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homestuckreplay · 1 month ago

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The Wizard of Atari-Sega-Nendo 🧙🎮

On page 1056 of Homestuck, John Egbert thinks that his new Serious Business Goggles make him ‘look way cooler, like one of the kids from SPY KIDS’. Fletcher Wortmann, in an extended piece of meta on Homestuck that I will read in full when the timelines match up, describes the comic as ‘Suda 51’s game adaptation of David Lynch’s remake of Spy Kids 3D: Game Over’.

Today I rewatched the movie Spy Kids 3D: Game Over (2003), a formative movie for my own childhood, and it is absolutely a John’s Movies movie.

Spy Kids 3D focuses on a new virtual reality video game with the very on-the-nose title Game Over, which in-universe is the biggest and most immersive video game ever made, created by a mysterious entity ‘The Toymaker’ who is unavailable for interviews. The OSS spy organization has figured out this game is nefarious during its beta test period, just before its official release. The Toymaker has promised a sort of Ultimate Reward of riches beyond one’s wildest dreams to anyone who can beat Level 5, however, Level 5 is unwinnable, and the Toymaker plans to trap every kid who plays the game inside it. As one of the OSS agents frames it, ‘you control the youth, you control the future of the world’.

The movie’s protagonist is Juni Cortez, and as this is his third adventure, he’s confident in the protagonist role. He’s left the OSS and has become a hardboiled private investigator looking into petty crimes – it’s obviously played for comedy, but he’s clearly in charge of his own life and certain about what he does and doesn’t want. He’s very different to John Egbert in this way, but John watching this might envy Juni’s assertiveness and his clear belief that he should be taken seriously.

The biggest connection to John’s other movies is the theme of family. It begins with biological family – Juni is playing the game to save his sister Carmen, not unlike John playing Sburb to save his dad – but is later expanded to include friends and allies from the Cortez family’s previous adventures. Juni also has a grandpa who he’s able to summon into the game, who gets some incredible NPC powerups and shows up unexpectedly to help Juni when he’s struggling, not unlike John’s dynamic with Nannasprite. The movie introduces an intergenerational conflict, with Juni’s grandpa wanting to find the Toymaker and confront him, and Juni believing this isn’t safe and that escaping the game and shutting it down is the only solution. In the end they overcome this, and family in its broad definition wins out – just as it does in every single movie that John has on a poster.

Spy Kids 3D deals with the boundary between the physical and digital worlds, and the ways they’re increasingly becoming entwined. In the game, Juni interacts physically with coins, powerups and a hovering question mark. He has nine lives, and if he loses them all, it’s game over with no restarts. When he fights in an arena, the stands are populated with PlayStation 1-quality NPCs. And at the end of the movie, the game enemies enter the physical world as the Toymaker escapes, and Juni and his sister Carmen have to put on 3D-style glasses in order to fight them. Of course, this ‘digital bleed’ a common theme in media from at least the 1990s onwards, so it doesn’t uniquely share this with Homestuck.

Spy Kids 3D is also harsher on gamer culture than Homestuck is, and seems to come to the conclusion that digital worlds can’t replace real. The movie begins with the fictional US President and former head of the OSS stating that he prefers his current job to his former, because the ‘perception’ that he’s running the world means more to him than the ‘reality’ of doing it. Two ‘Programmerz’ of the game appear as cool, black-clad Matrix-style guys, and have their avatars removed to reveal stereotypical computer nerds underneath. And when Juni’s co-players show up in person, having previously only met each other in-game, it’s ‘revealed’ that Mr Strong isn’t actually strong, Mr Smart isn’t actually smart, and Mr Cool isn’t actually cool.

At the same time, the movie is filled with stupid gamer references – its first frame proclaims it ‘A Digital File by Robert Rodriguez’, a character is named Rez in order to make the joke “Hi, Rez”, a character claims to have got into the game ‘on a beta tester’s visa’, after falling into lava a character says ‘I saw all my points flashing away before my eyes’, and when a character is threatened, another steps in to say ‘you have to go through me first, Game Boy’. In perhaps the movie’s most famous line, Demetra, the girl Juni likes, gets a Game Over screen, and Juni says ‘I never even got her email address’.

I wonder what business a movie filled with jokes targeted towards gamers has in making fun of gamers. Juni’s co-players didn’t even change themselves that much in game – they didn’t present as older, or a different gender, or have wild superpowers. Entering the game just gave them the confidence to be slightly better versions of themselves, overcoming judgments based on physical appearance and others’ existing perceptions of them. At a tight 84 minutes, the movie definitely could have added extra scenes to give a little more characterization to the gamers Juni plays with, but in the final showdown Juni is only fighting alongside his real life friends and family. His internet friendships aren’t seen as important, and in that way the movie is very different to Homestuck.

In the game, Juni falls for another player named Demetra and even gives her the extra lives he collected – but she turns out to be a holographic game construct placed to deceive and mislead the players. When she betrays Juni, she says ‘I’m sorry, Juni. But it’s in my programming’. Just a scene later, she’s able to overcome her programming and hold open a portal for the real players to escape. She perhaps more than anyone else represents this blurred boundary, and while she doesn’t appear outside of the game, she reminds me of WV exploring perhaps his first taste of free will after arriving on Earth.

My big criticism of Spy Kids 3D is that the game doesn’t feel coherent; it’s hard to tell what its plot or objectives are beyond ‘reach Level 5’, and while the individual gaming scenes are cool they don’t necessarily feel like part of the same game. In their November 2009 Q&A, Andrew Hussie states that Sburb’s system, mechanics, universe and goal are the elements they’ve had planned since page 1 of Homestuck, and it shows. I don’t think Robert Rodriguez or his team were as focused on this element.

So, if there is a connection between Spy Kids 3D and Homestuck – which, given John’s explicit Spy Kids reference, is not out of the question – I have a few predictions. First, Juni at one point has to fight another player, Arnold, who wants to win the game to save his family from poverty. I think Sburb will also try to pit its players against one another, putting them in a situation where one player can save a family member at the cost of another. Next, The Toymaker wants Juni and his friends to reach Level 5 and is secretly trying to help them, because he wants Juni’s grandpa to find and confront him. I’m going to be very suspicious of any NPC or game construct in Sburb that seems too helpful, because they might have ulterior motives for wanting John to succeed, and that includes Nannasprite. Finally, at the end of the movie, Juni’s grandpa is reluctant to return to the real world, where he has less power and agency due to being in a wheelchair (although he later changes his mind, finding power in his real life too). Eventually, John and his friends will get the chance to escape the Medium, and one of them may be reluctant to do so. Their lives aren’t great outside of the game, and they have access to theoretically infinite alchemy within it as they advance to the late game, so it’s easy to imagine one of them being tempted to stay.

As a high grossing and child appropriate movie, Spy Kids 3D doesn’t have the freedom or flexibility with its storytelling that Homestuck does, nor is it able to explore its themes in as much depth. But it’s fast paced and funny, and relatable to a kid playing video games in the 2000s. I agree with John - in his suit and serious business goggles, he does look like a spy kid, and if he can find time to rewatch this movie in between alchemizing and imp slaying, it might help him with his current situation.

Movie Rating: 9/10

#john's movies #homestuck #spy kids #this movie was so formative for me.... we watched it in school one time when i was a kid and there are lines that i remembered for YEARS #before i got a chance to see it again #so im projecting this onto john. he loves it too now #chrono

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bluvlet · 3 months ago

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I love your style sooo much, are there any artists you've been inspired by in your art?

Thank you so much!! Here are a couple of artists that I feel have inspired me in some way. This is definitely not a comprehensive list, of course!

J.C Leyendecker is a big inspiration for a lot of the rendering I do. I find his style of blocking and sharp edges makes it a lot easier for me to understand shape, depth and structure - especially with hair, clothing and the face. I considered Leyendecker my favourite artist when I was in my mid-teens.

Francis Bacon was another artist I was very drawn to when I was younger. Something about the violence of his work. I still very much enjoy the distortion of his figures - particularly the way he plays with the construction of the face.

Sometime in I think mid 2023 I encountered the painting ‘I remember you in the ocean’ by Sophie Pearson whilst I was mindlessly scrolling somewhere. The use of red really stuck with me. Last month Pearson popped up randomly on my tiktok fyp page, and I finally got to put an artist’s name to the painting I had seen ages ago.

I also discovered Yoshimoto Nara recently. I am overcome by a sense of nostalgia and warmth when I look through his art. Although my own art, I feel, is very visually and tonally different to his, I feel a connection to the meaning behind them, which compels me to continue creating.

Some others off the top of my head are Anne Magill, Amy Drury, Toby Ross (@lonelyisthecloud), David Lynch’s drawings, Jorge González, William Blake, Ollie Jones, and @bfhwwy on twitter.

#thank you for the ask!!#i’m sorry that this isn’t all that in depth #I don’t really have enough words in me at the moment to write a long response

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wuntrum · 1 year ago

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Oooh I just started rewatching Twin Peaks yesterday! The last time I saw it was around 4 or 5 years ago. Just putting on the first episode again made me realize how much like home this weird little show feels like to me. It’s been nice to see your enthusiasm for it on my dash :)

may I ask what you enjoy most about the show, or why it appeals to you, if anything comes to mind? I find it’s a bit of an odd one to try recommending to people - I love it, of course, but my taste is a little strange, and I don’t find other fans out in the wild that often.

oooh, that's an interesting question! i think theres a lot of aspects that appeal to me about twin peaks...on a very surface level i love the aesthetics of the show, as someone who lives in new england (pacific northwest and new england are connected pacman-map-style in my mind), the settings and fashion are all excellent. i also love its absurdity, i love the fact that no one talks like a real person and theres people with such weird and distinct archetypes and over the top emotions all colliding with each other---that, and the way it approaches the sort of worldbuilding going on, plus the importance of dreams in the narrative contribute to such an interesting and dreamy atmosphere. i think what makes twin peaks special compared to things that were made after it and were inspired by parts of it is that even when its confusing and strange on a literal level, its always emotionally resonant--you don't need to understand it, because you feel it. the way they're able to set up all the people and relationships in this town so quickly, you really feel like you're a fly on the wall in this living and breathing place, even when its strange. you rarely see how buildings and places connect, but you don't need to because its all so convincing as a woven together location (and of course thats for like logistical/filming purposes, but it creates an interesting effect lol). it uses the familiarity of americana tropes (and even television tropes) and distorts them to create meaning, while still keeping parts of their signifiers intact. even watching it for the first time in 2021 was shocking throughout, so i genuinely can't imagine how it felt catching it live when it was airing, like there was nothing else like it! the fact that david lynch helped to make a prime time television show is something that like logically should never have happened, but i'm so glad it did. i also think on a production/creative level, its so interesting to see how it sort of morphed and developed as the original run and fire walk with me and the return unfolded, like what themes were dropped versus what (at first) insignificant details were given meaning and expanded upon.

i do think it can be a hard sell to convince people to give it a chance--i've had a friend or two try to watch it and say its too slow for them, or it just wasn't clicking. but i've also had more friends really get into it, probably because i have a lot of weirdo artsy friends (i say that with love of course). but i think it's a great gateway into other weird and absurd stuff, or at least it was for me. i also enjoy a good ol "weird thing happening in small town" story, and so it was interesting watching twin peaks and then revisiting stuff that was clearly inspired by it, or at least partially (welcome to night vale, s1 of stranger things...s1 of riverdale. but also i think the return has its own sort of inspiration fuel, like season 4 of barry and beau is afraid struck me in the same way that the return did)

#asks #twin peaks #idk if all that makes sense but its my truth !#i reaaaally really gotta do a full rewatch. its been a minute #my taste is also strange so i think thats why it appeals to be in the way it does LOL

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buckybarnesss · 2 years ago

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laura hale: darling, dearest, dead

welcome to where i care way too much about teen wolf in the year 2023.

i have no shame.

i've been working on this meta for a few weeks now and it’s definitely grown past its original scope. at first, i just wanted to do a deep dive into the weirdness around laura’s death but of course that expanded as i sat down and hashed out my thoughts.

@renninflight 's tags on one of my posts really gave me the push for this because i've apparently just been waiting for the opportunity to talk about the mysterious murder of laura hale

shoutout also to my teen wolf buddy and tumblr mutual of forever @dear-massacre our teen wolf talks definitely helped, probably wormed their way in here and this wouldn’t have existed without you.

laura's death is the core mystery of the first season and i’ve always been intrigued by the circumstances surrounding it.

i’m definitely not the first to question the circumstances surrounding laura’s death but i’m going to put on my tinfoil conspiracy theory hat and discuss the events just prior to wolf moon and how laura hale haunts me the narrative.

buckle up buttercups this is long.

just to get this out of the way immediately, i need you to understand that teen wolf's plots and timeline were apparently written on a soggy napkin found crumbled up under the seat cushion of jeff davis's couch. season 1's story is the most cohesive but there wasn't a show bible for a long time, which explains its loose relationship with keeping consistent canon. this post on the teen wolf wiki from september 2013 says explicitly that some assistant was tasked with writing one. this would've placed it after 3a had aired but before 3b did.

while i won’t be digging into the teen wolf timeline here, i will be working from my own understanding of it.

a lot of teen wolf is left to implication, inference and subtext as we the audience are locked into scott mccall's point of view and his knowledge of what's happening. this allows for scott to be ignorant about the world he unwittingly and unwillingly enters so that information can be doled out at a steady drip and the mysteries heightened.

that said, onwards to what has become my teen wolf magnum opus.

introduction: the dead girl

laura hale is the ultimate dead girl trope in teen wolf which is a show littered with the corpses of dead girls. it makes sense of course when you know she is the narrative sister of laura palmer of twin peaks fame.

unlike laura palmer though, laura hale never gets to tell her story. she is dead before the show begins.her corpse is treated cavalierly by scott and stiles, desecrated by the argents and stripped of her personhood.

interestingly, david lynch’s daughter jennifer lynch not only a authored a spin off novel for twin peaks told from laura palmer’s perspective called the secret diary of laura palmer but also directed four episodes of teen wolf (silverfinger, i.e.d, perishable and codominance).

it's a cool connection.

i like this quote from esquire about laura palmer and the creation of the dead girl trope:

“we don't see laura with any control over her circumstances. we meet her after she's been wrapped in a plastic bag and left to rot, which essentially leaves her narrative and legacy to be largely determined by those who are investigating her. we don't learn about laura through laura—we learn about laura by piecing together what she left behind.”

laura hale’s murder also invokes a visual similarity to a real life beautiful dead girl as well.

elizabeth short.

elizabeth short is known to history as the black dahlia. her naked, posed, and bisected corpse was discovered in a vacant lot in january 1947. she was 22 years old.

when betty bersinger discovered elizabeth that morning she thought she’d stumbled upon a mannequin. in a way, she had. the person elizabeth short was is often lost amongst the sensationalized headlines, salacious gossip and speculation surrounding her case. instead, she has become the perfect, posable victim unable to tell her own story.

elizabeth short is the template for all the dead girls in modern media.

what makes laura hale different though is how she’s a non-character within teen wolf despite her death’s significance as the unpreventable, fixed event within the show’s universe.

laura hale has the most in common with the other dead beautiful girls erica reyes and paige krasikeva. each of them killed before their full potential could be realized their ghosts left to haunt the narrative.

as i said earlier though, the circumstances surrounding her death have always intrigued me. i’ve always believed there was a sort of convergence of events happening prior to wolf moon that led to the inciting incident of laura hale's murder.

we’re even told this throughout the show if you’re paying attention.

one of the things i always wished we’d gotten from teen wolf was more information about not just laura herself but what exactly she knew prior to her death but we can infer quite a bit.

let’s take a look at what we do know.

a history lesson: drinking poison from the same vine

to understand what happened to laura hale when she was killed we have to step back and look at what happened before the first scenes of the show.

in particular we have to take a look at peter hale, the argents and the alpha pack. this means revisiting visionary among some other relevant episodes.

visionary is probably one of if not the most central lore episode within the series and it also gives us a glimpse of both talia and laura hale while they were still alive.

laura herself is more of an afterthought in this episode as she's never named on screen.

so what does visionary tell us about laura?

it tells us that she was already in a leadership position within the hale pack by this time and is clearly put forth as talia's natural, intended successor due to her very presence at the summit. it also tells us kali, ennis and deucalion knew laura hale personally even if it was a fleeting acquaintance.

in the finer details of the episode we learn a few other things such as talia, laura and peter were all aware of the threat of the argents. we learn one of ennis’s betas was killed in retaliation for killing two hunters. the death of the beta seems very cruel and unusual as we learn that he was shot through the throat, his claws were ripped out and he was cut in half.

the last point in particular is notable as there’s only one hunter we know of that cuts werewolves in half.

gerard argent.

motel california is just a few episodes prior to visionary where it’s revealed that alexander argent killed himself in 1977 at the glen capri motel after being bitten. gerard claims it was deucalion that bit his brother which is how he justifies his actions in visionary.

is it the full truth? doubtful. maybe alexander argent was bitten by deucalion and maybe he wasn’t but gerard seems to believe he was and that is what matters.

belief in the teen wolf universe is a real, tangible concept but it’s incredibly important to the narrative conceit of this episode. gerard and peter are both unreliable narrators who purposefully minimize their roles in the stories they tell. maybe they even believe their own lies to a degree.

what we know as the audience as it’s proven multiple times throughout the series is that gerard rejects the idea of peace and is known for being brutal and cruel in his methods.

visionary also goes a long way to illustrate that peter hale has always been, you know, Like That. he skulks around the story even in his own version of events where he’s trying to minimize his own role in paige’s death.

i believe that the non-existence of laura in his story except for a throwaway mention about how laura told derek about the packs being in town is two fold. one, peter was jealous of laura’s position in the pack and two, his guilt over killing her.

peter’s guilt is an interesting thing because he is first and foremost all about the survival of peter hale but he does care about those he perceives as his. for him, killing laura was something he regretted but was necessary so that peter could gain the alpha power.

laura was a sacrifice.

another thing about visionary is the absence of peter and talia’s relationship but who else would’ve told her about derek and what happened? talia isn’t surprised when she finds derek in the cellar.

over the course of the show we do not get a lot about talia and peter’s relationship which is a thing that keeps me up at night but i don’t think it’s too far of a leap to conclude that talia knew her brother’s nature and probably saw it as useful in it’s own way so long as she was the one holding the leash. the way peter advises derek is probably not too far off from how he advised talia.

there’s a tiny glimpse of this in season 4’s monstrous.

meredith walker is subjected to peter’s inner ravings while he’s comatose as they somehow connected mental frequencies.

there’s parts in there about how he’ll be a vengeful god and remake the supernatural of beacon hills in his own image and blah blah blah it all tracks for peter but the parts about talia are interesting not only because it gives us a glimpse into how peter perceived talia but also because he specifically name drops the argents as the threat.

is it the full truth? no. peter subscribes to the from-a-certain-point-of-view version of the truth and we have to remember this is peter just after the fire. he’s comatose, horrifically injured and on some level he’s aware that most of his family is now deceased.

what looking at this gives us is peter’s perspective and what he latched onto post-fire thus creating the peter we meet.

“i predicted this. i told talia this was going to happen. something like this was going to happen. i said they were going to come for us. the argents. they’re going to come for us. they’re gonna burn us to the ground. they’re going to burn us to the ground. did she listen? of course not. did anyone listen? they listened to her. yes! say that everything was going to be fine. that we were all perfectly safe. but she made us weak! she made us weak. and what happens to the weakest in the herd? they get picked off by the predators. we used to be the apex predators. until talia turned us into sheep.”

there is another key point about talia and peter that i think cannot be overlooked. the removal of memories. she took the memory of the nemeton’s location from both him and derek after their experiences there and she also took the memory of his tryst with corrine that resulted in malia’s birth.

i think what these things together tell us is that peter hale is vengeful and resentful but not just towards the argents but also talia but talia is beyond his reach. laura isn’t.

the last player that needs to be examined is the alpha pack. visionary gives us a version of events of why deucalion is the way he is and it ends with him killing his beta marco absorbing his power. this in itself isn’t actually all that interesting as this was the foregone conclusion.

when you combine it with what jennifer tells derek in the overlooked though it was just a few months after this she is attacked by kali at the base of the nemeton, which means the creation of the alpha pack was already underway mere weeks after deucalion is blinded by gerard.

we know talia hale was aware of what happened to deucalion along with gerard argent’s involvement so it would also stand to reason she would then be aware of the creation of the alpha pack. i cannot imagine it would escape her notice that both ennis and kali’s packs were decimated by their alphas and then they joined with deucalion. that seems like a cataclysmic event that’d get through the supernatural grapevine quickly.

if talia knew then so did laura as she was like i said clearly talia’s successor.

the mysterious death of laura hale part I: who cut laura in half?

let’s revisit the scene of the crime to examine the absolutely hinky circumstances surrounding laura's death and what the hell was happening in the woods the night scott was bitten by peter.

if i learned anything from gil grissom the first piece of evidence is the body. this is how we and scott meet laura hale.

i don’t think it’s speculation to say that peter hale killed laura but it was gerard argent who cut her in half.

in the season 2 opening episode omega we meet gerard argent and learn of his propensity to use a broadsword to cut werewolves in half but it is chris that gives scott the warning.

chris: "scott do you know what a hemicorporectomy is?"

scott: "i have a feeling i don't want to."

chris: "a medical term for amputating somebody at the waist. cutting them in half. takes a tremendous amount of strength to cut through tissue and bone like that."

this foreshadows what happens to the omega at the end of the episode but it reminds the viewer that we’ve already seen a corpse like that.

it may be a drop in the bucket compared to all the trauma scott has experienced since that night but i don’t think laura’s severed corpse is a sight he’s forgotten. which is what i believe argent is counting on here.

he knows what his father did.

he’s intimidating scott as much as he’s warning him not just about lydia but also about his father’s impending arrival and what gerard is capable of.

by this point chris knows kate broke the code by killing the hales in such a gruesome fashion but what does kate say when chris confronts her in code breaker?

chris: “i know what you did.”

kate: “i did what i was told to do.”

gee, i wonder who gave kate the carte blanche on killing the hales? i bet he also used paige’s death as a way to manipulate her as we see him do with allison. he was in town after all when paige was attacked by ennis and subsequently died. it's not a stretch to believe that a seasoned hunter like gerard would be able to spot a supernatural death cover up via animal attack.

the argents talk a big game about their women being leaders but gerard is the puppet master tugging on kate’s strings just like he did allison’s in season 2. this doesn’t minimize kate’s own sociopathy. kate can be a victim and a perpetrator.

we know from visionary that the argents have been known to operate around the beacon hills area to hunt but they don’t live there until chris and his family move there just prior to wolf moon.

i think we can infer that gerard ordered chris to move to beacon hills in response to laura hale being back in the area for the first time since the fire and i don’t think he aimed to just keep an eye on her.

there’s another overlooked aspect as to why gerard would be very interested in laura hale. he wants to cure his cancer via the bite. in fact, i wouldn’t be surprised if he would have offered her kate in exchange for the bite.

sure, it’s speculative, but i think there are enough pieces to support it as a working theory.

unlike peter there is never a confession from gerard about his part in the crime so why am i certain he did it?

let’s go back to the body for a moment.

while there’s a lot of gore, most of the blood is on laura herself.

there’s a significant lack of blood either around or underneath laura. with the amount of trauma we can see on her body there should be a bloody mess but there isn’t.

also notice how her arms are splayed out. it’s like she was dropped there.

she also doesn’t appear to be all that decayed so she’s still pretty, uh, fresh.

so again why do i believe gerard cut her in half if peter killed her?

not only can we infer in the subtext from the conversation chris has with scott in omega but looking at the cut on laura’s body it is too clean to be from being ripped in half by an animal or a werecreature.

however, a person with a sharp, heavy sword with the know-how that we know does this? seems a bit more plausible doesn’t it?

also kate literally tells us that hunters did it. she doesn’t name gerard but she informs derek in the tell:

“yes, your sister was severed into pieces and used as bait to catch you. unpleasant, and frankly a little too texas chainsaw massacre for my taste, but quite true. but here’s the part that’s really going to kick you in the balls. we didn’t kill her.”

neither the audience nor derek know if kate can be believed. i don’t think she’s lying here. she’s taunting but not lying.

why lie when she knows how badly this knowledge will hurt derek?

she goes on to add:

“found bite marks on your sister’s body derek. what do you think did that? a mountain lion?”

this i believe was a fib. were there bite marks? possibly, but more likely from savangers than peter taking a bite out of laura.

also the fact that laura’s lower half was found by joggers probably means it was visible from a path which gives some credibility to the idea that the hunter's strew laura’s corpse around the preserve. they wanted it to be found.

not only would two pieces be less heavy than a whole body but it just shows how they don’t care. laura isn’t a person to them. she’s vermin, she’s subhuman, she’s not worthy of respect.

she’s no better than bait to other werewolves to them.

they leave laura to rot.

notice how kate never refers to laura by name instead calling her “your sister” to derek. kate lured derek out with insults towards laura but this one is the greatest of them all. kate is refusing laura hale’s personhood.

the final reason i don’t believe peter tore laura in half is we’ve seen how peter kills. claws from behind are consistent with how he goes at derek at the end of heart monitor and jackson in master plan or throat slashing which we see in the tell with the video store clerk, kate in code breaker and jennifer in lunar eclipse.

or he mauls them viscerally like we see with the mute in the benefactor.

a creature of habit he calls himself.

in none of peter’s kills either as alpha or as a beta does he tear someone in half.

while peter hale is a dramatic king and doesn’t mind getting his hands bloody, i think he’d be offended if someone accused him of tearing laura in half.

the mysterious death of laura hale II: why does peter kill laura?

speaking of peter, why did he kill laura?

the obvious answer is for the alpha power so he could fully heal..he says as much in wolf’s bane.

peter: “yes, becoming an alpha, taking that from laura pushed me over a plateau in the healing process.”

but with peter hale nothing is ever so simple. there’s always layers.

in alpha pact, peter gives derek this speech when he’s winding derek up about how to heal cora:

“you know, normal wolves never abandon an injured member of the pack. they care for it. they even bring it food from a kill and then regurgitate it into the mouth of the injured wolf. they even give it physical and emotional comfort by intensely grooming it. in a way they can do more than just ease pain. they can be instrumental in healing their own."

as i mentioned earlier, i think peter not only holds a lot of resentment towards talia for what he perceived as inaction but also towards laura.

after the fire, laura did what cora says in visionary they were taught to do when hunters find them.

cora: "waiting. hiding. that's what we're told to do when the hunters find us. hide and heal."

in all the trauma and grief, laura did the only thing that she could reasonably do in response to such a horrific tragedy. she packed up her little brother who she’d suddenly become the guardian of and put an entire continent between them and beacon hills.

in doing so she left behind peter. i don’t blame her for leaving beacon hills. she was reacting to the threat of the hunters by trying to protect what little was left of her family and herself.

you have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help others.

however, in leaving peter behind he was left to not only slowly go mad but he was also left vulnerable.

peter may have felt laura not only abandoned him as a member of the pack but abdicated her right to be the alpha.

derek tells scott in riddled:

“my family didn’t just live in beacon hills.they protected it.”

laura left beacon hills unprotected and she left peter alone.

peter killed laura for the alpha power he always saw as rightfully his so he could heal and do the job he felt talia and laura were both too weak to do.

while peter killed laura his culpability does come into question.

in co-captain he performs the memory sharing ritual with scott which gives us a small glimpse of peter’s memories in the moments before laura’s death.

laura enters the scene looking around as if she hears something and then laura calls out his name in question. when peter turns he doesn’t look like a man in control with his eyes rolling, mouth agape.

his actions look autonomous. peter the man is not at the wheel.

if we take what peter says in wolf’s bane at face value about how he was being driven by pure instinct then we can surmise that the wolf was in control and acted on impulse and peter’s deepest thoughts and desires.

the same ones we hear peter raving and ranting at meredith in monstrous.

vengeance.

i think the truth seems to be somewhere in the middle.

peter often downplays his own involvement as a manipulation tactic. so while he lacked inhibition, killing laura for the alpha power was premeditated as we know his nurse was acting on his behalf. i do wonder though if laura’s body hadn’t been severed by hunters would peter have resurrected her?

what’s a little murder between family members, you know?

the mysterious death of laura hale III: the conspiracy

there are two conspiracies in season 1.

the conspiracy to kill the hales and the conspiracy to lure laura hale back to beacon hills.

about three months before her death laura was sent the picture of the revenge spiral on the deer which brought her back to beacon hills. to the territory she had left unattended for six years. in pack mentality, derek says that laura came back to beacon hills looking for the alpha and that she told him she was close to figuring something out about the fire.

luring laura back to beacon hills wasn’t just about killing her. that was the endgame, but first peter needed her to do the leg work in finding the conspirators that set the fire.

the conspiracy itself hinges on one person since peter was still unable to do all of it himself due to him still recovering and we know nothing about her.

nurse jennifer plagues me. her motivations for helping peter were never given. she’s merely a tool to help peter enact his revenge.

all we have are theories and i have found precious few in my searches through old meta.

the most popular theory and i use that word loosely is that she was jennifer blake sowing the seeds for her eventual return to take on the alpha pack. i’ve considered this one and i think a skilled writer could make it work, but within the context we’re given i don’t think so.

i do believe jennifer blake definitely scouted out beacon hills just as the alpha pack did but i don’t think she and nurse jennifer are one in the same. besides, we do see nurse jennifer’s corpse in code breaker.

another theory i came across was that she’s a banshee compelled in the same way lydia was by peter. again because we have such little information there’s enough room for it to be possible but i doubt it.

the conclusion i have come to about nurse jennifer is that she’s someone like dr. fenris and brunski from eichen house. while we do not learn about eichen house until season 3b dr fenris is introduced in wolf’s bane and is in the search for a cure.

mostly, i think she’s simply a reference to nurse ratched from one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. her nurse's uniform is even anachronistic.

but what was nurse jennifer’s role in the conspiracy?

she is the one who sent the picture of the deer spiral to laura hale to spur her to come back to beacon hills. nurse jennifer is also the one who sent allison the text to come to the school during night school. like laura, nurse jennifer did a lot of footwork for peter to make his plans work and it’s a damn shame we’ll never know why.

the mysterious death of laura hale iv: the fixed point

laura’s death is what i think of as a fixed point in the universe of teen wolf. the idea of which is something i shamelessly took from doctor who.

in doctor who a fixed point is considered a lynchpin of the structure of ordered history. they cannot be altered as any attempts to do so would unravel linear time.

laura hale’s death is that fixed point. it was unavoidable, unpreventable. poor laura hale doomed by the narrative.

in the events surrounding the murder of laura hale there are two more players i haven’t really discussed. they exist on the periphery but are no less important.

doctor alan deaton and the nemeton.

cora says this in visionary:

"they keep us connected to humanity but they're a secret even within the pack. sometimes only the alpha knows who the emissary is. derek and i had no idea about deaton."

as talia’s successor laura would’ve had to know who their pack’s emissary was.

this is confirmed in fury when deaton not only insults derek to his face but reveals that he made a promise to talia to help her children and derek recalls laura mentioning deaton indirectly as some kind of advisor.

i say indirectly because if laura had told derek explicitly that deaton was someone who could help and advise than he wouldn’t have suspected him as the alpha in season 1.

did laura see deaton at all during her time in beacon hills? i would say it’s probable but i get the impression laura played her cards close to her chest. deaton was very unnerved by what was happening and with laura’s death probably concerned for his own wellbeing.

deaton doesn’t reveal himself to derek because he has no idea if derek’s the one who killed laura or not. there’s no established relationship between the two for trust to go either way.

truly the greatest villain of teen wolf is miscommunication, but i digress.

now here comes the part where i put on my tin foil conspiracy theory hat. i believe laura was killed near or at the nemeton.

an unintended and unacknowledged sacrifice.

peter may not have consciously remembered its location, but who's to say it didn’t draw him there.

we know from jennifer’s speech in the overlooked that the nemeton had a small spark of power from paige’s death. it was enough power to keep her alive after kali left her for dead so it isn’t difficult to believe it could’ve drawn peter to it as well.

we know gerard knows its location despite what he tells allison about him not remembering. i don’t believe that geriatric bastard anymore than i believe peter as peter is able to find the nemeton easy enough because he shows up to kill jennifer there.

now, i have zero proof of this. it’s all speculation from vibes and what we see in lunar eclipse but considering laura’s body was moved from wherever she originally died and was severed it’s possible.

it’s easy to imagine a scenario where laura finds peter at the nemeton where he kills her and leaves her body where it fell. later, gerard and his hunters discover her corpse and in frustration and anger at his plan falling through, gerard decides to use laura as bait for either the werewolf that killed her, derek or whatever other werewolves come along. waste not, want not after all.

either way an alpha’s blood is spilled there giving the nemeton just a little bit more power.

in lunar eclipse allison, scott and stiles perform a proxy ritual sacrifice to find out the location of the nemeton so they can rescue their parents. it’s successful, but only because the nemeton allows them to know its location.

in revealing itself to them it chooses them as its champions and.it’s magic takes them back to the night scott was bitten, to the fixed point in the teen wolf universe.

laura hale’s death.

haunting the narrative: laura hale’s uneasy ghost

“and so, the woman dies. the woman dies so the man can be sad about it. the woman dies so the man can suffer. she dies to give him a destiny. dies so he can fall to the dark side. dies so he can lament her death. as he stands there, brimming with grief, brimming with life, the woman lies there in silence.”

by aoko matsuda, translated by polly barton

once the first season comes to a close and laura hale’s murder is solved she is no longer mentioned save a few precious times, but the ghost of laura lingers.

laura haunts the narrative.

derek has forgiven many transgressions against himself and his person but he will never forgive peter for laura’s murder. her death underscores every single one of their interactions.

laura’s the specter that hangs between cora and derek. cora loses her sister twice and derek’s words “sorry to disappoint you” only speak to how he feels he cannot live up to the ghost of not only his mother but also laura.

this, however, is not the only way laura remains in the narrative. they allude to her in other ways.

in anchors scott reprises the scene from wolf moon where he tells stiles they’re going to go out into the woods to find a dead body but in a reverse uno of wolf moon though, scott is able to save the naked hale girl in the woods and bring her back to her family.

at the beginning of party guessed, lydia has one of her banshee visions. if you pay attention you can catch a girl in the bleachers that doesn’t quite belong. in fact, she’s crying out distressed and frightened.

that girl is laura hale.

while uncredited the actress looks a lot like haley roe murphy who played laura in the first season and the necklace around her neck has a red pendant that alludes to her alpha status.

lydia sees an echo of laura hale as a warning.

i like this shot in second chance at first line when scott is at the morgue. he pulls out the drawer containing laura's lower half and the pov for the shot is almost like laura is watching despite her upper half not being there.

the very last time we see laura’s body is after stiles and scott dig it up.

from this new perspective, laura’s stare has gone from vacant to accusatory.

it’s a jump scare, the transition from laura as a wolf to laura as human. it’s meant to freak stiles and scott out and confuse them.

what it’s always said to me though is how dare you.

whether or not it was intentional (and let’s be real this is teen wolf so it’s probably half and half if we’re being generous) the murder of laura remains one of the most intriguing incidents on teen wolf and her being one of the most untapped characters.

i said earlier i wanted to know what laura knew before her death. what had she uncovered about the fire? had she learned about cora being alive? did she know about kate and derek?

the answer is that it doesn’t matter. It no longer matters because laura died. we can never know what she knew.

in teen wolf it doesn’t matter because laura is a non-character while being the most important character of them all.

laura hale is the beautiful dead girl.

she is the inciting incident, the fixed point, the name unsaid and the spirit unexercised.

“an anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-- a dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.” lenore by edgar allen poe

#my blog #teen wolf #laura hale #teen wolf meta #thoughts on teen wolf #did i have a lot of thoughts? yes

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timeagainreviews · 3 months ago

Text

Up the Killjoys!

Growing up in a flyover state, I got used to missing out on a lot of events. Bands would skip the City of Fountains in favour of St Louis or Denver. Road trips were necessities among my friends. When David Lynch’s Inland Empire came to theatres, I was already saving up for the trip to Denver. I had never seen a new David Lynch film in the theatre, and I wasn’t going to miss my opportunity. You can imagine my relief when a tiny ad in the local paper announced Inland Empire would be playing at the local arthouse for one week. In my excitement, I may have overdone it. Over the course of that week, I saw that impenetrable enigma of a three-hour film three times! A bit much, I know, but give me a break. I was in my twenties and used words like “cinema.” It’s ironic then, that watching the Criterion Collection’s recent digital upscaling of the film on my laptop helped me connect with the movie on a deeper level than three viewings on the big screen could manage.

There are purists out there who say that digital upgrades of old material are blasphemy. The Star Wars special editions remain a sore spot among old people like myself who wish they would continue offering the original versions. But in the case of Doctor Who, these digital updates can help stories rise to the greatness of their writing. While the quaint effects of classic Doctor Who are charming, they can also be distracting. Simply put, “Snakedance,” is far more engrossing when the snake doesn’t look like shit. I can suspend my disbelief, but I connect to the material so much more when it’s not necessary. “The Happiness Patrol,” is one of the latest stories to receive such an upgrade, and it’s the one I’ve been most anticipating. If ever there were a story that could benefit from widening its scope, it’s this one.

The “Doctor Who: The Collection,” series has been a must-buy for me. I’m not being a shill, it’s simply the truth. They announce them, I pre-order them. However, season 25 is a unique moment in the collection as it marks the Seventh Doctor era as the first completed era of a single Doctor. It would have been Colin Baker, but “The Twin Dilemma,” remains unreleased as it was still a part of season 21. It’s not surprising that Seven’s time in the TARDIS should be the first completed. It’s only three seasons, and it’s also very beloved. Many consider the Seventh Doctor era as a turning point, where Andrew Cartmel’s role as script editor started to pay off. Although the show was never able to regain the audience numbers lost during the hiatus of 1985, the show was something of its old self again.

Despite the reappraisal of the Seventh Doctor era, “The Happiness Patrol,” remains controversial among fans of the fuddy-duddy variety. Alright, maybe some of them have a point. After all, I did say I was anticipating this release, and not without reason. Three of the most common complaints revolve around the poor use of soundstages, the Kandy Man, and the Pipe People, in that order from most egregious to a minor quibble. It’s lucky then that the soundstages get the most attention, which lends credence to the other two.

As settings go, Terra Alpha is like many other Doctor Who planets- an entire planet with a theme and one language and government (other than the native Pipe People, of course). However, we receive very little in the way of establishing shots. There are no scale models of the city, no model of the planet itself. Instead, we open on soundstage dressed to look like a city street at night. Were it not for the street lamp, you could be excused for mistaking this as an indoor location. While it may have looked acceptable on a 1988 television, on Blu-ray, the illusion is lost. However, through the miracle of digital compositing, the new special edition opens up the skyline a bit. So when the camera pans down from the neon-signed horizon to the street level, it feels like a natural extension of a cramped city. The geography of Terra Alpha demands to be understood better as it can be rather confusing with little to no establishing shots. Even still, there are moments where the city feels shunted together. There’s even a moment where Ace casually wanders into the Kandy Man’s “Kandy Kitchen,” laboratory because why not? Why would a totalitarian regime lock the doors of its evil torture lab?

The government of Terra Alpha has outlawed feelings such as grief and anguish in favour of happiness and smug superiority. Led by a Thatcher cypher named Helen A, the Happiness Patrol roam the streets in golf carts whilst armed to the teeth with pink weaponry matching their hair and uniform. Nothing and no one is allowed to be blue, not even the TARDIS which they partially paint pink to bring it up to code. People vanish after Routine Disappearances where undercover agents pose as sympathetic ears to the plights of the downtrodden citizens of Terra Alpha. Muzak pours from tannoys on every corner in an attempt to liven up the city with cheeriness. The effect, however, feels more like Eraserhead or Auschwitz, where music fails to cover up the misery and danger permeating the atmosphere. Despite all of this, a resistance pocket of Killjoys put on demonstrations protesting the forced frivolity. Cutting through all of that muzak is the soulful harmonica of Earl Sigma, an outsider turned reluctant resident. As a visitor to Terra Alpha, Earl is given the designation of Sigma to indicate his outsider status.

Speaking of outsiders, the Doctor and Ace are questioned upon arrival due to their lack of badges. They’re designated Sigmas and told to stay within visitor boundaries, but the Doctor presses the matter of their lack of documentation as a means to get captured. I rather liked watching the Seventh Doctor purposely getting himself arrested. While McCoy’s portrayal as the Doctor in season 24 was whimsical and clownish, season 25 introduces a more Machiavellian side to the Seventh Doctor which lends him a far more nuanced quality than a man who purposely hangs himself off a catwalk from his umbrella. Now I say arrested, but nobody is actually arrested on Terra Alpha as there are no jails. At least, not by their definition. This is the waiting area. Don’t let the armed guard or the booby-trapped escape vehicle fool you.

Wordplay is a key aspect to Graeme Curry’s script. The Happiness Patrol finds inventive ways to redefine the world using language. It’s a chilling reminder of the ways our own government can redefine what a person is, what legal immigration looks like, or even where a country's borders begin and end. It’s impossible to get ahead when they keep moving the goalposts. Throughout Terra Alpha, Helen A’s propaganda can be seen far and wide. She transmits video feeds addressing the city directly through fruit machines with “jokes,” meant to undermine and dehumanise Killjoys. What is a Killjoy exactly? Well, anyone who disagrees with Helen A’s myopic view of the world. Anyone who might make Helen A feel sadness. Anyone who might make Helen A feel alone. Anyone who might make her question her moral code. While Curry’s messaging isn’t exactly subtle, it never winks and nods at itself. It strikes a balance of obviousness without insulting the viewer’s intelligence. Instead, Curry saves the groan-inducing dialogue for puns, of which there are many.

While in holding, the Doctor and Ace witness a public execution of a Killjoy. Some sources have claimed that the executed Killjoy is a queer-coded individual, but I fail to see it. I’ve seen people claim he is wearing a pink triangle, but thanks to the miracle of 4K digital restoration, you can see that the pink triangle is actually the result of a pink shirt under a partially zipped jacket. The only other pink triangles are the flags hanging from the cheery bunting. Don’t let me yuck your yum though. If you prefer the gay allegory, don’t let me stop you. What’s super weird about this scene, however, is the means by which the man is executed. A large metal tube is lowered over the man’s body and a deluge of liquid strawberry fondant pours into the chamber. It’s hard to tell what exactly kills him here. Does he drown in the fondant? Was the liquid scalding hot? Was it diabetes? It’s not entirely clear, but it is most definitely bizarre.

Bizarre and surreal are two words I would use to describe this serial. Perhaps the most surreal aspect at the chewy centre of this story is the Kandy Man himself. Full disclosure, but the first time I watched the Happiness Patrol, I had a hard time with the Kandy Man as a concept. I didn’t mind that he looks like Bertie Bassett as it fits Helen A’s bizarro brand of cloying cuteness, but the fact that he is made out of actual candy is baffling. Sure it’s weird to make a kill bot that looks like candy, but using actual candy is just poor craftsmanship. Call me crazy, but I feel like one of the first rules of building a robot is that its components should be non-perishable. They do mention the sugar beet fields of Terra Alpha. Perhaps sugar is easier to source than metal? No, there’s metal everywhere in the city. It’s just weird.

The Kandy Man’s body does seem to have a bit of reasoning to it. Gilbert, the Kandy Man’s assistant/creator mentions that the Kandy Man must keep moving or he will solidify. It seems like a design defect, but it really just makes Kandy Man more relatable. I too turn into a brick of toffee when I become too sedentary. What’s that? He’s also a moody artist forced by the government to use his talents for evil? Literally me. It reminds me a bit of how our own bodies are constantly warding off disease and decay. In a way, it makes the Kandy Man more than a machine, but something living. That and his human mouth painted blue which I had never noticed before seeing it in hi-def. Thanks to the Blu-ray upgrade, you can see the Kandy Man’s metal grill as clearly as Ace’s Batman earrings.

After watching their fellow non-cellmate get murdered by Helen A, the Doctor and Ace defuse the armed golf cart and escape. However, during the chase, Ace and the Doctor are separated. The Doctor is almost caught by an undercover agent named Silas P of the Happiness Patrol only to be rescued by Earl Sigma who knocks Silas P unconscious. When the patrol find their way to Silas’ whistle, they assume he’s the target and kill him, reminding the viewer that there is no safety under fascism. There is no way to be the perfect citizen. We will always fall short of unreasonable expectations– even you. Free from immediate danger, the Doctor and Earl make their way to even more danger. The Doctor wishes to find the Kandy Kitchen so that he may confront this confit hatchetman. Meanwhile, Ace ingratiates herself with a sympathetic member of the Happiness Patrol- Susan Q.

Susan Q, or Suzie Q as I like to call her, is disillusioned by Helen A’s vision for Terra Alpha, illustrating how even the converted can see the cracks forming. She was even demoted from Susan L to Susan Q after she was caught owning a blues record. She didn’t revel in the shooting of civilians and she expressed sympathy for the Killjoys. Because of this, she attempts to help Ace with her Happiness Patrol auditions, lest she becomes the next victim of the Kandy Man’s fondant surprise. Upon realising Ace couldn’t fake happy even when her life depended on it, Susan allows Ace to escape, thus endangering her own life. We stan Suzie Q in this house. She’s a good one, our Suze.

The Doctor and Earl get captured almost immediately. Gilbert and the Kandy Man tie them up in barber chairs in preparation for experimentation. The Doctor questions the Kandy Man and learns that the fondant tubes can be redirected. Remember how I said it’s weird that the Kandy Man is made of real candy? I believe this scene is why. You see, to trap the Kandy Man, the Doctor tricks him into knocking a bottle of lemonade to the floor. As the lemonade mixes with Kandy Man’s sugary feet, he’s locked into place and unable to move. The Doctor and Earl use this as an opportunity to escape into the underground of the city. The Kandy Man can only call out to Gilbert to come and set him free.

I’ve heard that the scenes within the Kandy Kitchen were originally supposed to be black and white with the Kandy Man in colour. Think Pleasantville but with a killer candy robot. However, the effect was scrapped most likely due to the limitations of technology and/or budget. You can see the concept of the idea in the black and white painted backgrounds which evoke a sort of “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari,” vibe. Part of me was hoping they would attempt this effect with the special edition, but I understand why they didn’t. It probably would have upset more people than it would have made happy. Even still, it could have been a cool extra to throw in.

As special editions go, the Doctor Who upgrades are usually very clever. While they do occasionally take a perfectly serviceable model shot and render it into an unnecessary CGI shot, they usually make good decisions. You younger people won’t really get this, but there was a time when special effects in television changed dramatically. After Jim Henson realised you could use latex skin over an animatronic to achieve Yoda, the industry standard for puppets and makeup changed overnight. Ten years later you started to see aliens and monsters in Doctor Who that were starting to look fairly believable. Sure, the concept of the Kandy Man is weird, but he never doesn’t look like a robot made of candy. And while not the most impressive puppet, Helen A’s pet Stigorax “Fifi,” was completely serviceable. Even the Pipe People look great. This is all to say, I am glad they didn’t try and change things for the sake of changing them.

While traversing the underground, the Doctor and Earl discovered Chekov’s sugar avalanche built up in the pipe. One wrong toot on Earl’s harmonica (Do you toot harmonicas?) and it could all come pouring down. They also meet the Pipe People who realise fairly quickly that they are allies through a mutual love of the blues and Ace. Throughout the story, the Pipe People do a lot of spying from manholes. Ultimately, however, they do very little. They’re a bit of an afterthought. While I do like their makeup, I totally forgot they were even in this story until they showed up. This is a fairly common complaint about them as many people forget about them. I chalk this up to Andrew Cartmel’s inexperience as a script editor. The Pipe People could just as easily have been rolled into the Killjoys for as much development as they get. I understand Graeme Curry’s desire to introduce a native species to Terra Alpha, but for as much impact as the Pipe People leave on the story, they may as well have saved the money from the makeup budget and put it into building better sets. However, they have a handful of fun moments like when they think Ace’s name is Gordon Bennett or when they orchestrate the Kandy Man’s death.

Sadly, one aspect of soundstage that can’t be improved with CGI is the frequency at which they reuse locations. Had they been able to shoot a story on location, they could have found numerous spots and angles to keep things fresh. Instead, the story reverts to a lot of the Doctor or Ace getting captured and escaping. It all sort of starts to blend together. It’s weird because they have to be so economical with the shortened time of a three-parter, and yet they have to keep coming up with new reasons to reuse a set. It’s possibly one of the messiest aspects of the story. The only workaround I can see if if they had scouted a location to stand in as Terra Alpha’s streets while maintaining the interiors on a soundstage. That or do a different story all together. But then we wouldn’t have this unique adventure.

The Pipe People help Ace escape, once again. Oh, did I not mention Ace got captured again? Only this time in the waiting zone, Ace is joined by Susan who has been discovered as a sympathiser. Their cruel jailor, the sadistic Pricilla P relishes the idea of their upcoming executions. Ace is sprung out of jail by one of the Pipe People and she absconds to the underground, sadly leaving Susan Q behind. But don’t worry, Ace is going to get captured again. I know you were concerned about that.

At this point, the story is all over the place. Helen A sends Fifi into the tunnels to hunt down the rebellion while the Doctor meets a census taker named Trevor Sigma. Because, sure, why not? The scenes between the Doctor and Trevor, while entertaining, are another addition to an already overstuffed story. I even took an inventory of the characters with my boyfriend and he had completely forgotten the existence of Trevor after having seen the story only two days prior. The Doctor then takes another excursion to stop a pair of snipers from taking fire on a group of Killjoys. It’s odd because the story is already experiencing bloat but I wouldn’t delete this scene for a few reasons. Firstly, it’s actually on theme. The Doctor is taking the time to humanise the dehumanised by closing the gap between sniper and target. It’s easy to take a life from a distance, but can he shoot the Doctor at point-blank range? It’s also great because it’s such a badass moment for Sylvester McCoy. There’s something about the Doctor begging to be annihilated that just gets my jollies. It’s truly one of his coolest moments as the Doctor. And lastly, at least they’re shooting a different set, or at least another angle of the same set. I’ll take a win when I can!

Ace stops Fifi with Nitro 9 only for Fifi to die later by sugar avalanche. It’s an odd choice when you consider the fact that they could have killed her with the Nitro 9 and left out the entire avalanche aspect altogether. I get that it’s a cool idea for Earl to resonate the sugar crystals until it caves in, but maybe pick one? I will say they did a good job on the puppeteering of Fifi running. I did giggle a bit at the way it was shot. They use such a wide angle that it makes Fifi appear very small inside that giant pipe. It undercuts her ferocity when you’re like “Awww puppy!” Maybe they were going for more of a scurrying look than a lurching look. Either way, I love Fifi’s mournful howl. I like that it evokes wolves or cats, but also sounds like its own creature looming in the distance.

Sheila Hancock dazzles as the contemptibly cheery Helen A. In just three short episodes, she sells herself as one of the 7th Doctor’s most memorable enemies. And as he would say- "You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies." Doctor Who has had its fair share of evil men and women giving edicts from behind a desk, but there’s something about Helen A that sticks with you. She’s up there with Graham Crowden, Beatrix Lehmann, and Trevor Baxter - single-story actors who leave their mark in big ways. I love a Classic Doctor Who actor who throws themselves into their role. She’s having fun, and by extension, so are we. I also like that Helen A appears to be the only one allowed to wear red. That’s toxic girlboss energy and I love that for her.

Having the Doctor waltz into Helen A’s office is an unexpected pleasure. I like the way the Doctor is playing with the artifice that is Helen A’s rule. There are no prisoners on Terra Alpha. Why wouldn’t the Doctor be allowed in Helen A’s office? She has nothing to hide, after all. And he’s not an enemy of the state. All is well! Eat sugar, paint yourself pink, and carry on. The Doctor also learns of Helen A’s soft spot for Fifi. This somewhat ties back to my comments about Nitro 9 vs Sugar Avalanche. They establish Helen A’s love for Fifi to both the audience and the Doctor on numerous occasions. I may be wrong, but Helen A’s doting over a wounded Fifi undercuts her shock over Fifi’s death. I find it hard to believe she would send Fifi out again after such a close call. Then again, Helen A probably doesn’t love Fifi more than she loves herself. One thing I did find interesting about Fifi's bandages is that they seem to heal her. I wondered if these weren't maybe the same healing bandages the First Doctor wore in "The Edge of Destruction."

Having helped Ace escape, Susan Q is sentenced to death by fondant surprise but the Doctor stops the execution by trapping the Kandy Man with lemonade yet again. Worried that his insides will solidify into toffee, the Kandy Man releases Susan from her sticky fate. Once again, I am baffled by the Kandy Man’s design. He’s like one of those fish that stops breathing when it stops swimming. Or maybe it’s like how God gave me combined ADHD because he knew I would be too powerful without it. Gilbert’s little failsafe he built into the Kandy Man just in case he ever reached beyond his station. The Doctor unfreezes the Kandy Man and the Kandy Man stays true to his word and spares both Ace and Susan. What a day everyone is having.

One of the strengths of Graeme Curry’s script is that he’s able to keep all of these different balls in the air, with set-up and call-backs repeatedly paying off. Sure, there are moments when the Doctor feels like he is teleported from one location to the next, but everything has its place. Take Trevor Sigma, for example. I mentioned earlier that he’s yet another element in a fairly stacked narrative, but he turns out to be one of the most pivotal characters in the entire story. Due to his thorough census, there is now a paper trail for every person Helen A has disappeared. The holes where they used to exist paint the real portrait of a murderous despot. The paintings of Helen A plastering Terra Alpha are but a facade on her factory of death.

The death of the Kandy Man, brought on by a truly surprising wave of fondant, is the beginning of the end for Helen A. The remains of the Kandy Man flush down the tube like a blasting cap in sugar water. She had the sugar, the power, and the women, but she lost it all. What’s worse is those bloody Killjoys learned to beat her at her own game by adding cheeriness to their demonstrations. The Doctor, Earl, and the rest of the Killjoys disrupt Ace’s sure-to-be-fatal audition at the Forum with a public outcry of joy and merriment. Rubbing salt in her wounds, Helen A’s husband Joseph C and Gilbert M have stolen her ship presumably to open a bed and breakfast. I wish them both many years of happiness together. With uprisings all over Terra Alpha breaking out, the walls are closing in for Helen so she begins packing. However, while absconding, she is stopped cold by her beloved pet Fifi. Cradling her in her arms, Helen grieves while the rest of Terra Alpha laughs.

The special edition's ending differs from the original broadcast version's ending in a very simple yet effective way. As the TARDIS dematerialises, the camera now pans up to a neon sign that says “Keep smiling,” which then goes dark, implying the end of Helen A’s reign and the Happiness Patrol’s stranglehold on Terra Alpha. It’s such a better ending and so on theme that I don’t even care that the font they chose looks like it says “Keep sniling.” It’s a great example of how digital compositing can be more than set extensions. They don’t shy from making creative choices. The term “LOL,” was not heavily used in the 80’s, but having a sign that says “LOL POPS” makes the story feel retroactively modern, which feels wibbly wobbly timey wimey. And if you don’t like that, then just chalk it up to a burned-out “I” in “lolipops.” And then chalk it up to the signmaker not knowing how to spell lollipops. Maybe it’s the same guy who made the “Keep sniling,” sign.

If you’re a fan of the Seventh Doctor era, you owe it to yourself to check out this boxed set. It’s worth it for the special edition of “The Happiness Patrol” alone. Sure, sometimes the digital effects sit weird next to the video footage of 80’s Doctor Who, but you’ll soon forget that distraction a lot sooner than you would forget the distractingly tiny sets. It’s obvious this was a labour of love. They went big on this one and I appreciate them for that. But the real heroes are the original cast and crew for finding such an entertaining way to deliver some hard truths. Politicians who smile while stripping you of your rights are as relevant today as ever. It’s important for us that fiction be allowed to explore concepts like dehumanisation. If our politicians have more enemies than policies, maybe they’re only out for their own selfish means. No matter what happens, we all have to find our own happiness. Stay safe, and keep sniling.

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interpol-nyc-documents-blog · 17 days ago

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Paul Banks, Interpol and David Lynch

"I think stylistically, I've always felt like the style of David Lynch's movies are more like my writing."

- Paul Banks

My thoughts on the quote: This is an interesting quote from the Songwriters on Process interview. One might wonder, though, what Paul Banks means by it. David Lynch's style is often described as being weird, disturbing and surreal. His films are non-linear, and display a strong character of neo-noirish psychological thriller. Interpol's songs are like short films, which do not have image but rely only on text and sound. Yet, stylistically with their music Interpol digs deep into that same ethos as Lynch does with his films. There are differences, of course, most importantly Lynch has a strong comic vibe in his work. He is often so surreal that it is funny. Although you might respond with a laugh when you hear Paul Banks sing something like: "We should dance like two fucking twins", which he does in Mammoth, but these cases are very rare. Paul Banks and Interpol are not comical at all, but rather they are very serious. This link with David Lynch is not the only one. Interpol has another connection with the world of Cinema: Daniel Kessler has said that French New Wave films are fuel for his mornings and writing the guitar parts for Interpol.

#paul banks #interpol interpol lyrics #French new wave #lyric writing #paul banks lyrics #david lynch #paul banks quote #Interpol #artistic inspiration #artistic influences #writing music

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agentnico · 1 year ago

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Poor Things (2023) review

Yorgos Lanthimos may be the new Quentin Tarantino when it comes to feet fetishes in cinema, as there are so many Emma Stone feet shots in this movie… so many. Also, her little toe is oddly square shaped, just saying.

Plot: An incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter's protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

At first I was very much a fan of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ directing style, with him managing to take any event or piece of dialogue and turn it into deadpan awkwardness. As such, his indie films The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer both are great examples of entertaining postmodern cinema with each one featuring a dystopian visual style. That being said, his last film The Favourite, even though it was a hit with the critics and the award ceremonies, for me did not hit the same. It felt much more reserved compared to the director’s previous efforts, and his usual weird style just came off crude and the humour for me personally did not land. Nicholas Hoult was a hoot though, but when isn’t he! Anyway, going into Poor Things I was hoping for more of the original magic which I’ve seen from Lanthimos in his earlier works, and the trailers with their vibrant visuals really sparked my interest, so I went in with high hopes.

So in terms of the visuals, Poor Things may just feature some of the best and most imaginative sets of any movie of 2023. Starting off the first part in black-and-white, very reminiscent of the old Universal monster flicks, but then 30 minutes in transforming into a technicolour dream world with colours popping Wizard of Oz-style, with every shot reminiscent of a vivid painting, with the use of the fisheye lends to create a somewhat watercolour effect to the backgrounds. The movie looks and feels artificial, which connected well with the narrative of this Frankenstein’s monster type woman learning and discovering everything with a brain that’s both her’s and not. Oh, and she happens to also wear rainbow glasses, so I can only imagine how much more stranger the world must look through her eyes.

The film’s biggest asset is its acting. Emma Stone is phenomenal as she has to play a grown woman with the brain of a baby, and then show us that woman growing into her brain (or maybe show us the baby growing into the woman?) over the course of the film. She really does throw herself into the role and it’s the type of role that awards shows will delightfully seek their teeth into. Willem Dafoe as the maker of Bella felt like a character that walked straight off a David Lynch fantasy, from the prosthetic make-up to his performance as the mad scientist that falls for his creation. But the real stand out here is Mark Ruffalo who simply is on another level. Playing the slimy player who only sees women through the male gaze, and attempts to take advantage of Bella’s naive outlook life for his own physical pleasure, it’s the kind of character you are supposed to despise, but gosh did I love everything Ruffalo was doing in this film. He was truly hilarious with every piece of his line delivery successfully painting the pathetic nature of his foolish character. Most critics will be showering Emma Stone with praise and deservingly so, however I believe Mark Ruffalo should not be overlooked and may be the actual MVP of the whole movie.

Narrative wise this is a fun feminist spin on the Frankenstein formula, that is a loud and proud shout to female autonomy for those who may have found Barbie a bit too cheesy and perky, yet I do find the movie to be overly cynical against its own good. It's like Lanthimos approached the film in the same way the mad scientist played by Willem Dafoe in the movie approaches his medical experiments -- with a cool eye and a lot of curiosity, but very little heart. And for the bubbly and big eyed Bella that is full of life and excitement, the film she’s in is the polar opposite. Look, I admired the film for what it was, but the romantic within me wanted a bit more of the, as the French would say, ‘amour’. Also there was just too much sex for my viewing pleasure. Again, I don’t mind a lil’ hanky-panky in my films, but when I’m sat in a dark theatre surrounded by many perverts with 90% of what I’m watching being humans doing the thrusting and the throbbing, it is a tad uncomfortable. You can also imagine what my fiancée thought when I told her afterward about the movie’s heavily erotic side.

Poor Things is very much a film that screams the director’s unique and distinct style and I truly respect it for that, however I personally feel like its not my cup of tea as it was a bit too cold for my liking. There wasn’t really a character I could connect or sympathise with, and even though Mark Ruffalo is funny as hell, his character is a piece of scum and a half. Again, kudos to the whole production team and cast for a great niche slice of art house cinema, but it’s too creepy for my liking.

Overall score: 7/10

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cinemagooey · 4 days ago

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David Lynch's Mulholland Drive

Considered the genius of dreamscape cinema, Lynch befuddled and mesmerized moviegoers with this 2001 tour de force

Our sleeping dreams are a conundrum. They are nonsensical, host a barrage of bizarre characters and present as fragmented parts of our psyche. David Lynch, a visionary auteur like no other, took those dream-state components and turned them into a compelling, cinematic art form during the course of his 58 year film career.

Mulholland Drive is Lynch's 2001 dreamscape opus. The film premiered a decade after Twin Peaks ended, and while there are a few scenes with a distinct Peakian feel, Mulholland Drive stands alone as a cinematic masterpiece and a mesmerizing, befuddling story.

The film revolves around two characters: Betty and Rita. Betty is an aspiring, starry-eyed actress who who arrives in Hollywood looking for her big break. Betty lives rent-free in her aunt's apartment and she's so talented, a single audition garners her the lavish attention of VIP's at a major studio. Her good luck seems to come in spades. That is, until she meets Rita, a tragic beauty who suffers from amnesia after surviving a horrific car accident. Betty bonds with Rita, vowing to help her recover her identity. But good intentions take an ominous turn when they stumble upon a mystery that flips reality on it's head, ultimately begging the question: did Betty and Rita even exist?

Naomi Watts's exquisite portrayal of Betty garnered her international stardom after a decade of struggling in Hollywood.

The film takes a dramatic shift into a different plane of reality when Betty and Rita are suddenly two different people and their fortunes have reversed. It's difficult to for the viewer's mind to catch up to the radically altered storyline. Several sub-plots and and fractured loose-ends later, the viewer is left wondering if anything they've seen onscreen is going to come together to make a concerted whole. Unanswered questions abound: what the heck happened to Betty and Rita? Who are the elderly, genteel couple at the airport who turn garishly evil? What about the homeless man who appears vital to the plot but fizzles out? Is that Billy Ray Cyrus?

Billy Ray plays an achy-breaky pool man in Mulholland Drive

The Lynchian rub is this: there is no piecing this film together. The story is fragmented, spellbinding and multi-plotted with an odd cast of characters - like a dream. Lynch insisted that he wanted no meaning assigned to it.

The mystery held true for the actors during filming. In a 2015 Criterion interview, Naomi Watts said "Of course we always had questions: "Does this mean that?" "Is that why she's going here?" and "Who is that character?" And he (Lynch) would delight in the mystery of it and not give any information that you needed."

Justin Theroux confirmed the same, saying: " I think people who try to break it down...are going to end up frustrating themselves because there is no connective tissue between certain things. And that's OK."

Mulholland Drive splintered critics and movie-goers alike with it's choppy, hard to grasp storylines and twisted neo-noirness. But it's a movie that stays with you, a story that reverberates in your head as you attempt to grasp at some meaning behind the dark, gritty images and tragic characters presented onscreen.

RIP to the great David Lynch, who won Best Director at Cannes Film Festival in 2002 and garnered an Academy Award nomination for Mulholland Drive

During his lifetime, Lynch was recognized for his unique storytelling and brilliant filmmaking gifts. Now that he is gone, he will be celebrated as one of the greats. Mulholland Drive, arguably his best film, serves to cement his legacy as a cinematic genius.

#cinema #films #movies #david lynch #mulholland drive #naomi watts #neo noir #justin theroux

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n5md · 2 years ago

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Deepriver

Thanks for answering a few questions for us guys; let us start with the project itself: Some may not be aware, but you've worked together in the past on Trance compositions; what brought the two of you to collaborate on something in the ambient sphere?

Joni - I think we were always both interested in exploring genres outside of trance. Ambient was something we were always talking about and were both inspired by. Jason of course, has also released more music in the genre, and I eventually ended up doing work in the genre as well, so it felt very natural to create a full album together like this.

Jason - Definitely. Even back when we were making trance, whenever we’d send references over or things to spark inspiration, most of the time, it was from the ambient and experimental genre. I specifically remember Brian Eno and Stars of the Lid were big favourites.

Eno and SotL are good signposts for sure. Eno has a wandering aesthetic, where as Stars of the Lid are masters at glacial paced ambient. The works on Volume One, to me, seem to have a sense of purpose, a traversing of something, slow soundtracks to grand actions. It's difficult to actualise but It seems like there is a form of exploration in the songs and a poignant endpoint to these explorations. I might be reading too much into the nature of the tracks but they surely aren't "ambient to have on in the background" nor "tranquil music to relax to". I am drawn to this sort of visceral ambient, which sort of demands listening. Was there conscious thought from the two of you to make the album more permeable?

Joni - I do think we made all the music on Volume One for conscious listening rather than something you'd have on in the background that melts away with everything else. Perhaps we didn't say or think it outright, but there was definitely intention and purpose with each piece. I like how they flow together in such a way that requires you to listen to each piece but also the album as a whole. I think I can speak for both of us in that we have always leandt more towards mood and feeling as the main focus of our music, and that sort of sound requires a more focused approach from the listener.

So why the name Deepriver? Is there some significance to the name?

Joni - We are both quite big cinephiles and love the work of David Lynch. “Deepriver” is a reference to that as “Deep River” is mentioned in at least two of his films, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. One of us suggested it as a project name, and it stuck. I know there is also a Deep River in Cape Town, but I can't remember if that at all influenced the name...

Jason - The Cape Town link is a complete coincidence. There’s a suburb here called Diep River. A few people have asked if it was named after that. It isn’t, but it’s a cool connection, I think.

Cinephiles eh? Many a musician has been influenced in one way or another by cinema. I can personally call out movies that have been of inspiration to a subset of my output. Care to share any influential movies or directors (other than Lynch of course)?

Joni - There are so many! Having known Jason for some time, we've touched on quite a lot of directors and films...and we still share tips and discoveries to this day. Just this week, we were discussing Cronenberg and Friedkin. We are also both big David Fincher fans (I think the music and mood in "Gone Girl," for example, is brilliant), as well as Bergman, Kubrick, Malick, Tarkovsky, Fellini, the list continues. But there are so many, it's hard to pinpoint...I could probably ramble for a whole day on this topic.

I feel like I can hear each of your input on Volume One. Maybe I'm off base, but the album has Threads (van Wyk) meets Rymd (Ljungqvist) feel. Were these songs written from previous uncompleted works that you each had that you then allowed the other to complete? Or was the album written from the ground up with the explicit idea of collaborating on something fresh?

Joni - I think that's a very good observation. It was mostly music we wrote from the ground up by sending ideas and pieces back and forth over many years. A few of the tracks were also from the "original" Deepriver project, which was very beat-centric. That music sounded a lot different from what you hear on Volume One. I'm very happy with what we achieved and how we managed to get it to where it is.

Jason - We had a completed version as far back as 2013, but it wasn’t quite there in terms of us wanting to release it. Over the years, we kept coming back to it. Once the beats and the heavier sounds came out, things started to come together. A big part of the process also came down to choosing which tracks worked together to form the album. The track count was huge, as you can imagine from around a decade of sending ideas back and forth, so getting it down to around the 40-minute mark was a bit of a challenge.

Yeah, when things are flowing it can be difficult to edit things down to the limitations of a LP pressing. I feel you did a really great job with that though. In regards to the LP pressing and specifically the art: how did you guys find and come to agreement on such an iconic cover image? Were you fans of Karen's work prior?

Jason - We discovered Karen on Instagram actually and reached out to her on there. After days of searching, her image “Scenic Elevator” caught my eye. I sent it over to Joni, and he agreed. We reached out to Karen, and she very kindly allowed us to use it.

Coming out of the gate with an album called Volume One implies there will be more volumes. What do you collectively think we might expect from the project in the future?

Joni - We have, as time permits, talked already about a follow-up and even exchanged some ideas. There might be another concept for that follow-up, and I'm sure we will manage to do it in a shorter time than Volume One!

Jason - I think so too. Further exploration of this sound is what you can expect.

Great news for n5 and fans of Volume One! Volume One is out now: https://n5.md/318

#jasonvanwyk #ambient #ambient music #bandcamp #electronic music #experimental music #n5md #interview #learn more #neo classical #Spotify #Bandcamp

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posthumanis · 2 years ago

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Hi! My name is Lina Kythera, and I'm an Asturian NB gal. I really don't know how this site works even already owning some older accounts just to read stuff from other people, but I hope y'all enjoy what I post here. I also had some writings in wordpress and other blogs, and I'm in Twitter (@NunSoiYo), but mainly for politics and other topics.

I intend to develop a creative space here, give room for my thoughts, tell some of my vital experiences being a non monogamous trans sapphic, and of course, being annoyingly extra and intense *little nervous laugh*

It's likely that most of my posts are NSFW, horny or with explicit sexual content, but mainly from an "erotic art" approach rather than plain pornographic content. This is important for me, since I want to create a safe space not only for me, but also every person who may be reading this, so: please, +18.

I love music (alternative rock, punk, goth, no wave, industrial, rock and electronica from the 1970s, 1990s and early 2000s, but sometimes twerking to La Villana or Bad Bunny or dancing rave eurodance is everything I need), I like films and the notion that there's art beyond Hollywood (David Lynch? What? Hollywood? No way), and occasionally playing videogames. I'm currently trying to read more books, but having studied English Philology (and you can appreciate my autistic/ADHD efforts in building complex sentences) makes it difficult for me to engage in reading and writing activities, mainly. I'm starting to change that input 'cause I really love writing. I intend to always have an open eye to many other artistic disciplines, like painting or sculpture, perhaps because I'm a hyper empathetic person and I find it easier than other people to connect with works from many diverse authors, and grasp their ideas and insights — definitively not trying that with mf JK Rowling. I'm telling all of these silly things in case you see me mentally ill online scrolling and reblogging so many inconsistent but cool stuff.

I don't know if there's anything else unmentioned, for instance, about any CWs (I usually forget mines lol), but I'll try to remind you of them if necessary on every post I can. Be safe, have fun and remember: nobody expects the T4T inquisition.

✨🏳️‍⚧️✨💖🤍💖✨♾️✨

#intro post #introducing myself #t4t transfem #art #writing #thoughts #hyperempathy #adhd stuff #being autistic #english as a foreign language #Spotify

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alllinesarebeautiful · 16 days ago

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Day 446 art meditation, 1/17/25, “Joy, Tree Ring Art”

Dear You,

“Don’t fight the darkness. Don’t even worry about the darkness. Turn on the light and the darkness goes. Turn on that light of pure consciousness: negativity goes.” David Lynch.

I’m posting my new art with sun streaming all over it. Negativity gone.

There’s this question out there, who would you invite to your dinner party past or present if it could be anyone, and for me it would be David Lynch. He had this incredibly clear way of seeing the world, such a strong intuition, and never limited himself creatively. It seems to me, from Eraserhead on, he was very aware that there are no rules in life …. RIP.

◎

My heart is going out to everyone in Southern California whose lives have been completely turned upside down in a blink of an eye. I am so deeply moved by all the love and support that is happening, even around the world.

I’m also really hurting for the people out there who can’t seem to connect emotionally to the pain of this tragedy. That’s not how we humans were built to be. We were designed to love each other. And if we aren’t loving each other, then something is broken …

I have that same brokenness and darkness in me …I’ve been really depressed lately, and it’s the same way of being disconnected from heart-space…

I’m learning that if I can touch my depression (the darkness) and come out of it, that’s an amazing skill.

We can flip ourselves … We don’t need to stay in that space … We can change. Even if the depression and darkness is familiar… David Lynch makes it sound so easy…

We need to learn how to not punish ourselves, which is this huge list that G is working on. We don’t even KNOW how much we punish ourselves with our choices, which can be everything from not exercising, to not doing something you love, to not voting, to who you vote for …

The more we punish or hate ourselves, the more we project that either onto other people or onto ourselves.

The more we have joy in our hearts, the more we empower those who have joy in their hearts.

The compassion I have is that we do not KNOW until we KNOW. Suddenly something inside us (our heart-spaces) makes a move towards open. Blossoming. Flowering. Sunlight.

I love the sun shining onto my new art on my desk. JOY. I bought these greetings cards from my FAVORITE store, the MoMA Design store. I love them so much. I want to figure out how to make them, and I can picture my art as a stained glass window or card … With sunlight …

The metaphor is we can either let the light in, or we can not let the light into our hearts, and the difference is so visible. The card looks like a stained glass window - you can see it best when there is sun shining through it. The card and envelope is a beautiful tall skinny size, with a beautiful teal-blue.

The art is one of Henri Matisse’s Paper Cut out art pieces, which is all art that he made later in his life, when he was confined to a wheelchair, and could no longer paint his oil paintings. From his wheelchair he would cut the paper, shapes, colors and give directions for his assistant and painting-model to glue them onto the huge walls of his home in Paris. (Such an amazing example of creating beauty out of physical pain, as I try to figure out when to have double knee replacement surgery…)

Of course many art critics initially called Matisse’s art “jokes”. I love how there are people who trust their hearts with art and people who go right into their egos with criticism. Art is a great teacher of heart vs ego.

I saw Matisse’s Paper Cut out exhibit at the MoMA Museum in 1990 and it was one of the most amazing events of my life. To this day. The pieces were the size of the entire wall, and it was spectacular.

(That is definitely one of the “dots” on my logo, that led me to here and now, helping everything in my life make sense.)

I wanted this version of my Tree ring art to tap into Henri Matisse’s love of shapes and color, with the bright colors of yellow, orange, green, red, blue and purples.

I’m working with the theme of “Trust Yourself Joyfully”.

Love,

Anne ◉◎⦿◎◉

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finishinglinepress · 5 months ago

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NEW FROM FLP: Beyond the Noisy Membrane, Poems by Mary Imo-Stike

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/beyond-the-noisy-membrane-poems-by-mary-imo-stike/

The poems of Beyond the Noisy Membrane identify and celebrate the connections between what’s on the everyday roadways we travel and in the vast worlds that encompass us. They embrace the complex simplicity of the #natural #world juxtaposed with our human desire for understanding our place in it. They strive to extract and reveal stories from the life-ground we walk on, from the sight of a single kernel of yellow corn or the full moon, expansive in a winter night sky.

Mary Imo-Stike was born and raised in Rochester, New York.She worked non-traditional jobs as a railroad track laborer, a plumber, boiler operator and gas line inspector. Mary received her MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 2015 and served as the poetry co-editor of HeartWood literary journal. She was the co-creator of More Than Words* a monthly community literary event in Hurricane, West Virgina. Mary’s poems have been published in many journals, one nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her chapbook In and Out of the Horse Latitudes was published in 2018 by Finishing Line Press. A longtime resident of West Virginia, she now lives with her husband in Punta Gorda, Florida.

PRAISE FOR Beyond the Noisy Membrane, Poems by Mary Imo-Stike

Mary Imo-Stike’s new book, Beyond the Noisy Membrane, is a unique contribution to modern poetry, reflecting her singular and important place in the world. For her, even the rocks “hold our stories,/broken and discarded pieces/of our lives.” Imo-Stikes’s self-awareness is deeper than the babble we often encounter not only in social media and what passes for news but even in today’s literature. Her book is for people who want the hard impact of history on daily life. She asks to be buried “face down in Spring” so “I’ll embrace this earth/that holds the remains of my ancestors/who pushed seed deep with bony fingers.”

Beyond the Noisy Membrane is grounded in a Native American past still alive for her and, through these poems, for us. She feels the sting of lynching, the “noose still wringing my neck.” Although many of these poems hint at burial, rehearsals for a final act, Imo-Stike understand that our mortality highlights the joys to be found in simple acts, as in her poem When I Make the Bed:

I snap a crisp clean cover over

the carefully and freshly placed sheets,

and watch it float down and settle

unwrinkled and ready to caress

our work-worn bodies with comfort,

with love and promise of sleep.

—David Salner, author of the 2023 Portage Poetry Series title, The Green Vault Heist and Summer Words: New and Selected Poems and the 2021 novel

From the very first poem in this fine collection, Imo-Stike places us in a thin place where a moon resonates with a “loud neon” Coca-Cola sign, places us in a unique yet quite verifiable “here!” This notion of place, this here is critically important and revelatory for many of these superb poems, a herewith “rounded river rocks, like bread loaves rising.” That place should be so central is, of course, not surprising for a poet who proudly claims native ancestry. Among the many places in these poems are places of death and erotic attraction, places from which stories are born and re-told, places that fuel a desire for the “here” beyond “the noisy membrane” of life rushing by, a desire for the “real and wild that lives on here.” For myself I know I’ll be making a place for these lovely poems here on my very own shelves.

–Marc Harshman, Poet Laureate of West Virginia and winner of the Blue Lynx Prize for Woman in Red Anorak

Please share/repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #read #poems #literature #poetry

#poetry #flp authors #preorder #flp #poets on tumblr #american poets #chapbook #chapbooks #finishing line press #small press

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theharpermovieblog · 9 months ago

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#HARPERSMOVIECOLLECTION

2024 MOVIE LIST

www.tumblr.com/theharpermovieblog

DAVID LYNCH WEEK

I re-watched Inland Empire (2006)

David Lynch Week concludes with what is possibly my favorite of his films.

An actress lands a role in a possibly cursed film.

Lynch famously filmed "Inland Empire" with no full script, choosing to instead make things up as he went along. He also chose to film the entire thing on a digital camera, freeing him up to create in the moment. While this random way of making a film can seem like it would lend itself to flaws, it more than makes for an incredibly dream-like nightmare. An experience which Lynch knows how to create better than anyone.

Inland Empire is possibly my favorite David Lynch film for many reasons. First off, it features an amazing performance from Laura Dern that deserves recognition. She's unbelievable and a lot is asked of her throughout the film. Secondly, it's fucking terrifying. This movie actually scared the shit out of me the first time I saw it, and it's managed to still scare me every time I've re-watched it. It is so full of dread, shock and fear that it just overwhelms you. (Watch it in the dark, as you should with all movies.) Third, at times this movie features some great examples of David Lynch's humor. He slips it in almost awkwardly and it hits different with each viewing.

And finally, it is pure David Lynch at his most Lynchian. He just grabbed a digital camera and let his mind take over to create, like a painter before a blank canvas.

I have my theories as to what "Inland Empire" is about thematically. Maybe the film isn't all connected perfectly, to be deciphered by the likes of me, but the themes lean heavily into free will, the impact of our choices and the chaotic nature of possibilities. I have my reasoning written down, but it's gibberish to people who haven't seen the movie, so I won't shoehorn it all into this review. Why bother? David Lynch films don't need to make sense to be appreciated. My joy in trying to puzzle solve his work is only a small portion of why I have such reverence for his films. There is also the visceral experience, the artistic technique, and of course the general sense that anything could happen next. Lynch crafts experiences like no other and captures our outer consciousness like no other.

Is David Lynch a genius? I don't know. But he's the definition of an artist in the truest sense.

#inland empire #david lynch #david lynch week

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greensparty · 10 months ago

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Talking with Alexandre O. Philippe

Over the last twenty years, Swiss filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe has very quietly become one of the great pop culture documentarians of our time. His zombie culture doc Doc of the Dead was one of my Best Documentaries of 2014. His doc about the shower scene in Psycho 78/52 was so comprehensive it will be shown in film schools for years to come. His doc Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist is the director in his own words telling his experiences on the classic horror film. Last year's Lynch/Oz looked at the influence The Wizard of Oz had on David Lynch's films. Now, one of the great pop culture icons of all time Williams Shatner (who just turned 93 BTW) is telling his story in his own words in Philippe's new doc You Can Call Me Bill, which is opened in limited release last week.

Alexandre O. Philippe

Having gotten to review a number of his films here, this marked my first time connecting with Mr. Philippe over zoom. As someone who addresses pop culture in my films as well as this blog, I feel like Mr. Philippe and I are cut from the same cloth with all of his films diving deep into all different areas of pop culture. We talked for about 15 minutes, but I'm sure I could've talk shop with him for hours.

Me: You have very quietly become one of the move prolific documentarians of the now. I find your films to be a thesis of what it is to be a film geek or pop culture obsessive who is fanatical about a film, filmmaker or genre. That being said, are you very selective of your subjects?

AOP: Of course. I can't make a film unless it's a topic that I'm really passionate about and can really pour myself into completely. But also there has to be the right angle, the right approach. So there's a lot of intangibles, but I'm a very intuitive filmmaker. Usually the angle, the premise, the stylistic approach comes to me very very quickly. Then it become s a question of how do we implement that? And then of course - how do we implement that within the budget we have? [laughs] So there's all the logistical questions that come into the picture that make it always challenging but always interesting.

Me: Let's talk about your new movie You Can Call Me Bill about such an iconic star, William Shatner. How did the project come about?

AOP: It came about very serendipitously. With my company Exhibit A Pictures we had worked with Legion M, which is a fan-owned company, with my film Memory: The Origins of Alien in 2019. They picked it up at Sundance along with the now-defunct Screen Media. Legion M is just an amazing company, powered by fans. So we stayed in touch. Then a couple years ago, I heard William Shatner had become their new spokesperson, so I just called David Baxter, one of the execs there, just to catch up. I very casually dropped the question "has there ever been a documentary about William Shatner" cause I was just curious. It's hard not to be curious about Shatner. He said he's been approached by a lot of documentary filmmakers over the years and he's always said no, but he said to give it a shot. So they pushed and they pushed and finally they set up a lunch and Bill agreed to meet me. I was fully prepared to pitch the project that I envisioned. He was not interested in that, he was just really interested in getting to know me, which I respect a lot. In retrospect, it's like - what a refreshing thing! It wasn't a business meeting, it was a human to human deal. The whole lunch was just talking about life, death, the universe, existential questions and then by the end of lunch it was really just "when do we start?" So it was very organic.

movie poster

Me: You previously directed Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water, which was about Klingons and Star Trek fans. Are you, yourself, a Trekkie?

AOP: You know, I don't consider myself a Trekkie. Let me put it this way - I'm obviously very into pop culture, but I don't consume pop culture to the extent of watching every episode of something or seeking out more. I'm more interested in the aspects of pop culture that have deep resonance. So, of course, I am a Star Trek fan and I am a Star Trek admirer. I have watching most episodes of the original series. I've watched most episodes of The Next Generation. I haven't watched anything beyond that. I'm just too curious about too many things to let any universe take up too much space in my life, but that's a cautious choice. I tend to flock towards movies as opposed to series as a cautious choice, because many of the films I make are about films. So any given series, if I commit to it, I'm going to have to watch the whole thing, especially if there's a narrative arc that goes from beginning to end through several seasons. That's 50, 80, 100 movies I could've watched. Because I don't have time to re-watch movies that I need to, then I have to make those decisions. It's a long way to say, I love Star Trek, I love what Star Trek has done and continues to do to the culture. I don't consider myself to be a Trekkie, but obviously I have a lot of respect for Trekkies.

Philippe and Shatner on a Comic Con panel

Me: In contrast with other documentaries that have been made about other Star Trek cast members like Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols and George Takei, where they had a ton of interviews with co-stars, friends and family, this is really the subject in their own words (similar to how you made the William Friedkin doc). Tell me about your directorial approach.

AOP: With this one, the idea really was to look at William Shatner, the man of a thousand faces and can we actually get him to take off those masks that he's worn over his storied career and reveal the man behind the masks. In order to do that I wanted to get a sort of distillation of who William Shatner is in the sense of what is he about - What are the themes that are most important to him at this point and time. He had sent me some of the lyrics to some of the songs and at the time some were not published yet. So I got a sense from that of some of the things that were really important to him. I read all of his books. So there were certain ideas that very quickly came to the surface. So I decided to shoot this in a 10,000 square foot stage completely bare, completely stripped of artifice, no set design - you're just seeing the lights and the background, the green screen and all of the stuff hanging around. So we were just going to put him alone in that kind of environment. But stylistically I wanted each chapter to invoke that chapter at hand. So it was a very designed kind of approach. We had three days of interviews. Morning session and afternoon session each day. Each session was really dedicated to a chapter. It's a bit of a risky exercise because once you're done with a chapter and you strike the set and set up for the next one, you can't go back, so you have to make sure that you're getting everything that you're going to need to get the mini-arc within that story and make sure it's going to fit within the whole flow of what you're trying to do. So there's a lot of pressure, but thankfully Bill is the ultimate storyteller. It's like driving a Rolls-Royce, you just make those little adjustments and give him what you're hoping he's going to give you and he goes there. He made it really really easy. There was no taboo subjects, he was fully willing to "boldly go anywhere" as it were. So he gave me this extraordinary materials that had to shape into the film we have now.

Me: One of my favorite documentaries of yours is The People vs. George Lucas, about the love/hate relationship that the fans have with the films. In addition to Star Trek and Star Wars, you've also made documentaries about Alien and the zombie genre as a whole. Is there any area of sci-fi or fantasy that you haven't covered yet that you'd like to?

AOP: Well the films kind of naturally come to me in mysterious ways. Right now I'm finishing a film on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The rights holders of the film contacted me about a year ago now, because the 50th anniversary is coming up. They like our films and asked if I'd be interested in making a special 50th anniversary film. I think it's a hugely important film. You can even remove the word 'horror', it is one of THE most important films - period. So it's a very different take - as you can imagine - on Texas Chainsaw. It's one of the most ambitious films we've ever made. I'm very very excited about it. That's what's next. There are other projects that are sort of in the works. There will be more Hitchcock, for sure! I tend to not think too far into the future. It's not about checking boxes, but it's about what makes sense within the context of the body of work, and what is this thing I'm really most curious about, or the approach that I want to take on, and the journey itself is always a little bit surprising.

Me: In 1992, I attended a Star Trek Convention where both William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy recounting stories together onstage. I was a little surprised you didn't cover more of his connection to the fan culture. I was curious if that was cut for time or if that was a directorial choice to not get into the fan culture in this?

AOP: Yes, it was a choice. Again, the film and the premise always dictate to me what is included in the film and what's excluded. There's really a hundred ways that you can make a film about William Shatner. This for me had to be a philosophical film in a way. It's not a film about Star Trek, it's not a film about culture, it's not a film about his legacy and it's not a film about the fans or his relationship with the fans. It's a film about what he has learned on this earthly plane over 93 years and what he wants to share with future generations. In a way, it's communicating with the fans but in a different way. It is about him. What's been really cool, the film premiered at South By Southwest last year and I've had the opportunity to tour around the world with the film and interact with fans and Trekkies and almost universally they're surprised in a positive way. Like "this is not at all the film I was expecting, but I got so much out of it". So for all these fans, now they get a glimpse at the man himself. So it's great that it is resonating with the fans.

For info on You Can Call Me Bill

For info on Alexandre O. Philippe

#alexandre o. philippe #interview #you can call me bill #documentary #william shatner #star trek #the people vs. george lucas #texas chainsaw massacre

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