#the camerawork was terrible

[jeonghan-yoons]

jeonghan : 손오공 230428

[ennuijpg]

NINE ♥ 230305 'seoul drift' inkigayo fancam

[id: 6 gifs of nine from kpop group onlyoneof performing their 'seoul drift' choreography on stage. he is wearing a black cropped blazer and pants, both with lace-up and zipper detailing. the stage is largely lit with deep blue lights with magenta accents. the colored caption reads: nine — 230305 'seoul drift' inkigayo fancam /end id]

[yangjeongin]

some ppl are lucky my twitter is priv i just saw someone say mbank paris cameraman is hyunjin biased and i was overcome by irrational rage because two of the gifs in that hyunjin set are close ups of him in someone else’s closeup that’s how bad it was the only thing that cameraman was biased for was the white ppl in the audience i’m so serious

[cinnabeat]

my dads watching xmen or something and my god is it bad

[zangtang]

Fat Yee, from a youtube clip in which they absolutely disrespected us with some terrible camerawork

[suspicious-skink]

I have become so terribly passionate about the camerawork and editing of Taskmaster. It is unbelievably good. Unnecessarily good for a comedy game show. I see that fisheye lens and I exclaim ‘WOW! REVOLUTIONARY!!!’ It’d be brilliant telly on its own, but then there’s just so much extra love and creativity put into the production of every episode. You love to see it.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

The whole Haitian Grill Hoaxes.

Warning: Talks about Haitian history of slavery briefly and of cooking animals.

Not my usual line of posts, but meh, I kinda want to so some solidarity, education and attempt at least to weave in some talk of anthropology and worldbuilding with it.

First off, Anthropologists are required to take as undergraduates Physical Anthropology. We have to be able to tell the difference between a carnivore, an herbivore and a omnivore. And also are taught things like how to tell the difference between human bones and animal bones. No lie, this was one of the most difficult classes I took and I spent for probably the first time in a long time studying my ass off. I usually don't study, but for this one I studied really hard. 'cause you have to memorize the names of bones and how they differ. (Cue me crying because I still remember frontal parietal and occipital and semi-have nightmares about this class. I still have mandible, but then semi panic about the names of all of the nose bones.)

This isn't what I thought I'd be using my degree for, but here we are.

Next, I 100% do not condone and 100% condemn everyone being AHs to Haitians who've had enough crap in their history, such as, but not limited to Columbus depopulating the Island of Taino (It's a word that starts with G), enslaving a bunch of Africans, and then people getting upset when they overthrew their slave owners. This is designed as a defense against the racist who accuse them of eating an animal rarely eaten in human history especially WITHOUT ANY FLAVOR. WTF. Only people who are from the Europe do that. Did you really get insulted by Tim Walz making fun of the white American Palate and then confirm he was correct? Yes, you did.

I'm pulling out my love of food anthro for this too. lol Did I almost write a book about it? Yes, yes I did. Also, I have graphic design knowledge to be able to tell things.

***

This is the image. Those are chickens, whole, not free of their internal organs.

Might be 3-4 chickens, but this is my best guess:

That's the anatomy break down.

Basically, the tail is not a rabbit tail. The tail is also not a cat tail. It matches a bird tail.

The legs are not rabbit legs—they are too long and there is a claw. There is a wing in the picture. Cats don't have the anatomy. They have longer tails and it wouldn't look that way.

For reference, the Sphinx Cat. (which is really expensive, BTW. They've been catnapped before.)

The red in the picture is glare from a window because the person is standing and as the video goes, if you focus on the glare you can see it is a white person taking the video—or at least very light skinned wearing a red t-shirt and dark pants. Might even be a Trump T-shirt, but I couldn't confirm it on repeated viewings. This means the window is pretty big. It's not a car. The way the person shifts within the video means they are likely in their own house. There is a level of comfort there. This was also likely taken with a phone because the resolution is terrible. The way the camera shifts as the person shifts their position, etc and the bad camerawork, suggests amateur with a phone. (Also didn't expect to use my graphic design knowledge for this)

Dude, just go outside your house to film.

The second reason this isn't from a car like some people suggest is there is a fence that goes along the back of the property where the beveling of the fence suggests it's to protect the current yard. This means the fence likely goes the entire perimeter of the yard which would mean it's not visible from the street. The majority of grills are set up to face the house, not the street, unless you're planning on selling it.

Sphinx is an all furless cat. This looks nothing like what is in the picture. Those are birds.

It was pointed out to me that it might be stewing chickens, i.e. after they've been retired from egg laying. The kind you make into something like Dak Komtang. This means the picture was 100% faked.

Now, why is it a badly faked image: Cultural Anthropology and food anthropology here.

In order to cook any animal in a BBQ setting, every culture I know of where you are physically using a grill: You would have to chop it up so it cooks evenly and if you don't do that, put it on a spit to cook it whole. It *is* possible to cook a whole chicken, however, one would have to have taken out the giblets, and then dressed and marinated it thoroughly so that the breasts are correctly tied, plus you would have to tie it up so that the wings are tied to the body: https://bluejeanchef.com/cooking-school/how-to-truss-a-chicken/

Truss it tight. This helps the chicken to cook evenly. Similarly with rabbit you'd have to empty the main cavity of the innards.

No one leaves the chicken feet on in that case. It's better to take off that part of the legs and do something else with them, like say Chinese Chicken feet for dim sum.

Nunzio pointed out that the chickens were likely stewing chickens, i.e. retired breeders.

based off of this picture. i.e. terrible for grilling on the barbecue because it's much tougher meat.

In addition, while there are cultures that do eat chicken heads, often to make the chicken cook more evenly, they are cut off of the body and grilled/cooked separately because the rate at which the head cooks is faster than the rest of the body. In the picture you can see the chicken combs.

The next point of clue that this is a faked image is that there is NO FUCKING FLAVOR ON THE CHICKEN.

White food travel shows, Haitians themselves when making their food, my own mouth is going to tell you, that is is packed to the gills with flavor. OMG, some of the food is so spicy, even this Asian feels like they were crying. C'mon now, that's a crime to say that Haiti people are going to cook anything on the grill with no flavor.

You know the only cuisine in the world that gets close to doing that? Europeans and people of that direct descent. And I've eaten my way through South America, Central America, North America, Texas BBQ, Louisiana, NE America, South West America, Italy, France, England, Germany, Poland, Russian, Hungarian, Iranian, Armenian, Tunisia, Nigeria, Ethiopian, Greek, Chinese (Northern and Southern, BTW), Japan, Korea, most of SE Asia, Philippines, and some of the South Pacific (Working on it). There is only one continent that does not flavor their meat before putting it on the grill—effing Europe. WTF.

The rest of the world is begging you to at least marinate your meat. !@#$ Even effing Texans are begging you to marinate your meat.

Anyway, no self respecting home chef or any type of cook would cook their meat this way.

Food experience

I've eaten and cooked whole rabbit, whole chicken, whole turkey, whole goose, venison (legally hunted and shot), beef, lamb, goat (not whole), and !@#$ there is no way someone is cooking it that way without any heat on the grill first. In order to grill anything, you need a lot of prep time to make it work, even for smoking. You need to heat up the grill.

Let me tell you as a kid when I first arrived to the US, my mom would serve up crap meals which consisted of mediocre rice, fish sticks, and carrot and celery sticks. God, I hated the cooking. And she kept saying how she would not ever put in more effort into our meals. Having some semblance of foundation about cooking, I watched cooking shows, read cook books, and managed to get the foundations of cooking from asking and doing.

This meant by the time I was a teenager I was making the majority of the meals for the house. In fact, my parents made me do the majority of the cooking some nights AND clean the dishes I cooked with sometimes because they were seriously assholes.

They also would have me heat the briquettes for the grill ALONE. --;; Unsupervised. Yeah, not recommended, and I would never ask kids to do it on their own. Don't do as my parents did.

On the list of things they had me cook was things like venison and goose. When I flunked out of college the first time due to lingering trauma, they also had me do all of the cooking for rent and made unreasonable demands on me.

Fuck. Go back to your fucking fish sticks.

The point is that I know the foundations of cooking meat very, very well. I got so good at it, I could sense the difference in smell to know when it was cooked versus not cooked.

I made up recipes too.

Anyway, there is NO way you would be cooking meat like that with the head still stuck on. For the cultures like Ireland that eats things like brains, the head is ALWAYS cooked separately from the body. The brain is squishy in there and can make the skull explode in some cases because it cooks at a different rate from the rest of the body. The same with the internal organs. Those are removed in every culture or taken out, rinsed and carefully placed back into the cavity of the animal to cook *with additional* things added (sometimes rocks, sometimes extra meats, etc.) Again, if you don't do that, the inside will explode. (And in some cases make things really bitter like gall bladder tastes nasty. You can see people eating the gall bladder on Youtube.)

This is why this is a faked picture.

In addition, the cultures that do eat things like cats are usually ravaged by imperialism, therefore, poverty. And I know how much imperializing nations like to make fun of other cultures they imperialized to the point of crippling their food supply and their inability to get new technology like refrigerators.

This is why I think it's best to not ridicule other culture's foods.

And don't believe hoaxes like this. Including the whole This is a dog without canine teeth video hoax. It's simply not worth it.

And I'd also beg you to fact check, fact check before you perpetuate rumors. But I suppose this is a lesson in racism and xenophobia too.

[padmestrilogy]

So is acolyte worth pirating?

yeah i’d say so. it’s a good time! the fight scenes are some of the best in the franchise, full stop. the slate of original, compelling characters and lack of cameos puts it head and shoulders above a lot of disney stuff. amandla is great as codependent twins and the portrayal of light/dark and sith/jedi is more nuanced and thoughtful than this site deserves. manny jacinto coolest villian we’ve had in ages.

ofc the fast-paced-eight episode-season model is terrible for tv and the acolyte definitely suffers in the “information flow” and “dialogue” departments. the sets look great and i’m glad they didn’t use the volume, but the non-fight camerawork can be real flat. if you’re wanting for queer rep (obligatory fpreg post link) or another andor, you’ll be left wanting. the portrayal of closed cultures could’ve used a defter hand. but with andor s2 delayed and the rest of modern star wars sinking into unwatchability, i’ve found the acolyte really refreshing.

[magicaldragons]

'bade miyan chote miyan' is an insanely messy movie

(what to expect: no spoilers)

this movie has: 1. over the top hype 2. intensely cringe dialogue at points (and i have a high tolerance) 3. a storyline that compromises its character & narrative depth for plot complexity, and ends up falling a bit short on both. 4. a terrible of usage of what could have been strong female characters.

having said that though, this is a movie that gives us [in no particular order]:

✓ a movie that begins with a fight scene (feat. manushi chhillar)

✓ fervent glances? between two men (especially when the other isn't looking)

✓ intense eye contact between homebois

✓ banter? bickering like a married couple? (hello, enemies to lovers)

✓ two explicit declarations of love (this isn't even a joke)

✓ wonderfully choreographed fight sequences (though the camerawork sometimes prevents us from appreciating the details)

✓ a sonakshi sinha cameo

✓ a villain with a solid backstory, but SIMULTANEOUSLY psychopathic for no reason at all (which is a bit refreshing)

✓ excessive handholding (not exaggerating, at least eleven times)

✓ refusing to let go of said hand (even in dangerous situations)

✓ prithviraj with long hair

✓ a villain that does NOT monologue, other than giving us essential backstory (finally!)

✓ a cheek kiss?? (again, not kidding. yes, between the main characters.)

✓ telepathic understanding between our main bois

✓ prithviraj with long hair (if i hadn't mentioned already)

✓ a cohesive, fast-paced, fun story, with plenty of plot points and surprising moments (crazy amount of potential)

(what you are ALSO signing up for):

the overt sexualization of men. men being tiger shroff and akshay kumar. (did i mention tiger shroff?)

a genius character who is also a professional simp 86% of the time

MULTIPLE dialogues that make you want to gag 😃(but entertaining in it's own weird way)

a blatant reference to the RRR dance scene during a dance montage of tiger & akshay (goood times)

prithviraj giving his 124% to a character, as usual (in a movie that is incapable of being taken seriously at times)

witnessing the lost potential of three potential badass female characters

situations that should not be escapable (but surprise, they are)

situations that should not be survivable (again, surprise)

obvious references to multiple other movies and real life memes (choti bachi ho kya?)

[follows-the-bees]

It's my favorite time again! Filmmaking analysis time!

How the camerawork used in 2x2 Red Flags shows the power dynamic and tension between Blackbeard and Frenchie.

This scene stands out because the camerawork is impeccably used to show the tension, fear, and power dynamic between captain and first mate.

In fact, the camera this season, especially in the first three episodes, has more boldness than the previous season. Since this season is Ed's POV, the camera is more dynamic, the shots are tighter to show emotions, and like in this previous analysis I wrote on "the atmosphere on this ship is toxic" scene in 2x1, it can be used to show the mental state of the crew.

This scene starts out as Frenchie's POV. It starts with him crouched down, holding the first-aid kit, and follows him up as he stands before panning to the right to reveal Ed. It is as much of a jump scare for the audience as it is for Frenchie.

We already are starting with a small amount of tension that just ramps up as the scene goes on. The camera switches to medium shots that are tilted up on both characters.

Let's start with Frenchie's shots.

He is center framed, making sure the audience is focusing entirely on him, and the camera is tilted slightly up. Shots are normally eye-level, so to change this immediately gives us a sense of discomfort.

As Frenchie starts to lie - also, I love you Frenchie but you are a terrible liar - the camera starts to push in closer to him. It shows the audience more fully the discomfort Frenchie's feeling as well as begins the POV of Ed as Blackbeard questions him and walks closer.

The audience feels the same discomfort as Frenchie as Ed slowly advances on him, and we see Frenchie fumble with his words, with the lies, as his face gets closer during the push in.

Now let's switch to Blackbeard.

He is framed in almost the same manner as Frenchie, center, but this time the camera is even more tilted upward. Low angle shots are used to make the subject powerful. And we see that here with how Blackbeard is framed. With Frenchie, we saw from chest up, but with Blackbeard, it is a tighter shot, the audience barely sees his shoulders.

We again have a tracking shot like on Frenchie, but this is the opposite. Blackbeard walks toward the camera, toward Frenchie, causing him to grow larger as he approaches, and we start to feel the suffocation of the moment. And the angle becomes lower as Blackbeard starts winning the conversation, when Frenchie stops trying to come up with excuses and Blackbeard informs him that he knows he's lying.

After the two push in shots show this dynamic the characters' body positions change.

At the end of the scene, Frenchie is lying back completely on the table. His legs in the air as Ed is leaning over him. He is a towering presence and Frenchie is protecting himself with the box - medical supplies - which are covering his face slightly.

The audience only sees Blackbeard's back here because he's already won this situation, this power dynamic.

This POV switch in the camera accomplishes showing the discomfort of the characters and brings that unsettlement to the audience, makes them feel it just like they were in the room. It starts with Frenchie's POV and jump scare, only to then have two different push-ins showing the slow, meticulous advancement of Blackbeard as he intimidates Frenchie. Frenchie gets more despondent as the camera pushes in toward him, until he is finally taken over and laying flat on a table, while Blackbeard takes complete control of this conversation, wins the power dynamic.

The camerawork really ramps up the tension not only between the characters but makes the audience feel it. It starts low on Frenchie, already foreshadowing how the rest of the scene is going to go - with Frenchie "lower" than Blackbeard. Using tracking, low-angle, and push-ins all together in this short scene all to drive home the tension is peak cinema

[thedirtiwalkoniswet]

I finished the Obi Wan series and wow it is... not good.

I just watched the bad batch (actually solo inbetween but that was so bad I won't mention it further) and this show surprised me with how good it was. When these characters were introduced in season 7 of clone wars I was sure I wouldn't like the show, because they annoyed the hell out of me. But then I actually got to watching the show and it was good all the way through.

So Obi Wan was a whiplash. I have a lot of thoughts.

It's bad. It's so bad. For one, it looks cheap. The main reason I think is the lighting, half the time it is so painfully obvious it was filmed in a studio, and it takes any emergence that you could've had. They also could've color graded a little, it is boring to look at. Additionally is everything so stale, nothing in the background moves, there is 0 wind essentially in the show. The budget also definetly didn't went into make up and costume design, but that is so obvious it's barely worth noting and not the worst part.

The worst part, by far, is the dialog however. The actors are great, I know they are great, but they still struggle so hard to make the dialog sound normal and they can barely do that, because it is so, so bad. They just string random sentences together that don't make sense as a whole anymore. The actors can't react properly to the dialog, because in real life you'd look at them with the most confused face, like what the hell are you talking about bro. It is a shame that great actors are wasted on terrible dialog, that could have easily been better.

Additionally is the camera work quite odd. It can be decent occasionally, I think the scene were "Leia" gets dressed was nicely done and so are some other scenes. But then you get the scenes like when Reva was climbing on these buildings, which had terrible camerawork. Don't get me wrong, there is charm in the camera not being completely stiff, but they're just shaking it around whenever a fight scene comes up or any scene that isn't completely peaceful. It is jarring and makes the show look like a fan project, and not even a good one.

The action scenes also feel slow somehow. I know I can't compare it to a cartoon, obviously not. But I can compare it to action scenes from the prequels or Andor. In Obi Wan, it very much feels like the characters are holding back, when they clearly shouldn't be. Everyone is running and moving so slowly, it only makes me frustrated to see. I fear it might be because the actors weren't given enough time to rehearse or not enough care was put into choreographing/ editing. Even the fight between Vader and Obi Wan at the end was meh, and that was for most the best part. Yeah, it's cool he can use the force again, yeah it's sad that he has to accept that Anakin is not there anymore and Vader is all that's left. But... what else? This was what the entire show led up to and it could have been better. At least the location was extremely cool.

Tragically I'm still not done. Because another issue is that it is simply not a good experience. I'm not saying it has to be a happy one, but even tragic stories can make you engaged and riled up. It was a very bold desiscion to completely change Obi Wan, considering that in episode 3 and 4, he is extremely similar. So they had to change him just to bring him back to who we knew. Usually I LOVE angst, I think it is so interesting to see characters who you love go through hard times and evolve and change. But somehow it didn't work with him at all. I blame it mostly on the writing being so in your face, so bland and without nuance. Star wars was never known for good dialog, but usually that was George Lucas' fault and he wasn't really involved in the writing as far as I know.

There are good ideas sprinkled in. But it mostly felt like somebody said "you know what would be cool to see?" and then they wrote the plot around it to make it happen. (Like that pick up driver or whatever the space version would be)

Maybe I have so much to say because it is a huge shame. It could've been good, it could have been great. And yet it is genuinely terrible, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. To me this is some of the worst star wars media I have seen out of what I watched so far. Only Solo being worse (I fucking hate that movie). BUT I do think it's salvagable. They could make a fantastic season 2, it is very easily possible if they only put more effort in the writing and maybe fire Chung Chung-Hoon.

If you like it I am super happy for you, I know I ripped it apart, but please don't let me ruin something you like, despite all of this. My uncle loved this show and I can't talk to him about the show because I am not blinded by nostalgia bait. You can tangle any familiar character in front of him and he will most likely like it. (He liked Boba Fett and I haven't seen anyone liking it yet, but I haven't watched this one either so I don't have an opinion yet)

[sloshed-cinema]

The Conjuring (2013)

I’ll give Ed and Lorraine Warren this much: they may be manipulative hucksters and frauds, but they’re also terrible exorcists. The film spends a lot of time amping up the pair’s street cred as top-of-the-line demonologists and paranormal investigators (pro tip: if you point out that the obvious creaking floorboard is a creaking floorboard once, you get to make up whatever bullshit you desire all the rest of the time), even going so far as to tout how Ed is basically the exorcist version of a physician assistant (aside from the fact that PAs can actually be useful). He can accompany the ritual, but he just can’t perform surgery himself. And more procedures are being handed to him by an absentee Church, it would seem. But when push comes to shove and he has to expel the witch Bathsheba from the body of some random Rhode Island mother, it takes him all of 0.025 seconds to drop his holy water. But who gives a shit about the real Warrens in this puffed-up propaganda piece and heightened, fictionalized version of maybe some case of theirs. The rule of taking one thing away is one that could dearly be learned by this film, though the franchise does nothing if not lead in the complete opposite direction. There are some solid scares, or at least a promising inclination of what could be truly chilling. The arms reaching out of the closet in the background to clap and direct Mom during a game of hide and seek—we knew where the clapping bit would lead, but fine. It works. It’s paid off again later when she’s in the basement lighting matches. But all too often, these beats go for a hat on a hat approach, slathering on noise stings and ridiculous camerawork that frankly undermines any tension they had going. Does every horror movie need to be a Robert Eggers joint with stately locked down camera and heady atmosphere? Certainly not. But I for one am glad to be past the 2010s heyday of shaky cameras and snap zooms onto spooky scary faces.

There’s something of a Fast & Furious effect going on here. While they’re not quite at the tier of sending cars into space and rocketing vehicles over dams while Jason Momoa paints the toenails of corpses and various bald men benchpress missiles, it is still amusing that a run-of-the-mill haunted house exorcism movie has spawned everything up to and including a creepy pan-European nun with glowing eyes and made software superheroes of our dastardly duo when they do show up.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'Annabelle' or 'witch'.

Location-establishing text appears onscreen.

DISEMBODIED CLAPPING

BIG DRINK

Camera zoom of some sort.

Lorraine is psychic about some shit.

People try to open a door.

[rikeijo]

Today’s translation #776

Otomedia 12/2016, Manabu Otsuka's interview

Part 1.

-- When you first heard about the project, what was your impression of it?

Otsuka: First of all, I felt power radiating from Kubo Mitsurou-san's artworks. They could convince me that if those characters were animated, it would be an interesting show to watch. At the same time, I also thought that animating figure skating scenes would surely be terribly difficult (bitter laugh).

-- At that time, had you already decided how you were going to animate figure skating scenes?

Otsuka: Before Yuri!!!, Yamamoto Sayo directed a short animation that used figure skating as a theme, so we discussed that we should use that know-how as a base. We [MAPPA] also had previous experience with turning live-action footage of musical performance into animation, as we had done for 'Kids on the Slope'. So the plan was to use experience that both sides had to make it happen.

-- In both cases, you had to translate live-action footage into animation, but what was the biggest difference in doing this for skating scenes, compared to musical performance scenes?

Otsuka: In case of musical performances, the camera was placed in a fixed position, so there was no difficult camerawork to take into account. In case of figure skating scenes, we were following Miyamoto Kenji-sensei skating with a camera, in order to record the choreography, so there was a lot of difficult camerawork, and the staff members from the digital team had tough time working on that footage (bitter laugh).

[Note: This is the infamous 'Y&V are buddies' interview!😆 I thought I have already translated it, but I checked and didn't find it in the archive, so here it is!]

[naokiscoffee]

What makes Itazura na Kiss: Love in Tokyo so special?

Season 01 Episode 02

We’re once again starting the episode strong. Kotoko’s strongest personality points are shining as brightly as ever.

“I can’t forgive Naoki, that’s why I’m serious this time, I will beat Naoki on these final exams”

Her determination, seriousness, and optimism are taking the wheel. Unfortunately, this also highlights how unsupportive her friends are. Truth be told if someone who’s in the lowest grades class says she will beat the student who’s first place in studying is hard to take that seriously.

When faced with this, Kotoko quickly settles for being on the bulletin board; or basically having her name written on the same paper as Naoki. Now this is a more realistic goal that I can get by. Her friends though think differently.

This here is very important. This is exactly what sets Kotoko apart from the rest of the people around her. Her friends limit themselves by saying “No way! We’re in Class F you know”, yet she doesn’t let herself be held down by such restricting thoughts or preconceptions. This is a very healthy and admirable way of thinking.

Also, I absolutely love how she’s doing all of this just to get back on Naoki for saying “I don't like girls without a brain”.

Something I hadn’t realised last re-watch is just how much of a pivoting moment this is for Kotoko. Naoki’s changes have always been obvious to me, but I never realised how Kotoko had also changed. I cannot picture Kotoko aiming for the top 100th place under any other circumstances.

I always really enjoy the dinner scenes in this version, they make everything so much more cosy and domestic. Another subtle detail that can easily be overlooked is how Naoki’s eyes follow Kotoko for a split second as she makes her way upstairs to study. He’s already showing interest in her.

Noriko is living her dream; she’s making midnight snacks, and she even has someone to vent to about how Naoki. She also feels close enough to Kotoko to speak to her about her worries and fears, and she even shows her pictures of Naoki as a child, which she would have probably never shown anyone else.

When Noriko speaks about how she misses taking pictures, my brain immediately jumps to when Kotoko becomes the reason why she gets back into the hobby later on (Kotoko has awakened the photographing beast in Noriko lol). This is also when Noriko first gets the feeling that Kotoko might like her son.

“Irie was already handsome even when he was little”

(I can already see Noriko’s brain going: so you think my son is handsome?!!)

Unfortunately, despite her seemingly innocent intentions, Noriko has seriously scarred Naoki by having him cross-dress as a child. This also helps us understand why he is so afraid of being wrapped up in a scandal at school (think back to the confession scene in the last episode).

Kotoko’s friends are beginning to notice the change I mentioned earlier, and don’t know what to make out of it. Just then, Naoki just pops up out of thin air. I really like the camerawork in this drama, and how the camera work conceals him so that his arrival is a surprise for us as well.

This is also an iconic moment, we’re learning more about Naoki; he would rather break his own rule and talk to her at school than take out a girl's bento box (and to potentially have people figure out that they are living together) (the trauma and fear are still there).

“if your nosy classmates see this it would cause a commotion”

Bro, you have already caused a commotion.

This scene here is a gold mine. For the first time ever, we are seeing Naoki get extremely worked up. Up till this point, nothing anyone has said or done has affected his stoic attitude, yet Kotoko has managed to do it, and I am eating it up. I know, they’re not a couple yet, he doesn’t like her yet, and they’re basically fighting, but nonetheless, I find this scene to be terribly cute.

Our girl is not only positive and hardworking, she’s also generous; she offers the picture back as long as he tutors her for a week, to get into the top 100. That’s a reasonable offer if you ask me.

“in other words, it’s a waste of time to challenge the impossible” Kotoko has proven this statement wrong, time after time.

“Mom, could you make snacks for two? and bring them to Kotoko’s room please?”

Naoki is finally beginning to have an outward sign of the change that’s taking place and is very nonchalant about it. By saying this he is also … everyone that he’s helping her study. This shift is clearly very shocking for all of the family.

Also, a few small details that are easily missed; Naoki has enough tact to get Kotoko’s permission before entering her room, but he doesn’t have enough sense to keep the door to her room open, while Kotoko leaves it open a few moments earlier. I haven’t decided yet if this is just Naoki having a lower EQ, or if it’s him knowing his family’s ways better.

All the bickering that has been happening this far makes this interaction feel warm and domestic. You can also see the two of them symbolically start to blend together; she’s studying (which is his thing), and he’s using her ridiculous pen; he organised and printed out a neat table, yet he uses her cute flowery washi tape to tape it together, and she crosses out the days with stickers. We’ve already seen them influence each other personality-wise, and now we have a physical representation of it.

Naoki is already beginning to not only adjust to Kotoko but to even accommodate her, we see him accommodating her as he’s helping her practice her vocab at school; “on purpose” “What?” “On papasu”.  Our man troubled himself with going ahead and writing down a whole exam for Kotoko, and is even patiently and calmly explaining the equation to her. 10 points in his favour!

Another point that requires close observation; when Naoki and Kotoko fall asleep, neither has a blanket on, but in the morning, when Naoki wakes up, he has a blanket around him. Now if you look in Kotoko’s spot and all around the room, you’ll see that there’s no other blanket in sight. I think it’s safe to conclude that Kotoko was the one who put the blanket over him after having woken up first.

This, this is Kotoko as seen through Naoki’s eyes. As he makes his way into the kitchen he does a double take, and this is what he sees. I am sorry to say this, but this boy is already smitten.

Even though Kotoko can’t cook to save her life, she can obviously make a heck of a good coffee, which, as @Machitsuki2 mentioned in one of her videos, is basically the only thing he actually likes.

Now it’s exam day, and as Naoki makes his way down, he slows down a bit, perhaps in hesitation. Here, again, we see them adapting to each other; Kotoko is not outright speaking to him, and is thus somewhat abiding by his rules; and Naoki actually speaks to her willingly.

We’re transported to three days later; exams are over, and Kotoko runs around the school with Kinnouske’s arm around her. Watanabe, who is perhaps Naoki’s only friend (who is often overlooked, but is an amazing character), is also perhaps Naoki’s only source of emotional reason. He’s already poking Naoki towards being jealous since Kotoko has already “moved on to another boy”.

“it’s none of my business,” he says, as his eyes keep following her. My man, that is not something someone who doesn’t care would say or do. Another big change, Naoki is actually beginning to socialise with his classmates, something that even shocks Watanabe.

“you have never done anything like this in all three years here”

Think back to episode one when Kinnouske was gathering donations for Kotoko. What did Kotoko tell him in a fit of rage…?

If your answer was “Do you even have friends?” Then you are correct!! I’ll leave the rest to you.

The more I see Kotoko, the more I love her; she goes straight to the first place to make sure that Naoki is not affected by helping her. Naoki follows in her footsteps and only looks at her results. He also breaks his only rule, and actually talks to her at school, and has the audacity to then say “I told you this many times already, don’t talk to me at school”.

When Kotoko goes over the quote that Naoki mentioned earlier, he even smiles at her.

Now, unfortunately here’s where all hell breaks loose. We were making great progress, but this next part is an absolute setback. Ironically, a rumour comes out once again, also technically caused by Noriko, with the additional help of Kotoko’s friends. Regardless of the outcome, the picture was in fact a sweet gesture from Noriko.

In spite of everything, I feel terrible for Kotoko; her friends not only undermined her efforts on the exam when they learned that Naoki tutored her, they even broke the promise of not telling anyone about them living together, on top of that, Naoki is (understandably) very mad at her.

“since you wrote a love letter to me, perhaps you don't mind the rumour. but it really bothers me. Don’t screw up my life anymore”

This statement just proves that rumour is what bothers him and what holds him back, and Kotoko is there to fix that.

One minor omission from the Manga that I feel would have been a great addition/introspective is this scene.

We see Naoki leave before Kotoko begins to cry. In the Manga, Naoki sees Kotoko crying before She storms off. now this is a very minor difference, but it would serve as a good explanation for a few later events.

Bonus:

It’s all in the details; Kinnouske wiping down the table after picturing Kotoko as a servant is top-tier comedy.

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats | Shocking! (Mulot, 1976)

This review contains mild spoilers.

This is a Cold War satire in which the Soviet Premier and American President start World War III, depicted through liberal use of stock footage, due to their respective dislike of the other country’s cinema, and potentially cause nuclear annihilation when they accidentally slam the launch button while in the throes of passion. The former, doing a terrible Russian accent, is accompanied by the sounds of the balalaika, and the latter, doing a terrible Southern accent, dismisses the concerns of his advisor “Henry” while with his favourite actress “Lovelace”. "Good old Canada is only a shadow of herself now,” we learn. How society at large deals with this we do not witness directly, but how the upper class deals with this is through a whole lot of fucking and sucking.

So as a satire it would be generous to call it shrewd, and perhaps some of the wit is lost in translation (I watched an English dub quite a bit shorter than the runtime listed on IMDb), but if like me you played that old MS-DOS game Nuclear War during computer class and thought “Ronnie Raygun”, “Infidel Castro” and “Ayatollah Kookamamie” were the funniest things in the world, you might get a kick out of this. (In case you’re wondering, this was in the mid-2000s and we were just fucking nerds. Also our high school’s computers were old as shit.) And this shares vintage French porn’s condescension towards sexual matters, but I suppose that’s allowed in a movie satirical in intent.

On a pornographic level, this is mostly distinguished by some inspired masturbation. There’s a scene where a wife pleasures herself on her bed while her husband looks back at her and rubs one out in the sink, another where the son and his tutor both lock eyes and masturbate so he can get back to his studies, and in the final orgy sequence, a woman with a lit candle in her vagina. In fact, you might be “inspired” to follow suit, although at least one of those scenes constitutes a fire hazard. Other sexual highlights include a jungle themed stag film in which a guy in a pith helmet and safari suit gets double teamed by two babes in leopard costumes, some gender play with the son dressing up as a woman during the action, and a big climactic orgy sequence.

I’ve said before that I’m pretty lukewarm on group scenes for their general lack of focus, and this one cuts to other scenes way too often. But as this is directed by Claude Mulot, the scene is executed with a certain amount of style. Lots of roving camerawork and compositions with objects in the foreground and action in the background, and I suppose there’s something to cutting between fucking and sucking and a mushroom cloud. And the glimpses we do see of the action are sufficiently spicy. (The cooch candle is part of the orgy scene.)

I watched this for Karine Gambier and her phantom eyebrows. She acquits herself nicely as the tutor, and in the climax spends most of her time with a butler who she sweats way more than despite him keeping on his tux during the action. At one point he eats her out, and it’s hard to tell where his mustache ends and her bush begins. But the real MVP here is Emmanuelle Pareze, who nails the role of the icy, supercilious blue blooded blonde wife, and who has a lot of fun putting down her husband, doing goofy, over the top dirty talk, and even wearing a pair of glasses, if only during a fantasy scene.

[ghostofbambifanfiction]

I liked the ceremony. Just as silly as every Olympics ceremony should be, and that balloon at the end was beautiful. Neither you nor James will convince me otherwise 🙏

Are they supposed to be silly? Nobody's saying you shouldn't like it. If it's to your taste it's to your taste and that's totally fine? There's no excusing how terrible the camerawork was though, especially not when they had a decade to plan this.