powerful she is before. It brings her down to earth that she’s nervous in her first fight and senses that she’s not safe anymore. At least her aunt wouldn’t kill her in training sessions, but these outsiders wouldn’t think twice. So she hides. The fact that I could pick that up on first viewing is a testament to the writing and the acting. Nice touch.

Then the Amazons hold a congress to see what they should do with the pilot, whose name is Steve Trevor. Nice little note from a writer’s standpoint: no one character has a casting vote in the course of action. This is a dynamic I saw first in the new Voltron cartoon, and it’s stuck with me as a tiny, genius little writing trick for world immersion. If Cap or Tony says “we’re going to Leipzig”, everybody packs up and goes to Leipzig, but even Queen Hipolyta is reasoned out of her initial plan (to kill the pilot) by other characters like the unnamed Amazon senator. Main characters get input from lesser characters throughout the movie, which is much like conversations in real life. Since when did one person call all the shots un-challenged? They don’t in this movie.

We’re also introduced to the iconic lasso, which is apparently not Diana’s to begin with, just a thing the Amazons have lying around that happens to be useful for vetting folks. They also give it a pretentious name like “Lasso of Something” that completely slipped my mind and probably freaked Steve Trevor out. He gives the Amazons the skinny on WWI—the Great War, at this point—and Diana is confused. Get used to that. It will be her default for the rest of the movie.

They decide not to kill him, Diana insists that they need to go kill Ares and shut down the war, and Hippolyta is like “no way hon” and that’s the end of the conversation. Also, get used to the whole “gotta kill Ares” thing. Also going to be her default. Like I said, one-track mind.

Then comes the part of the show where we make awkward sexual jokes and innuendos because Diana is a grown woman who has read all about but never seen a man. Steve Trevor is bathing in a pool thing that actually looks pretty sweet, and Diana walks in on him and doesn’t leave because of course, and she forces him to form an escape plan with her basically. There’s this bit where he awkwardly segways from talking about physical differences to talking about the watch he left on the edge of the tub, and it’s just so out of the blue that it’s gotta be setting up an ironic echo or something. Then Diana leaves and suits up, which involves this really cool scene in which she scales the outside of a tower to grab a sword and freaks out a cow in the process, and by the time she gets back, Steve is dressed. Then they head to the dock to steal a ship.

Now comes my least favorite scene, followed closely by the dumb thing with the watch. Hippolyta rides down to the dock to tell Diana “don’t do this”, and Diana is like “i’m gonna do this”, and Hippolyta is like “fine have the hat of your dead aunt who was much cooler than me, don’t forget that you suck for this, bye felicia” and then she rides away. I guess there’s something deep there about parents letting their children out of the nest when the time comes or something like that, but I just kind of hate this scene, so whatever.

One boat ride later and they’re in London. Diana calls it “hideous”. I laughed. They did a lot to get you into the mood of the era, from soldiers enjoying their last day before shipping out to the front (CA:TFA flashbacks here) to the pollution from smoke-stacks to the vintage cars rumbling around the place. It always astounds me when movies find period set-pieces like that and make them look like they sprang straight out of yesterday. Maybe I just don’t know enough about the process of getting vehicles for props, but it’s still impressive.

More awkwardness ensues because Diana’s signature outfit is not modest to WWI-era Brits. Steve’s red-headed secretary, Emma Candy, makes an appearance for some comic relief. We get the sense that Steve is falling for Diana because of course he is. Then there’s this great scene in an alleyway where Diana stops a bullet with her gauntlets and beats the ever-loving crap out of a few German spies who were dumb enough to apprehend Steve in London and still use their German accents. Diana can now handle combat with under a half-dozen opponents at once! Yay! And Steve gets the last punch in.

Oh, forgot to mention that? Back in exposition central, we learned that Steve stole a notebook with a formula for a new German hydrogen gas. The Germans have had it out for him ever since. Steve tries to get that notebook to his superiors, but that fails epically and Diana’s presence alone disrupts a war conference. (Hidden Figures flashbacks here.) And that’s before she opens her mouth and calls the generals asinine cowards! There’s a little bit of tactical mumbo-jumbo thrown around that makes you think that maybe this will turn into a political thriller/espionage film, but sadly, it doesn’t. Diana’s hard-headed determination to end the war by smashing pretty much prevents that.

But she’s also dissing the entire Allied war effort and telling the commanders how much they suck, so we get the sense that maybe she’s got a bad idea of how to handle this whole thing after all. Steve certainly thinks so, and they both start butting heads over a plan of action right about here.

Diana yells a lot when she gets riled up. This is also a problem in Britain.

The one thing they do agree on is that peace needs to be the end result, so they get the support of Sir Patrick Morgan and go to a bar to recruit Steve’s buddies Charlie and Sameer. (CA:TFA flashbacks again.) Okay, around this point I just started seeing a lot of Captain America parallels. 

Dumb kid is stubborn enough to think he/she has to go out to war.

Dumb kid throws him/herself straight into it.

Dumb kid butts heads with superiors.

Dumb kid goes to a bar to form a team. 

Dumb Kid and Co. go out and do badass stuff.

But that’s where the parallels end for now. In this case, there’s no bromantic banter that will haunt me “'til the end of the line”, and it’s not a montage of epicness as much as a slow burn.

We first head out into the wilderness to meet Chief, Steve’s other friend who can get them across the front lines. (I don’t have a GIF for him, sadly.) Chief, a Native American smuggler, explains to Diana that he’s living out in the European wilderness because it’s the one place he can be free—“in danger is better than being a slave”. 

(I have to admit that I’m not a history buff and don’t know a lot about the treatment of Native Americans during the War, but at least one article I’ve read says that while the war effort pinched the land holdings of their reservations (and it’s problematic enough the kind of land on which some of those reservations were built), some Native Americans were actually quite willing to enlist to support America and the Allies. There were tensions and scandals all around, but outright oppression seems to be in short supply. Could Chief have lived in a community where the pinch hit hardest? Could he be mistaken about how bad he really has it? Maybe. In any case, it’s only touched on and then the movie moves on, so we will too.)

Then there’s Charlie. (No GIF for him, either.) Overly Sarcastic Productions on Youtube has pointed out that the fashionable mental disorder to have in fiction nowadays is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Earlier generations used to have alcoholism, but that’s since gone out of vogue. If something tragic happens to a character nowadays, they’re likely to have stress, panic attacks, and all manner of tragic personality changes resulting from the trauma. Cue Takashi Shirogane.

Yeah, the dweeb with the nose scar. I love him.

The problem is—and Shiro is an excellent example—fictional PTSD is a romanticized version that elevates the trauma to a superpower, with Laser-Pointed Amnesia and The Devil Within to get the character a secret advantage in combat through improbably relevant flashbacks and adrenaline-fueled combat moves. (I love TvTropes, sorry.) Their personality will likely remain the same, a likable character who hardly loses control unless it’s helpful (Shiro again), or they’ll be turned into a darker, broodier Troubled But Cute version of themselves with enough potential for hurt/comfort to drag in the fangirls. Cue Bucky Barnes, and, yes, I am one of those fangirls. Bite me.

Charlie just takes all of that and…crushes it. Mercilessly. His disorder makes him have nightmares that cause him to yell and snap at Diana when she tries to help, and then slink off into the woods with his gun. It makes his hands shake when he tries to take a shot with the rifle and snaps him out of focus in the middle of a fight. I mean, if you were stressed all the time, how would you react? Being emotionally, physically, and mentally wound up at all times will bring out the worst in a person before it brings out the best. It’s painfully, scathingly realistic, and I have to give the writers and actor props for making me take a step back and think about my fanfictions and things like that.

As Sameer later explains to Diana, “we’re all dealing with our demons, and that’s his”, but even more interesting is the fact that Diana, who left her home to fix problems, is being introduced to problems that she can’t fix quickly—or can’t even fix at all. That goes on to be the next big conflict in the movie.

(More brief reading confirms my suspicions that PTSD wasn’t a well-understood condition around the time of WWI. While some scholars were making leaps and bounds towards understanding it, the prevalent view of PTSD was that it was simply cowardice in the soldiers, and even the most knowledgeable psychiatrists, who knew that the condition was brought on by the emotional strain of war, thought that PTSD was more likely to develop in soldiers who were “weak” or “cowardly” to begin with. Soldiers were rejected if experts thought they had a predisposition to this “cowardice”. Charlie wouldn’t have been able to reenter active duty after his previous tour even if he tried; Sameer, in this case, would either have to be extremely well-read or extremely compassionate for his time to think of Charlie as anything other than a troubled coward. Again, however, the movie touches on this and then moves on, and so will we.)

This is the part where Diana sees problems she can’t fix, from wounded soldiers awaiting an amputation to civilians hurried from place to place who have lost homes and loved ones because of the war. It’s all thrown together in one heart-breaking scene that parallels the nausea I felt in seeing the aftermath of the plane crash in the first episode of Lost. So many hurting, screaming people, and Diana wants to help them all, but Steve herds her on because she can’t. Then they’re in the trenches, and it turns out that Steve brought her there because he figured if Diana wanted to fight, she’d fight like all the other soldiers. 

But she doesn’t.

There are few trailer shots which are genuinely awesome in the final movie and lots of shots that get old once you’ve seen the trailer ten million times, but I assure you that the scene of Diana taking the German bullets as she stands in no-man’s land is one of the most compelling things in the whole movie. Not five minutes on the war-front and she is literally taking fire on behalf of the soldiers in the trenches behind her, inspiring them, protecting them, and proving to them that taking back what they’ve lost can be done, and then she charges ahead, flicking the bullets back with her gauntlets and literally clearing the way for the guys behind her while she charges on hell with no hesitation. The score behind this scene is that orchestral, inspiring stuff that makes a girl feel like she’s watching Lord of the Rings again, and you can almost feel the Germans quaking in their boots and wondering who and what the actual heck this person is.

And then the good guys have the bad guys running and they take back the trenches. Everyone is cheering and yelling and all feels really, really good.

But it’s not done yet. They still have to take back the town and free civilians. That’s when the Howling Com—I mean Diana and the Crew have their moment to shine. It’s adrenaline-filled combat from then on out, and I don’t remember it well enough to let you know what happened, but I remember that it was great, Diana threw a tank, and the part with the lasso was absolutely sick. Everybody should have a big, stupid grin when they watch a superhero battle, and this was The Big Stupid Grin Battle. It’s at this moment you feel, “Yeah—she knows what she’s doing now.” They bring out Diana’s electric guitar theme from BvS for the battle you’ve seen in the trailers, and it’s okay. I’m not much for the riff myself, but it doesn’t stick around long enough to grate. Then Diana kicks a guy through a window and I remember that I laughed in glee. It was great.

The part where Charlie can’t shoot a guy is here. We also see how much Steve pays attention when he uses a trick that he saw Antiope do to launch Diana into a church steeple to take out a sniper. It feels genuinely good when the dust settles, the music fades out, Diana walks out of the rubble and looks down the tower at the civilians on the street below her, and they all start cheering and yelling in Finnish. She saved them! She’s the hero she wanted to be! Life is good. 

The crew celebrates by getting their Squad Pic taken on an old camera and dancing, singing, and drinking a little with the residents of the town.

There’s Sameer, Steve, Diana, Chief, and Charlie, if you wanted to see them.

Then we hear Sameer’s backstory, that his dream is to be an actor, but he can’t pursue it because of his color. I asked Wikipedia, and it turns out that Sameer is a French Moroccan man—thus his prevalent use of French when he’s not speaking English. It’s funny how Sameer at first strikes you as a sleazeball until you get to know him and realize the tight box he’s in that he can’t overcome.

Color-casting is still a thing today (to go back to Voltron, my guy Josh Keaton mostly does voice acting because despite his undeniably photogenic face he is “too ethnic to be white and too white to be Hispanic” according to TvTropes), and what strikes me as funny is that the colors of Bremmer, Taghmaoui, and Brave Rock definitely had an impact on the casting of these characters. So color plays a part in casting roles, but I wouldn’t call that racism outright. It’s pushing “minorities” out of lead roles because of their skin color that I think is where the injustice lies. But movie creators aren’t going to broaden their scope for their casts unless they think an audience will buy a movie with a non-traditional lead. Question for discussion: who else wants to see more non-white leads in movies that don’t explicitly deal with the racial problem? Who else wants to see more female leads in movies that don’t deal with gender dynamics? I know I do. It would be fun to see Hollywood shake it up a little.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the movie! More romance follows because reasons, I guess. And then Steve starts to put a plan together to destroy the gas the Germans are making. He tells the Squad that they can go, but no! They’re bosom buddies now, and they’ll work even without pay! That’s good. We need our secondary characters for a while yet, even if they’re mostly here to bring up relevant social issues. Okay, so I’m a bit salty about that. They’re fine characters, but somehow I walked away feeling like they were there to be mediums by which the creators could bring up social issues rather than characters to suggest a history and deeper personalities.

First thing we need the squad to do is ride horses through the woods and doubt Diana. Well, all but Chief. He thinks Diana may be right, that Ares is behind all of this. Charlie is unconvinced, and Sameer is cautiously hopeful. They all seem to represent the sides of Steve’s mind battling it out, whether to believe Diana’s tall tale and trust her to finish this or not. We’re not told yet what he’s decided, or if he’s decided at all. Get used to this theme of belief, because it’s going to be important.

Emma got them information that the guy they believe is Ares, General Ganondorf, is going to be at a—what? What did I—? Oh, Ludendorf! I meant Ludendorf. He’s going to be at a big bad guy gala with all of the top bad guys. So the Squad is headed there. Diana is back to her pig-headed obstinacy and insists that all that needs to happen is she has to get close enough to kill Ares, while Steve wants to find out where the gas is so that he can destroy it. Chief steals a car and both Sameer and Steve pull out their acting skills to get into the gala, and Diana disappears and steals a rich snitch’s dress.

Steve flirts in a German accent to almost get the gas’ inventor, a psychopath with a cool face mask named Dr. Isabel Maru, to give up the location of the gas. (Side note: Doctor Maru’s nickname of Dr. Poison is the most cheesy thing in the movie, second maybe to Ludendorf for camp, until I read up on the Wonder Woman mythos and found out that Dr. Poison is a classic villain from the franchise. Hey, don’t judge. I’m getting into this via the movies, not the comics. Also, the idea of fictional characters like Red Skull and Dr. Poison alongside real historical figures like Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorf will never not be hilarious.)

Diana’s appearance in the gala almost ruins it for Steve. Ludendorf taunts Diana with like every trick in the book to say “I’m the villain!” without saying he’s the villain, Steve just barely stops Diana from hacking his head off, and then as part of the party festivities the Germans gas the village that Diana just saved.

….Wait, what?! Hell, that’s dark!!

So…yeah. Diana goes to the village to get a look at the devastation and the gas…oddly doesn’t affect her, whereas it makes Steve gag and choke whenever he gets within smelling distance of it. They are very upset with one another at this point, so upset that Diana has a “realization” that Ares has corrupted Steve too, to stop her from killing Ares before this could happen. Sensing that he’s lost her, Steve directs Diana to the Chief’s smoke signal, because he’d asked the Squad to keep tabs on which way Ludendorf had gone while he himself went after Diana. So she takes off, and on top of that, she takes his horse.

She tracks Ludendorf to an airport (because it’s…oddly always been an airport lately), and succeeds in killing him with her sword, the Godkiller, on the roof of a watchtower. All is quiet, and it should be over, right?

Wrong. Faceless goons are still unloading the gas into bomber planes. Diana is distraught because the one thing she thought would work, didn’t. Steve finally catches up with Diana here and tries, one last time, to get her to help him destroy the gas. (In hindsight, I realize that I have no idea how Diana could have helped with that, but I guess Steve must have had some kind of a secret plan.) She refuses. She can’t imagine why they’d go on with this destruction when Ares is dead. I think it’s here that she cites her mother’s warning that “the world of men does not deserve you”, and, in one final moment of desperation, Steve blurts, “Yeah, well, maybe it’s not about deserve! Maybe, it’s about what you believe.” He begs her one last time, saying he has to go, she doesn’t budge, and he reluctantly leaves to join the Squad.

It’s then that the real Ares makes his appearance. Yep, bait and switch! Turns out he was masquerading as Sir Patrick Morgan all along. And that is a shocking twist for all of four seconds because to be honest, I half-called it from the beginning, and it is unhelpfully on the Wikipedia page.

Ares acts in the exact opposite way of how you’d expect the god of war to act, which could either be genius or a let-down and for me was a bit of both. He does the whole “break her by talking” thing instead of fighting her for half the final battle and creeps her out with biblical references when she throws the Lasso of Truth around him. He monologues about how he wanted to show Diana the horrors of war and humanity so that she would join him and destroy all humans because she’s his sister by Zeus and pretty much the only person who could. (Yay, villain exposition! That’s not an old and tired cliché at all!) Also, Hippolyta’s a fat liar. Moving on.

You may have heard that the CGI in the final battle is extremely lacking. I’m here to tell you that it definitely is. Ares’ battle design reminded me of my dad’s pre-internet Doom 2 Dos-Box game (which is not in the GIF above, but I found it and figured it would be appropriate). The ripple effects from the heat definitely didn’t help, and that mustache was a mistaaaaakeee. Ares literally fell from Olympus with that awful caterpillar on his face. Good land, it looks so bad. 

The final battle is mostly bright lights clashing on bright lights, and after the epic armies-clashing-on-armies feel from Themiscyra and the World War’s front to the super-powered hand-to-hand that would make Cap stop and notice, the light beams feel old, tired, and lazy. I think the one time I grinned in the last battle was when Diana did a cool new thing with the lasso. Anytime the lasso came out, it was great, but otherwise—meh.

And then we get to the gut punch. One thing this movie did better than CA:TFA was set up the sacrifice in the plane. I don’t know how Sameer knew the plane was on a timer, but the fact that it was gave Steve Trevor’s decision a lot more credibility than Steve Rogers’, and the Squad’s desperation to stop him when he was just in arm’s reach from them was heartbreaking. At any rate, they had to squeeze in one last CA:TFA parallel before the deal was done. Steve presses his watch into Diana’s hand (told you it’s an ironic echo) and mouths something that she can’t hear, and while Diana is fighting Ares with existential crises, Steve pilots the plane full of gas into the air, pulls out a lighter, takes a deep breath—and blows the whole thing to hell, himself inside.

So…yeah. My second favorite died too. Oops.

Diana understandably loses it. She charges through the German ranks in a slo-mo rage. Ares encourages her, going on about the depravity of humans, and then Ares makes one fatal mistake.

He disses the dearly departed.

Diana will stand for none of that crap and won’t even kill Dr. Isabel Maru when given the chance. She tries to recall Steve’s last words, and in her mind they are “I can save today—you can save the world. I wish we had more time. I love you.” So, faith in humanity restored, she spares Dr. Maru, lightning-blasts Ares to hell with levitation and the gauntlet trick, floats in the air in a crucifixion pose for a sec, and then floats back down to earth. All of the Germans are un-brainwashed suddenly and take off their gas masks, smiling at each other and the Squad, so I guess Diana was right.

Soon afterward, WWI itself ends. Not every problem is resolved. Sameer doesn’t get an acting role, Charlie doesn’t suddenly have pristine mental health, Chief’s people aren’t liberated, and they don’t get Steve back. That’s all a good thing. That’s how the real world works. Diana, Emma, and the remaining Squad are, however, all friends by the end of the movie, and unconditionally accept one another. And as the movie closes, she reminds us that she stays and she fights because it’s not about deserve, it’s about what you believe—and she believes in love.

And that’s all great until you remember that they did the whole World War thing again in about twenty-five years. Jk jk

Hey, don’t be mad! I’m joking!

So what did I think? Personally, I think it was cool. A bit of a change of pace from what I’m used to. I wish they had taken more time to hint at the background of the minor characters and do a bit less philosophizing, but for what the movie set out to do, I feel like they did a good job. The writing was a solid A-, A at best, the score was up to par and even exhilarating in places, the actors and actresses seemed like they had fun, and the stunts, effects, sets, props, and shots could be beautiful and stunning. I enjoyed watching Diana grow and change as a person, and easily got invested in her. I’d like to see her again sometime.

Does it measure up to my Marvel dudes? Personally, nah. Not really. But it’s good. It’s a really, really good movie. I liked it, and I love Diana.

Tl;dr: Wonder Woman isn’t the best movie of all time but it’s still pretty bomb, guys, and you should watch it if you like movies that are fun and kinda pretty and make you think a little.

[justonemoreepisodeuk-blog]

Gossip Girl

A lot of people have been asking me recently how I choose what to write about next.  And by a lot of people, I actually mean nobody – I’m just using an Instagram trope here.  Friends tend to look away sheepishly if I ever ask them directly about reading my blog. If I wander over to a conversation about boxsets in the office, silence suddenly descends as people fear I’ll try and promote my writing and opinions.  Sure, everyone wants to tell me what to review, so now I’ve got a list of shows I’ll never get through, but then people only read if they like the programme I’m rinsing.  But no, each one of these is a gem, so please read them all.  If you don’t like the show, there’s enough rambling about me as a person to counter that.  And this week is no different.

Currently bogged down in some big old boxsets, I’m raiding the archives again.  Two things have brought Gossip Girl to the top of the list.  One is the return of colder weather to London after the inhumanity of July’s heatwave.  As a sweaty adult, I couldn’t be happier.  Winter is coming, and everyone knows back to school is the best time of year. You can get a new pencil case, some fresh pens, and you’re another year up in school, which increases teenage coolness no end.  However, I’m thirty-three and I work in an office.  Rather than returning from the summer hols reinvented, I’ve not been off since April (though that was for a trip to Japan, so, you know…) and we don’t have pencil cases at work due to the clear desk policy and the replacement of pen and paper by laptops.  But no, it’s colder and I love it.  And if there was ever a show for giving you winter coat inspiration, just take a look at any episode of Gossip Girl.  Every character, even those on supposedly limited incomes, has an endless supply of on-fleek winterwear.  This might give you some pointers on the quality of Gossip Girl’s drama, the fact that coats are the first thing that comes to mind when I think about the show.

The second reason is that I recently passed the ten-year mark in the job I so freely berate in these posts.  In June 2008, at my final interview, I talked about Gossip Girl in answer to an important question.  In those days, the department I was entering mostly only did TV sponsorships.  My two interviewers were asking me which I had seen on telly myself.  Let’s set the scene.  I had cycled across a boiling London from my hellish old job, so I was sweaty (recurring theme) and dishevelled, with uncontrollable helmet hair.  I also had an eye infection, thanks to the effect of general London dirt on my Home Counties eyes.  So my contact lenses had been abandoned for the NHS specs I only wear behind closed doors.  On the thirteenth floor of a Holborn office block, the sun was shining directly in my face, optimising the sweat-fest conditions so much so that I had to rub the perspiration repeatedly from my clammy forehead.  Don’t worry, I totally got the job obviously, and my new colleagues later told me they got a Harry Potter vibe from me due to all the conditions of my appearance I have just described.

So what TV sponsorship should they realistically expect a twenty-three-year-old lad to talk about? Maybe some sort of football or other ball sport?  No, I was happy to make a banging first impression by talking about Gossip Girl. If you’re going to enjoy TV aimed at teenage girls, you might as well get that out in the open as a first step. In those days, a combination of graduate poverty and historic media technology meant that TV could only be consumed as per the TV guide.  ITV2 seemed only to schedule Gossip Girl at 10.35pm every third Thursday as long as the moon was blue and pigs were flying. Didn’t stop me though.  I never missed an episode, complete with Guerlain sponsorship idents for a sickly-sweet perfume aimed at teenage girls (like me) with olfactory challenges (not like me). Cue me bossing the question with epic insights into why the brand and the programme were the perfect convergent fit. Cue my future employers hiring me because I reminded them of Harry Potter.

After 750 words, then, I should probably tell you what the show is about.  The premise focuses on an exclusive Manhattan school for wealthy kids. Enter via bridge or tunnel Dan Humphrey, a scholarship-endowed chap with curious side-burns, played by an actor named after a brand of tennis ball (Penn Badgley).  His crush on Serena van der Woodsen (a charmingly ingenue Blake Lively, but with a chequered past when it suited the plot) generated the tension of the first series, if I remember rightly, but luckily this was all stretched out for six series of 121 episodes. Little bit of Mean Girls, little bit of Cruel Intentions, little bit of anything that’s ever been set in New York: this was Gossip Girl.

Well, that was the whole point: which of the main characters was actually Gossip Girl?  I never finished watching the show, so I don’t really know myself.  It doesn’t matter as I can’t be sure I ever understood what this concept was supposed to be anyway.  These were the days before smartphones and 4G.  Using the internet away from your ethernet cable was limited to noticing your ancient mobile had accidentally switched on WAP and imagining an extortionate bill on your Orange tariff.  This didn’t stop Blair Waldorf or Chuck Bass in their conniving ways, using this nebulous platform to drop dirt on friends and frenemies alike, setting us viewers up for a roller coaster of crossing, double crossing and back crossing until seeing the end credits came as a welcome release.  Each instalment would culminate in some sort of catered event: a birthday party, some welcome drinks, basically anything.  In the run up, boyfriends and girlfriends would need to betray each other in the best interests of each other (I think), resulting in a climactic unearthing of the truth on Gossip Girl, heralded by simultaneous mobile bleeping as the blast came through and the action kicked off. I say action, but the boys were restricted to conveying emotion through smoulder only, and the girls similarly limited to pouting, so the whole thing resulted in the kind of face porn that makes you disappointed to leave the comfort of your own home and see an ugly person.  Or there might have been one in the actual house with you, which was all the more shocking due to its proximity to Nate Archibald or Vanessa Abrams.

In 2012, Gossip Girl bid us XOXO for the last time, inspiring a Beyoncé classic, but leaving a glamorous teen drama-shaped hole in all of our viewing lives.  I’m none the wiser about who ended up with whom, but the Upper East Side must be awash with genetically blessed babies by now.  A reboot wouldn’t know what to do with itself.  Gossip Girl would have to go multi-platform, with accounts on SnapChat, Tinder, Insta and probably LinkedIn.  I just hope Dorota is on more than minimum wage and that Eric van der Woodsen no longer has a centre parting.  So, to all those a lot of people who have been asking me what’s getting covered next, just chill out and keep reading yeah?  At the rate this thing is growing, you’ll be able to claim early adopter status by 2020.

[deadcactuswalking]

BLAST TO THE PAST: Reviewing the UK Top 40 from 27th May, 1981

I’mma try something different.

Top 10

So, steady at the top spot is the classic “Stand and Deliver” by Adam and the Ants, the first of the six consecutive non-moving songs. Yep, that’s right, the top ten was just as stagnant in 1981 as it is in 2018. Joy.

“You Drive Me Crazy” by Shakin’ Stevens is not shaking up at all, still at the runner-up spot from last week.

Now here’s something interesting: Starsound. They were a Dutch cover band who had extreme success covering pop songs in little disco melodies, one of which, “Stars on 45” is at number-three here.

At number-four, we have “Chequered Love” by Kim Wilde.

At number-five, we have “Ossie’s Dream (Spurs are on the Way to Wembley)” by Chas & Dave and... the Tottenham-Hotspur 1981 FA Cup finals squad. Football fever was really alive in the 80s, huh?

We also have “Swords of a Thousand Men” by Tenpole Tudor staying in the sixth spot.

Jumping up 16 spots, however, is number-seven, Smokey Robinson’s “Being with You”.

That pulled off REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Loving You” from its prior space as it ventures down to number-eight.

Also up back into the top 10 is “I Want to be Free” by Toyah, up four spaces to number-nine.

And finally, we have “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes, still at number-ten.

Climbers

We do have a few big climbers this week, with “How ‘bout Us” by Champaign leaping 17 spaces up to #11, as well as “Don’t Let it Pass You By” / “Don’t Slow Down” by UB40 going up 19 spots to #17, with “Ain’t No Stopping” by Enigma up 15 spots to #18. “Chariots of Fire” by Vangelis is up nine spots to #25, also, but we do have quite a few fallers as well.

Fallers

“Grey Day” by Madness is down seven spots to #15, as is “When He Shines” by Sheena Easton to #19. “Chi Mai (Theme from Life and Times of David Lloyd George)” has landed 11 spaces down to #20, while “Al No Corrida (I-No-Ko-Ree-Da)” by Quincy Jones is down eight to #22, “Making Your Mind Up” by Bucks Fizz is down 10 to #26, the Killers Live EP by Thin Lizzy is down eight to #27, “Only Crying” by Keith Marshall is down 12 to #29, “Drowing” / “All Out to Get You” by the Beat is down six to #31, “Is Vic There?” by Department S is down seven to #33, “Can’t Get Enough of You” by Eddy Grant is down 11 to #35, “Can You Feel It” by the Jacksons is down 12 to #39 and “Good Thing Going (We’ve Got a Good Thing Going)” by Sugar Minott is down 11 to #40.

Dropouts

Okay, so, obviously, we have limited info on these charts. We don’t know all of the songs that dropped out, however we do have some of them. These include “Attention to Me” by the Nolans from #20, “Bermuda Triangle” by Barry Manilow from #30, “Is that Love” by Squeeze from #40, “Muscle Bound” / “Glow” by Spandau Ballet from #22, “Pocket Calculator” by Kraftwerk from #39, “Don’t Break My Heart Again” by Whitesnake from #31 and “Night Games” by Graham Bonnet from #33. The reason for this absolute massacre in the fallers and dropouts has an easy culprit: the avalanche of new (and maybe returning – again, we don’t know) entries to the top 40, which we will start to review right now.

NEW ARRIVALS (and/or returning entries)

#34 – “Just the Two of Us” – Grover Washington, Jr.

Yep, you read that right – this is the absolute classic “Just the Two of Us”, the intimate funky jazz track that will have much more of a legacy than its Will Smith remake. Just listen to that iconic lead-in piano melody and that delightful strumming of the guitar, providing a perfect backdrop for Washington’s deeper falsetto croon, definitely a lot more stable than a lot of his competitors at the time. Then that beautiful, borderline iconic hook comes in, with that strong bassline and at the final chorus, a choir and some damn impressive cowbell – seriously, can these be used more often? Before the song ends, we have a fantastic climax with choir vocals and a steadily increasing speed pattern in the drums all being the assistance to a grand saxophone solo. The best thing about this track is that despite how sensual it may sound, it is not about sex at all. It is instead about true love, and how there’s no point in being sad or crying. Nothing will come out of it in the end, and if you persevere, you could make anything work. “Just the two of us, we can make it if we try.” I’d say I recommend this, but you’ve heard this.

#32 – “Spellbound” – Siouxsie and the Banshees

A lot of the songs in this new series will be ones I’ve never actually heard before, or have only passively heard once or twice, so it’s nice that I get to hear artists I’ve always heard about but never really sat down and listened to, one of which would be Siouxsie and the Banshees, female-lead post-punk group formed in the late 70s. Now, I love my classic alternative rock, so you’d imagine I’d be all over this, right?

Yes, yes, I am. What, did you think that was a fake out? I love this guitar riff, especially when it’s surrounded by the haunting synths and a... tambourine from the sounds of it, before Siouxsie starts to sing excellently in the intro, prior to a sudden kick to a more upbeat track, with some great strumming and a steady, albeit blocky, drum beat that Siouxsie rides on excellently. Not to mention how catchy and surprisingly rushed the whole thing is, with its abrupt ending. Did it deserve to get the Banshees’ guitarist into Mojo’s 100 greatest guitarists of all time list, like it did? Hell, yes, the guitar work is absolutely fantastic here. Great track, that will probably be in rotation for me for a long time. You could say I’m spellbound by how I’ve been missing out on them... yeah, sorry.

#30 – “Let’s Jump the Broomstick” – Coast to Coast

So, “Let’s Jump the Broomstick” has been performed by many people, and I don’t care for any of the others here. Will British group act Coast to Coast finally show me how well-written this song is and how elegantly-composed... nah, let’s quit the act. I can’t take any song with “broomstick” in the title seriously, in all honesty, and I don’t think anybody else did, because the damn thing’s impossible to find on Spotify. Hence, I had to resort to YouTube, and yeah, this was not worth the effort it needed to find it. It has a solid guitar riff – mostly because it’s a cover – and everyone performs decently except that singer with no range at all, which wouldn’t be needed if he was so obviously trying to impress us. This is a clumsy effort at retreading their last hit, with was also a classic cover. This is just kind of nondescript, actually. Skip it.

#28 – “More than in Love” – Kate Robbins and Beyond

This is a magically smooth song. With its subtle acoustic guitar strumming, gentle synth melodies and grand horn arrangements that make a lovestruck ballad seem so much more full of life than it has any right to be, you can tell that this isn’t just another soppy and soft 80s cheese-fest like the later years in the decade would offer. Nope, with the choir backing up Kate Robbins’ wide range and A-game delivery as well as just perfectly-fitting vocals overall, this is funnily enough effortless in how much more effort it puts in than other pop ballads. Just listen to the synth tones in the bridge while the choir sings your hearts out. It’s a damn good ballad that I did not expect, especially since I don’t know how this Beyond guy is. Is that the choir? If so, that’s a pretty uneven duet, since Robbins runs away with this majestic track.

#24 – “One Day in Your Life” – Michael Jackson

Now, I like soul. I like ballads. I like MJ, he’s one of the greatest period... but, man, this is dreary and boring. Wow, that sure is a Latin-inflected guitar melody and some pretty nice notes being played, with an incredibly uninteresting string-synth – nobody’s being fooled here – backing up Michael here on the weaksauce hook. His performance is okay, but is ridden with problems I have with young Michael, including over-singing and simply not having much natural charisma. I’m pretty sad that this is the first time I talk about the King of Pop on here, saying that his song sucks, but it sure does, so I’m sorry, MJ, but your song’s bad – albeit mostly because of the production. Oh, and it’s also way too long for that matter. This would be nowhere near as bad if chopped in half.

#23 – “Will You?” – Hazel O’Connor

Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Those were the questions I started and ended the song asking, because I’m still unsure if this is monotonous or one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. Those horns and the steady drum beat support the guitar to make a smooth new wave beat with an urban tinge, while O’Connor sings about spilling tea – “oh, silly me”. Apart from questionable lyrics, this is just kind of a bore for all of the five minutes it goes on for, even if it does develop with some interesting instrumentation and hell, experimentation. If this was two minutes, I’d argue it’s a masterpiece, but with an already repetitive hook and beat, it just can’t hold its own. The worst thing is that there’s a perfect place for it to finish at 2:36, but it starts back up again for some ungodly reason. Just... go away, I like the solo but come on, let the song end. We don’t need it to be this long, and I’m surprised that at its length it didn’t flop entirely, but apparently this got a ton of radio play somehow, with all its quirks and lack of normal construction. This may grow on me, but for now, this is a bit of a sleeper that never hits.

#13 – “All Those Years Ago” – George Harrison

This bassline and guitar melody in the intro isn’t really regarded as an iconic moment in music history, but it definitely should be. Those few notes pack a whole lot of punch, especially when packed by that oddly menacing synth, before George Harrison comes in and uses those elements to make a damn catchy song somewhat reminiscent of an 80s take on Beatles psychedelia, with smooth vocals, a keyboard solo and some beautiful choir backing. It experiments quite a lot with off-beat pitch-shifted vocals as well as guitar licks coming out of bloody nowhere, but it makes a great pop tune throughout all of the chaos, perfectly constructing it into a LEGO tower that will never fall – a timeless achievement that will hopefully be recognised as a solo Beatles highlight at some point, because this is one of my personal favourites. Yes, of course, it’s recommended, it’s a classic.

Conclusion

So, Worst of the Week is easy – that goes to “One Day in Your Life” by Micheal Jackson, with Dishonourable Mention for “Let’s Jump the Broomstick” by Coast to Coast. Best of the Week is definitely more difficult though, however I think “All Those Years Ago” by George Harrison pips everything else at the post, with a tied Honourable Mention going to “Spellbound” and “Just the Two of Us”. I have no clue what will happen next time, so Reviewing the Charts tomorrow, I hope. See ya!

[viralhottopics]

How Potentially Great Movies Got Derailed By Offscreen BS

Hollywood has proved that it’s willing to turn literally anything into a movie, from children’s toys, to Reddit posts, to E.L. James novels. So, if you ever notice a film-worthy property that has remained conspicuously un-adapted, you can bet your ass that it’s not for lack of trying. In fact, some of the stories behind these non-adaptations would make pretty good movies of their own (mostly comedies, with some hints of psychological horror).

5

Gore Verbinski’s R-Rated BioShock Movie Is Dead Due To Watchmen

Video game adaptations tend to be utter garbage for one simple reason: It’s hard to turn a plot like “portly Italian steps on hundreds of turtles” into a coherent screenplay. If there’s one game that could break the curse, though, it’s BioShock. Why? Because it already has a more cogent story than most movies.

2K Games Not to mention, way more diving suit-wearing mutants with giant drills on one hand.

The game’s critically acclaimed storyline (centered on a utopic underwater city created by a combination of Walt Disney and Ayn Rand) is ripe for the taking — and there’s one director willing to do it. Gore Verbinski of Pirates Of The Caribbean fame is a big fan of BioShock‘s “cinematic potential” and “strong narrative,” and we’ve already talked about why he would actually be perfect for this adaptation (assuming he doesn’t succumb to the Burton Syndrome and casts Johnny Depp for every part).

Verbinski was all set to shoot a BioShock movie in 2009, and fittingly for someone named “Gore,” he wasn’t planning to shy away from the game’s violence and general fucked-up-ness. In his own words, he “just really, really wanted to make it a movie where, four days later, you’re still shivering and going, ‘Jesus Christ!'” The movie’s concept art confirms that, at the very least, this thing would have been visually amazing:

2K Games

2K Games

But then, only eight weeks before shooting started, Universal Studios pulled the plug. What happened? Apparently, Watchmen did.

Verbinski wanted between $160 and $200 million to properly recreate the underwater city of Rapture, but after Zack Snyder’s dour superhero slo-mo-fest underperformed, Universal got nervous about financing such an expensive R-rated film. Verbinski wouldn’t budge on the rating or the budget, so that was it. The studio tried to keep going with another director, but the same problems came up again. Eventually, BioShock‘s creators decided they didn’t need a stinking movie anyways.

We’d love to end this entry telling you that the recent string of R-rated genre hits proved those cowardly producers wrong, but it’s not that simple: Deadpool cost only $58 million, Logan reportedly $97 million, and Mad Max: Fury Road didn’t exactly make it rain (by Hollywood standards). Shooting an underwater city probably won’t be affordable until we’re actually living in one, so cross your fingers for more climate change, gaming fans!

4

We’ll Never See Guillermo Del Toro’s At The Mountains Of Madness Because Of Freaking Prometheus

Like his creation Cthulhu, horror author H.P. Lovecraft has managed to indirectly wedge his face-tentacles into everything you love. He’s inspired such disparate works as Dungeons And Dragons, Evil Dead, and even Conan The Barbarian — and yet, very few of his works have been directly adapted into movies. For instance, there’s never been a film adaptation of his classic novella At The Mountains Of Madness, the lovely story of a bunch of scientists who stumble upon forgotten horrors during an Antarctic expedition, and end up getting slaughtered or losing their minds.

Guillermo Del Toro, no stranger to giant monsters from other dimensions, has been trying to adapt Mountains for decades, but the project has been cursed by the unthinkable evils that rule the universe: Hollywood executives. Del Toro had a script ready as early as 1998, and at various points the project managed to attract serious interest from Warner Bros., Universal, and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Pictures. In 2010, Del Toro even convinced James Cameron to join as producer and had Tom Cruise in advanced talks to star (yes, we might have finally found out what Cruise looks like as an insane person).

The studios always ended up wussing out over the budget and dark tone, but Del Toro kept plugging away, convinced that this was something audiences had never seen before. That is, until he heard about a little movie called Prometheus. You know, the one about a bunch of scientists who stumble upon forgotten horrors during a galactic expedition, and end up getting slaughtered or crushed by slow-moving space donuts.

The similarities don’t end there: Both Prometheus and Mountains involve the scientists discovering an ancient alien race responsible for creating humanity, as well some ugly-ass monsters hell-bent on destroying said humanity. Del Toro didn’t want to cover the same ground as that film, so he announced that his project was on hold or dead. In 2013, he said he would give it one more try … and that’s the last anyone’s heard of it. Oh, well, at least there’s always the new Hellbo– Whoops.

3

Hamilton Won’t Be A Movie For Decades Because The Creator Just Said So

Chances are that you’ve never seen Hamilton yourself (tickets go from $175 to $2000 and are still constantly sold out), but you sure as hell have heard about it. It’s a freaking cultural phenomenon. The Founding Father-themed hip-hop musical won 11 of its record-breaking 16 Tony Awards nominations, largely for its ability to achieve the impossible: making people pay “could have bought fairly high-quality cocaine” money to see something pertaining to Alexander “National Debt Ain’t Nothing But A Thing” Hamilton.

Since Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is all about making American history more accessible to the masses, a movie adaptation would make perfect sense, right? So thinks everyone, except Lin-Manuel Miranda. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Miranda stated that if a film adaptation happens, it probably wouldn’t be for at least 20 years. Partially, he wants to make sure people come see it in theaters now (even though 99 percent of us will never have the chance) … but he also claims that the only good play-to-film adaptations are “all 20 years after the fact,” giving examples like Cabaret or Chicago.

The thing is, Cabaret was only made eight years after the play. West Side Story, The Sound Of Music, Oliver!, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Guys And Dolls, Hairspray — all had acclaimed movies within five to eight years of the musical. The Grease movie was released only seven years later, and people love that retroactively creepy crap. Does Miranda think it was actually made in the ’50s because of the wardrobes?

At most, those suffering from Hamilust will have to settle for watching a filmed performance of the play, but there are two problems with that: 1) Miranda says he hasn’t decided what to do with the only recording of the original cast, joking (we think?) that he’d throw it in a vault, and 2) no one in the history of humanity has enjoyed a fixed-camera movie of a play. You might as well sneak into one of the inevitable rip-off productions that high school drama clubs will be putting on for years to come.

2

Steve Carell’s Real-Life Comedy About North Korea, Pyongyang, Was Shelved Because Of The Interview

North Korea has been responsible for a lot of terrible things over the years, but there was one time when they actually tried to save us from a lurking danger we ourselves didn’t fully understand: Seth Rogen’s The Interview. In what we naively thought would be the most bonkers international incident of this decade, Kim Jong-un’s regime took offense at something in the movie (presumably the part about Rogen and James Franco assassinating him, but maybe they’re just tired of stoner jokes) and allegedly hacked Sony Pictures in retaliation.

As a result, most screenings of the movie were cancelled and the film was banished to the wasteland of home video.

However, this Chinese food-fart of a movie wasn’t the most tragic casualty of the Sony hack clusterfuck: that would be Steve Carell’s Pyongyang, which was a story that actually deserved to be told.

Based on a 2004 autobiographical comic book, Pyongyang details author Guy Delisle’s experiences in the North Korean capital, where he worked as the liaison between a French animation company and a local studio. That studio’s signature creation, by the way, is an adorable propaganda series starring a squirrel and a hedgehog, imaginatively titled Squirrel And Hedgehog.

Because of his particular role, Delisle was given unprecedented access to parts of the country usually hidden from outsiders. His book is a retelling of all the bizarre things he saw and experienced in that crazy-ass regime — a concept that apparently made Gore Verbinski’s ears perk up when he heard about it. In 2013, New Regency announced Verbinski would direct a “dark comedy” based on the Delisle’s experiences, and eventually added Steve Carell as the lead. It would have been an intriguing combination of awkward situations …

… and the obligatory “creative liberties” Hollywood would have taken to make the story more like a spy thriller. Either way, expect a lot of Carell screaming in panic.

Unfortunately, thanks to Rogen shoving his dick jokes into the nuclear hornet’s nest, the movie was dead before it could really take off. New Regency didn’t think they could risk a controversial movie of their own, while Verbinski welcomed the possibility of World War III, stating, “I find it ironic that fear is eliminating the possibility to tell stories that depict our ability to overcome fear.” To which the studio probably responded: “Yeah, but nukes and shit. Right?”

1

The Catcher In The Rye Will Never Get A Movie Because Of A Terrible Version Of Another J.D. Salinger Story

J.D. Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye has long been considered by hipsters (and assassins) to be the greatest book against phonies ever written. Holden Caulfield’s story of self-discovery mirrors that of many a pissed-off, surly, uniquely rebellious teenager — so, all of them, basically. That probably explains why entire generations of actors, from Marlon Brando to Leonardo DiCaprio, have tried to get the movie done with themselves in the lead.

The problem is that, like his boy Caulfield, Salinger was on a bit of a crusade against the phonies of the world — and to him, no one was phonier than Hollywood (not sure how he got that impression).

Salinger didn’t always feel that way. Early in his career, he sold the rights to his short story Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut, a commentary on materialism in the post-WWII era. According to his assistant, Salinger “thought they would make a good movie,” which wasn’t an unreasonable assumption considering that the script would be written by the screenwriters of Casablanca, Julius and Philip Epstein.

So what did the Epsteins do? They changed the name to My Foolish Heart, ditched all the social commentary, and turned the story into a sappy romantic tale.

Even though the film was a commercial hit, Salinger hated it so much that he refused to allow any more adaptations of his work. Including Catcher In The Rye. Of course, there might be another reason why he turned down all those offers from famous actors: According to his one-time girlfriend, Salinger thought only he himself could play Caulfield. It’s probably a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

Anyway, if you excitedly thought that Salinger’s death might finally bring about a Catcher adaptation, then you’re 1) a shitty person, and 2) wrong. The people who manage his trust were fully aware of his aversion to licensing out any of his works, and will continue his crusade for generations to come. On the upside, think of all the murders from illiterate would-be killers we’re avoiding this way.

Jordan Breeding is a part-time writer, a full-time lover, and an all the time guitarist. Check out his band at Skywardband.com or on Spotify here.

Behind every awful movie is the idea for a good one. Old man Indiana Jones discovers aliens: Good in theory, bad in practice. Batman fights Superman: So simple, but so bad. Are there good versions of these movies hidden within the stinking turds that saw the light of day? Jack O’Brien hosts Soren Bowie, Daniel O’Brien, and Katie Willert of After Hours on our next live podcast to find an answer, as they discuss their ideal versions of flops, reboots, and remakes. Tickets are $7 and can be purchased here!

Also check out The 36 Greatest Shows and Movies Ever to Almost Happen and 5 Incredible Real Video Games (You’ll Never Get to Play).

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out 5 Movie Epilogues That Should Have Been Sequels, and other videos you won’t see on the site!

Follow us on Facebook, and let’s best friends forever.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2ojuS1J

from How Potentially Great Movies Got Derailed By Offscreen BS

[carlculationinfinityinterviews]

Pet Library  Interview

Pet Library are an math rock two piece featuring George Milner (Drums, Vocals) and Tim Andersson (Guitar Vocals) based between London and Hertfordshire. Their sound takes elements from math rocks titans TTNG and Tiny Moving Parts. The most interesting thing to me about this band is that they use their music as an outlet and projection of themes based around mental health in order to put the subject in a more positive light. I think that’s pretty rad. 

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://petlibraryuk.bandcamp.com/album/the-corners-of-my-eyes-hold-the-most-vivid-visions"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;the corners of my eyes hold the most vivid visions by Pet Library&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

How did Pet Library Formed and what made you want to play music together exclusively instead of working with other musicians?

Tim: I went to see George's Nu Metal band at a local pub which, was pretty terrible. A few months after I tweeted online about wanting to start an emo band, George replied and then Pet Library formed.

George: When I first met Tim, I'd had quite a lot to drink and we only really talked for roughly ten minutes and arranged our first band practice. I remember when I first turned up to band practice our old bassist and Tim was there though, because of the amount I had to drink the night before I was really unsure which one of them was Tim.

Tim: I didn't actually know that till now. Yeah that’s how it all started, a pub gig and tweet.

What made you want to become musicians and begin writing and playing music?

George: For me the main inspiration was from seeing My Chemical Romance during the Danger Days tour and the reaction from everyone in the room when they played The Only Hope For Me Is You. Seeing that made me want to create something that could make people feel or react in a similar fashion. 

Tim: I heard Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple and wanted to learn guitar from that it was mainly a result of my stepdad playing a lot of classic rock when in the house when I was younger. From there I started getting into bands like Mettalica and became a bit of a young metal elitist. I got into punk bands mainly from listening to Gnarwolves and Tiny Moving parts which really opened up a bunch of new avenues in my playing style.

What misconceptions did you first come across when you first started playing and how did you think and feel about music back then?

Tim: When I first started I thought that I would instantly be a really sick guitarist but, then I quickly discovered how difficult being a musician was and that it was going to take a while to get to the level where I was able to express what I wanted on the guitar. 

Strangely enough I had several phases where I didn't actually play guitar for a year or so. I feel that most of development and progression  came from playing with George in Pet Library this band has pretty much allowed me to play everything that I hear in my head. 

George: At first like Tim, I thought that I'd be able just sit behind a drumkit and be able to play everything I could possibly think of, unfortunately its a bit more difficult than that.

You spoke before about bands such as Tiny Moving Parts being a main catalyst to making you want to change the style of music you played can you explain that in greater detail?

Tim: Yeah Tiny Moving Parts was the main band that really wanted me to become a better musician, I even bought the same guitar as Dylan but that wasn't enough, I had to learn all of their songs. Breaking down Dylan's approach to the guitar really allowed me to create anything I wanted to in Pet Library in terms of technicality we're both very different musicians but he's definitely one of favourite players.

George: Before Pet Library I never really played with anyone like Tim. I'd only played in post harcore bands with lots of breakdowns or music that required me hit everything really hard and aggressively. Playing with Tim really requires me to have to think about technically complimenting what Tim is doing, its a completely different and fresh approach for me, though I'm mainly just trying to rival Tim's playing style. We equally push each other to become better musicians and there’s always a feeling that we are moving forward as a band.

How are the songs in Pet Library written and who brings what elements to the table and how would you describe being a two piece compares to playing in a larger band?

Tim: Well since there's only two of us its a pretty small table. Being a two piece is not exactly something we do by choice its just that we wouldn't be able to find anyone who shares the equal amount of passion commitment. Pet Library is essentially the brain child of me and George and we are equally precious about the music we make and since lyrically we are talking about different aspects of mental health and finding someone who can relate or take the topic seriously isn't the easiest thing to find.

George: Tim will mainly bring an idea or a riff to practice and we'll usually work on that  for a while and then improvise other sections until we get to the end of something that feels like a solid idea, that process gets repeated until we have a complete song. Its a really organic experience. Nothing is really pre written or decided before we get to that space. Lyrically we both have the same style and approach to writing lyrics most of the themes are very melancholy. We try every idea that each of us has to see what works so there aren’t any boundaries that we personally set, its just a case of whatever comes out comes out. 

What was the last time you got out of your comfort zone as musicians? How important do you think it is for musicians to push themselves out of their comfort zones?

Goerge: Mainly when recording our album which is still in the works. The main challenge was to write music that sounded completely different to our for track EP but we still wanted to maintain the original style and sound that we have in Pet Library. I think its important far artists to try new things and explore what they can do with different elements or genres of music.

Tim: I'd say that there's a specific difference between pushing yourself and writing new material. Forcing yourself to make music that you don't want to create or play isn't a form of progression so there's really wrong with staying in your comfort zone if that’s what works for you as a musician.

What specific bands made influenced the album? that you’ve currently been working on?

George: Tim's more into the mathy side of things and during the writing process I mainly listened to My Bloody Valentine and lots of Radiohead.

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and see yourself as a younger musician?

Tim: Avoid buying a BC Rich and get into Emo sooner and learn something other than Deep Purple songs.

George: I'd tell myself not to be so pretentious about playing drums. Back when I first started playing anything that I couldn't play would deter me from focusing on developing my skills. I'd tell myself to focus more on the simpler elements of playing drums and then move onto the technical stuff later. 

What was the last band that made you exceeded your expectations of what was possible with music?

Tim: MeWithoutYou has is the main band that I'm into at the moment.

George: I'm a huge Radiohead nerd, anything that they put out really just blows my mind I don't understand how that band really continues to make great music. Sad Blood as well, it was great to see a band playing cool emo pop and just really catchy music. 

Pet Library will be playing in Southampton at So Punk Fest on Sunday 3rd Of Feb tickets can be purchased here:

http://abovethewavespromo.bigcartel.com/

You can follow Pet Library’s Pages and stream their music at:

https://petlibraryuk.bandcamp.com/releases

http://homebirdrecords.co.uk/album/the-corners-of-my-eyes-hold-the-most-vivid-vision

https://www.facebook.com/petlibraryuk/?fref=ts

https://petlibraryuk.bandcamp.com/album/the-corners-of-my-eyes-hold-the-most-vivid-visions

[fragmentpromotion-blog]

Pet Library Interview

Pet Library are an math rock two piece featuring George Milner (Drums, Vocals) and Tim Andersson (Guitar Vocals) based between London and Hertfordshire. Their sound takes elements from math rocks titans TTNG and Tiny Moving Parts. The most interesting thing to me about this band is that they use their music as an outlet and projection of themes based around mental health in order to put the subject in a more positive light. I think that’s pretty rad. 

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://petlibraryuk.bandcamp.com/album/the-corners-of-my-eyes-hold-the-most-vivid-visions"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;the corners of my eyes hold the most vivid visions by Pet Library&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

How did Pet Library Formed and what made you want to play music together exclusively instead of working with other musicians?

Tim: I went to see George's Nu Metal band at a local pub which, was pretty terrible. A few months after I tweeted online about wanting to start an emo band, George replied and then Pet Library formed.

George: When I first met Tim, I'd had quite a lot to drink and we only really talked for roughly ten minutes and arranged our first band practice. I remember when I first turned up to band practice our old bassist and Tim was there though, because of the amount I had to drink the night before I was really unsure which one of them was Tim.

Tim: I didn't actually know that till now. Yeah that’s how it all started, a pub gig and tweet.

What made you want to become musicians and begin writing and playing music?

George: For me the main inspiration was from seeing My Chemical Romance during the Danger Days tour and the reaction from everyone in the room when they played The Only Hope For Me Is You. Seeing that made me want to create something that could make people feel or react in a similar fashion. 

Tim: I heard Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple and wanted to learn guitar from that it was mainly a result of my stepdad playing a lot of classic rock when in the house when I was younger. From there I started getting into bands like Mettalica and became a bit of a young metal elitist. I got into punk bands mainly from listening to Gnarwolves and Tiny Moving parts which really opened up a bunch of new avenues in my playing style.

What misconceptions did you first come across when you first started playing and how did you think and feel about music back then?

Tim: When I first started I thought that I would instantly be a really sick guitarist but, then I quickly discovered how difficult being a musician was and that it was going to take a while to get to the level where I was able to express what I wanted on the guitar. 

Strangely enough I had several phases where I didn't actually play guitar for a year or so. I feel that most of development and progression  came from playing with George in Pet Library this band has pretty much allowed me to play everything that I hear in my head. 

George: At first like Tim, I thought that I'd be able just sit behind a drumkit and be able to play everything I could possibly think of, unfortunately its a bit more difficult than that.

You spoke before about bands such as Tiny Moving Parts being a main catalyst to making you want to change the style of music you played can you explain that in greater detail?

Tim: Yeah Tiny Moving Parts was the main band that really wanted me to become a better musician, I even bought the same guitar as Dylan but that wasn't enough, I had to learn all of their songs. Breaking down Dylan's approach to the guitar really allowed me to create anything I wanted to in Pet Library in terms of technicality we're both very different musicians but he's definitely one of favourite players.

George: Before Pet Library I never really played with anyone like Tim. I'd only played in post harcore bands with lots of breakdowns or music that required me hit everything really hard and aggressively. Playing with Tim really requires me to have to think about technically complimenting what Tim is doing, its a completely different and fresh approach for me, though I'm mainly just trying to rival Tim's playing style. We equally push each other to become better musicians and there’s always a feeling that we are moving forward as a band.

How are the songs in Pet Library written and who brings what elements to the table and how would you describe being a two piece compares to playing in a larger band?

Tim: Well since there's only two of us its a pretty small table. Being a two piece is not exactly something we do by choice its just that we wouldn't be able to find anyone who shares the equal amount of passion commitment. Pet Library is essentially the brain child of me and George and we are equally precious about the music we make and since lyrically we are talking about different aspects of mental health and finding someone who can relate or take the topic seriously isn't the easiest thing to find.

George: Tim will mainly bring an idea or a riff to practice and we'll usually work on that  for a while and then improvise other sections until we get to the end of something that feels like a solid idea, that process gets repeated until we have a complete song. Its a really organic experience. Nothing is really pre written or decided before we get to that space. Lyrically we both have the same style and approach to writing lyrics most of the themes are very melancholy. We try every idea that each of us has to see what works so there aren’t any boundaries that we personally set, its just a case of whatever comes out comes out. 

What was the last time you got out of your comfort zone as musicians? How important do you think it is for musicians to push themselves out of their comfort zones?

Goerge: Mainly when recording our album which is still in the works. The main challenge was to write music that sounded completely different to our for track EP but we still wanted to maintain the original style and sound that we have in Pet Library. I think its important far artists to try new things and explore what they can do with different elements or genres of music.

Tim: I'd say that there's a specific difference between pushing yourself and writing new material. Forcing yourself to make music that you don't want to create or play isn't a form of progression so there's really wrong with staying in your comfort zone if that’s what works for you as a musician.

What specific bands made influenced the album? that you’ve currently been working on?

George: Tim's more into the mathy side of things and during the writing process I mainly listened to My Bloody Valentine and lots of Radiohead.

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and see yourself as a younger musician?

Tim: Avoid buying a BC Rich and get into Emo sooner and learn something other than Deep Purple songs.

George: I'd tell myself not to be so pretentious about playing drums. Back when I first started playing anything that I couldn't play would deter me from focusing on developing my skills. I'd tell myself to focus more on the simpler elements of playing drums and then move onto the technical stuff later. 

What was the last band that made you exceeded your expectations of what was possible with music?

Tim: MeWithoutYou has is the main band that I'm into at the moment.

George: I'm a huge Radiohead nerd, anything that they put out really just blows my mind I don't understand how that band really continues to make great music. Sad Blood as well, it was great to see a band playing cool emo pop and just really catchy music. 

Pet Library will be playing in Southampton at So Punk Fest on Sunday 3rd Of Feb tickets can be purchased here:

http://abovethewavespromo.bigcartel.com/

You can follow Pet Library’s Pages and stream their music at:

https://petlibraryuk.bandcamp.com/releases

http://homebirdrecords.co.uk/album/the-corners-of-my-eyes-hold-the-most-vivid-vision

https://www.facebook.com/petlibraryuk/?fref=ts

https://petlibraryuk.bandcamp.com/album/the-corners-of-my-eyes-hold-the-most-vivid-visions

[doomedandstoned]

BAILEY’S CHOICE

Youngblood Supercult guitarist Bailey Gonzales shares her 10 favorite albums of Autumn.

Photo by Johnny Hubbard at Doomed & Stoned Fest

First off, let me preface by saying that this list is just a fraction of what I would include on a good, solid Autumn playlist, but everything must end at some point. Most of these you’ve probably heard, some you may not be familiar with, and others perhaps long forgotten and thus need a good revisiting. So here goes:

1. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young – Déjà vu

This has been in my catalog since I first started smoking weed in the fall of my freshman year of high school and learned to enjoy the hazy, beautiful strains of intricate harmonies that permeate CSNY’s iconic brand of folk-blues rock. Their albums were always on rotation in my house when I was growing up, but until I started to fully understand its cosmic, layered beauty, Déjà vu fell more or less into the “lame music my parents listen to” category for me. Now it’s a staple, especially as the weather starts to cool and the leaves start to turn, and I’m thrown into some kind of sepia-tinged yearning for the past. Funny how things change. This album holds some of the group’s most acclaimed work; I can’t point out a single track I’d skip over.

2. Graveyard – Graveyard

Graveyard by Graveyard

Speaking of high school—I grew up in a very small town in Southeast Kansas, and when MySpace made its debut (yes, MySpace), I found a page for this indie label called Tee Pee Records that absolutely dictated what I would listen to take the edge of my Black Sabbath cravings—this is where I was ultimately introduced to stoner rock and all of the branches of the retro heavy metal genre—and one of them that always stuck with me as I worshipped this label’s releases thereafter was Graveyard’s self-titled album. There are so many great tracks on this album, with “Thin Line” being an absolute favorite and even an echoing of one of my darkest autumn remembrances (won’t delve into it, but the subject matter will lead you where you need to go). Fantastic, timeless album.

3. Jonathan Snipes & William Hutson – Room 237

Room 237 (2012) is a funny little documentary. I love it, despite the fact that this film lays out conspiracies about Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining that range from absolutely Kubrickesque crazy-but-plausible to totally ludicrous, leaping-to-judgement scenarios and breakdowns related to the hidden puzzles within the original adaptation. But, we are talking about music here: this album plays like Stranger Things meets Goblin meets John Carpenter. There is nothing necessarily special about it, but in trying to find an OST that would fit neatly within this list, this fella kind of jumped out to me. Not everybody enjoys soundtracks, and while I could listen to creepy, ambient synth all day long, every day, Room 237 seems like it could entrance any listener, especially with standout tracks like “To Keep From Falling Off” to “Universal Weak Male” and even with the closing track, “Dies Irae” which plays off the original theme from The Shining.

4. Trouble – Trouble

It blows my mind that this album was released in 1990. Everything about it screams, “I WANT TO MAKE YOUR EARS BLEED: ‘70s METAL STLYE.” It’s like a lost and very angry Sir Lord Baltimore album was found in someone’s murky basement and sold in a musty, long forgotten record shop. The kind of place where you might hear whispers of dark legends. Somewhere that may be evocative, in legend, of the kind of place that Mayhem’s late singer, Dead, slit his wrists, throat, and blew his brains out and everyone commenced for this orgiastic blood feast of mourning to say, uh, “let’s take a photo of his dead body and slap it on a bootleg album cover and make necklaces out of his skull...” It’s not that harsh, but there’s definitely something spooky, dark, and forbidden about it. You may ask yourself, if you’re just hearing this album for the first time: “Why don’t they play some of these tracks on the radio?” Well, my child...do you really want to know?

5. The Steepwater Band – Revelation Sunday

This collection of hot tunes from The Steepwater Band is, apart from 2011’s Clava, one of our band’s road staples. We often don’t agree on much when that road cagey feeling hits or when disagreements happen, which incidentally is why things tend to work well with us, but The Steepwater Band, Mount Carmel, and Gary Clark Junior are all things we can come to terms with through the van’s trebly stock speakers. Maybe it’s the bluesiness. Very moody folk-blues rock tunes, with a touch of whiskey-fueled country, is what these guys exhibit in songs like “Slow Train Drag,” “Dance Me A Number,” and “Steel Sky.” A plus material, in my book, and good for the road on a cold night’s ramble.

6. Black Sabbath – Never Say Die!

Can people stop it with the “I’m tired of Black Sabbath” comments??? You know they are the reason we’re all here, and whether you like to admit it or not, you dig a good Sabbath tune either once in a while or every day. Doctor’s orders. Now I don’t think that a playlist is complete without a Black Sabbath album, but autumn seems the appropriate time for their fumbling, but strong conclusion — 1978’s Never Say Die!   And I really don’t care that I know I’m in the minority for loving this album. To me, while it’s their most strained Ozzy-era album (I won’t even touch 13, so don’t ask), it’s full of premonitions of things to come, including a full out jazz brawl in “Breakout” that reminds me of the mean streets in Dirty Harry, and songs that might make the bravest of our genre cry, like “Junior’s Eyes.” “Shock Wave” goes through the typical rough and tumble changes that Black Sabbath fans learn to embrace, but it comes in wave after wave after wave. Hell, even the title track is nearly full-out punk rock. If you’ve avoided this album, please—give it a spin. Even if it’s only to hear Bill Ward sing. It’s the album I fell into when I joined my first band in the fall of 2008 and what pushed me into the direction of branching out to things I’d long avoided. I literally shit my pants every time the first synth breakdown in “Johnny Blade” comes over the speakers, and I think you should, too.

7. Madonna – Madonna

Speaking of shit you probably don’t wanna read…who out of us has given Madonna’s 1983 debut a spin? Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, I didn’t think so. For you folks who can appreciate this one, I applaud you for admitting it. It’s not a sin to listen to Madonna (tell that one to the Vatican), but unless she’s been covertly transformed into Lana Del Rey or someone else on the darker and more modern side of the pop spectrum, you’d be hard pressed to find an admitted fan in our heavy underground group. And you know what? I don’t give a single fuck (yes, I learned that language from M herself). She’s a goddess, an icon, a killer songwriter—if you don’t believe me, tell that to the $400 million she has neatly tucked away—and dammit, she taught me to give a little less of a fuck in times where I don’t have too many to spare. This is another reason my parents are badass. Who in the world would buy their kid the “Like A Virgin” album only if their 11-year-old can ask for it by name without getting too embarrassed at the thought of saying “virgin” out loud to the Camelot Music clerk? Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, listen to this. Just do it...Madonna would.

8. The Midnight Ghost Train – Buffalo

Buffalo by The Midnight Ghost Train

I met Steve Moss at a show in Topeka in late 2009 at a dive bar where the drummer from my first band was singing in his new group. We did the obligatory thing and then, holy shit—this band starts playing and glasses start clinking and I swear to god I thought the whole damn place was going to cave in. They play a bunch of tunes and I’m so fully entranced it’s stupid. After the show, I went up to their singer/guitarist and said, “Um, that was really fucking awesome. I loved how you slipped “Hand of Doom into the middle of one of your songs.” Bam. We were instant buds. I couldn’t believe that they had come out of Topeka, Kansas. Later, while they were prepping to record 2012’s Buffalo, we had a very memorable fall jam session and some shows together, and EVERY. DAMNED. TIME. I felt like there was just something insanely special happening. Buffalo proved to be an instant classic, and even though The Midnight Ghost Train boys seem to always be on tour, I visit with my old pal Steve from time to time when he’s around, and nothing can erase those crazy, almost LSD-like imprinted memories of our house shows together. Hell, we reunited again just last month in another Topeka dive bar. I still have almost 3 hours’ worth of an interview I need to write that documents Steve’s early life up until the recording of Cold Was The Ground. The circle goes round and round. And I sure as hell can’t shake that sound.

9. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Green River

I don’t know what everyone else thinks about when they hear the track “Green River” from Creedence Clearwater Revival, but I think of Gary Ridgeway. I know that’s way far off, but I can’t help it. I also think about the album cover, and how many people still try to copy it, unintentionally. And I think about Stephen King. If you’ve read a few of his novels, you know from some of his passages, he’s a total CCR freak. I’ll give him a pass for mentioning Springsteen so much just because he’s a damn genius. But I bet the casual listener has never heard the song “Sinister Purpose” on the radio airwaves. It sounds like it belongs on a damn Leaf Hound album or something. Thank god for small favors. This is the epitome of southern blues rock. All you Lynyrd Skynyrd fans can fight me (although I won’t knock them), but CCR has earned their grimy, yet rightful spot as the Bayou’s most raw and creepy rock group. And way down in the fall, there’s always a bad moon rising.

10. Buffalo – Dead Forever...

Man, I was going to write up a few more albums, but this is the end of the line, folks. Australia’s Buffalo caps it off with their 1972 album, Dead Forever...   I can see this piece being released today, and that’s why I’m so glad everyone in this community puts out music that can rival little-known bands like Buffalo. I have a sweet spot for this group. Nobody will ever be able to answer why this killer band could never receive any airplay, and that question still lingers as absolute over processed shit continues to infiltrate the airwaves and real emotion can’t shine through. One of the promotional stickers for this record was, “Play this album LOUD.” Seen that before? Is history repeating itself in belittling our efforts to get out there and WARP THE FUCK out of people’s minds? I guess so. But we can fix that. Put the needle on some Buffalo, don your battle jacket, and work on getting some fuzz into some onlooker’s ears. Listen carefully, and don’t let the Buffalo situation happen to us all.

Hear Bailey's 'Autumn Vibes' Playlist on Spotify

Photo by Johnny Hubbard

The Great American Death Rattle by Youngblood Supercult