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popculturebuffet · 2 years ago

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Austin and Ally: Bloggers and Butterflies Episode Reviewcap: Oh Bother (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people and welcome to popculturebuffet where I review some of my faviorite media... and... this thing. Yeah it’s time for a patreon review as 5 dollar or more patrons get one guaranteed slot a month... and this one is me being impaled on my own sword. See during my review of Muppets Most Wanted earlier this month, I talked about how much I hated the series Austin and Ally, as Ross Lynch from the show appeared in the movie and I felt he stuck out like a sore thumb among the rest of the cameos. It was a throaway joke but we got to talkiing about it more after I sent Emma the review (She had comissioned it)... and well you can see where this ended up. And this isn’t the first time i’ve hinted at something I dislike in a review that I might review down the road.. but it’s the first time someone’s had me review one of these things.

I should make some things clear. I”m 30. When I saw some scattered episodes of Austin and Ally in it’s first season, I was 20. I was NEVER in this show’s target demo at the time I watched it. I have no nostaglia for it nor mercy and never did. So if you have some soft spot for it because of nostlagia or you like what some of the actors did later.. your good. You do not have to like what I like or hate what I hate. These reviews are my honest opinons and while I try to make my case and crack some jokes, I am not trying to shame you if you like this show, nor am I shaming the actors for being in it. Hollywood is rough, and especially as a teen and as we’ve seen with other disney stars, being put into the disney star machine can be rough. No tonly that they’ve all gone on to work on other stuff: Ross Lynch had steady success with 4 seasons of chilling adventures of sabrina, both he and Laura Mareno have kept singing after this, Calum Worthy went on to the critically acllaimed american vandal and Rani Rodregeuz has gone on to do voice work and more disney work. I’m never going to shame a young actor for shooting their shot. So there is nothing against the young actors or young fans who liked this show.

That being said.. this show is hot, flaming , toasty garbage. It is not good. I am not saying that to be hyperbolic: While I am trying to cut down on the salt, this work is geninely bad. And while I do get it’s aimed for kids.. kids deserve better than this. I’ve seen decent Disney Channel Sitcoms: I watched Girl Meets World not long after this, Even Stevens holds up okay from what I can remember, and even in recent times i’ve seen episodes of Syndey to the Max. It’s pretty good and has a creative dual time periods premise. So then, before this, and after this there were D-Sitcoms that geninely tried. I just don’t like ones like this that really do’nt. That don’t care and are just trying to sell kids music instead of an actual show. That replace actual effort with “wacky bullshit”. And I love wacky bullshit. I geninely do. I’ve been rereading zits lately and despite all the crap it gets and how steretoypcial it can be with hit’s main family.. it can still be utterly great at times.

This show.. has no real creativity. It’s clearly trying to cash in on the fact Disney had a market in making their actors also signers, by casting two talented singers, making the show about music and a central couple, throwing in wacky sidekicks and stirring. It’s pandering on a scale not ever seen. And yet current day disney cancels shows for being actually good and wanting ot be representivie. You might see why I like taking pot shots at them. It’s because even a decade ago they pulled shit like this, making something gentically engineered to be profitable.. and it WORKED. Four full seasons of this happened. Four seasons of a show that was stale, and made clearly just to make a profit and make more signers to cash out on before they decided they wanted you know.. creative contorl and a wider audience. But I can give it two things: 1 the two leads really can sing even if the songs their often given, esepcially the intro aren’t good, and two.. this episode gave me a LOT of material to riff on. A lot. While the structure, setup and everything is typical this episode makes some .... choices... some ones that are bafflign in the best way possible.

Case in point, I went into the episode not really happy to review this, but willing to concede I might of overblown what I thought of it. The episode opens with Austin, an up and coming teen singer, alone in the music shop of his friend, love intrest, songwriter and co-lead Ally, Sonic Boom. It’s where the teens congregate the most and is located in an outdoor shopping plaza, with the plaza itself the second main area. He’s eating an ice cream cone alone in there.

He then drops it on his pants. Now a normal person would just say scoop the ice cream off their crotch back onto the cone or write it off as an oopsy daisy. Austin... carefully takes off his pants in a way that dosen’t drop the ice cream, puts the pants on the counter... and then procedes to pull out all the fixins for a sundae

But he does not and instaed makes a “pants sundae”.... and just typing that makes me worry i’m going to be put on a watchlist just for doing my job. Case in point someone video taped austin doing this and put it on the internet while Ally tries to explain she shoudln’t have to put up a sign saying no eating off pants, as she’s watching the video with austin the next day. Turns out a blogger has been dedicating her life to destroying austin and his career, which is oddly forward thinking for a show that fully approved a pantsless teenager eating a sundae off his jeans for script, then after blockign then didn’t cut it out of the how entirely. I mean nowadays she’d use twitter, but still, it predates cancel culture and deepfakes as she later also fakes a story about him saving a kid , a local one named Nelson who shows up a lot and is adorable, into “him dunking him in a fountain”.

Also Trish, Ally’s best friend, comes in announcing “Guess who just got hired at something something pirate themed fish restraunt”. That’s her catchphrase though she stole her gimmick of getting a new job and fired every episode from Jonsey of 6teen. Seriously it’s just.. the same exact gag: lazy teen gets fired at every job in some wacky way and has a new one each episode.

She’s only upset about it because she has to work with Dez, not for the pirate outfits which I wish i’d remembered ahead of time as it’s pirate month next month. Dez is Austin’s best friend. Dez also sucks, being annoying, goofy in the “way a 40 year old writer who dosen’t know how a teenager ever acted “ way, and repedadtely screwing the team over in this very episode. The only reason they don’t replace him with a trained chimp is that Disney saw what happened with Gordy’s Home back in the TGIF era and decided not to repeat past mistakes.. once twitter caught wind they were repeating past mistakes.

Oh and the blog’s name.. is hater girl.

You might see what I mean about the show being creatively bankrupt. Also just going to get Dez and Trish’s subplot out of the way now as while they wear pirate costumes all episode, it dosen’t really impact the plot.. at all. Trish slacks off while Dez depfries everything like this was a Bellville Family Thanksgiving, which while not really funny persay for the most part two bits did have me chuckle: him depfrying trish’s cellphone and her using it afterwords, and when the two need to get fired to end this subplot get to the performance at the end of the main plot, Dez DEEPFRIES EVERYTHING THAT’S NOT NAILED DOWN IN THE RESTRAUNT. The effect is passable but I wo’nt lie that it’s kind of awesome.

So the main plot has Hater girl frame Austin for child drowning, leading to his performance being canceled..a fter he planned to hide out in a tent till said performance. and also implicilty takes a dump in the broom closet thinking it was a bathroom.

Disney wanted this character to be a teen heartthrob. They instead somehow made him Beavis with better hair. So that night Beavis, Butthead, Ally and Trish camp out to catch her, only to fall alseep

Dez contacted HaterGirl with pictures.... and she sneaks away as the recycling bin that’s the drop for said pictures. Gotta give her points for that. Oh and Dez actually gave her pictures. Though let’s be real: he ate a sundae off his trousers and people think he tried drowning a child. I don’t think a few school photos are going to make him extra canceled or anything.

Luckily our heroes catch a break as HaterGirl has been spying on them as a catfish, so Dez reels her in with a fishing rod and they unmask her scooby doo style. And Austin’s reactoin..

Turns out HaterGirl is Tilly, and she has nothing against Austin. She’s been stalking him for the past few days including as a baby and loudly asks him to change her.

So thanks for reading and... dammit i’m not getting out of this am I?

Yeah so turns out Tilly is highly unstable and is mad at ally for upstaging her in kindergarten... even though all Ally did was peform a better song. OUr heroes tread carefully knowing this could go from disney channel sitcom to slasher film in an instant.

Dez once again fucks up, pointing out why she didn’t just go after Ally and making note of Ally’s stage fright.

So Tilly gives her an ultimatium: sing her song on stage and die by embarassment, or she ruins austin’s career. They try a test practice with Ally singing from some stuffed animals, including a dolphin Austin tries to take for himself in the only naturla moment in 25 minutes, but it fails. Oh also Trish wanted to see the performance to see Ally barf because both characters need better friends. The song is also important to ally as it’s what made her decide to be a songwriter. As for what gave her stage fright.. she’s not ready to explain that. And look most of the acting on this show is very stitled: Ross Lynch as austin tries to go over the top but can’t quite reach it so he comes off as hammy yet subdued and Laura Maurno as Ally just.. can’t quite act and can’t emote to save her life. I don’t blame either of them as again not only have they gotten more work, but it’s the directo’rs job to help especially when the actors are this young. But the two DO have a natural chemistry and the moments the two share do feel genine. I can see why this dog turd of a show had fans. Also rani Rodregueiz does turn in a good performance and dez’ actor tries, so I can’t fault them, they just had more natural charisma. Thankfully we do get a decent climax as Ally is clearly about to explode with embarassment.. only for Austin to step in. His career isn’t worth his friend’s humilation and he’s going to sing instead. THis also ends up netting him and Tilly the right kinds of Karama as tilly errupts that if he dosen’s sing she’ll keep going on stage.. into the mic, wtih Austin making it clear to the audeince seconds later, and her tantrum after. Also Trish escorts her off... I thought she was taking her to jail for you know, stalking, harassment and wanting to wear allys skin but no she’s free at the end of the episode. I also really don’t like how Disney has a bad tendency of having “crazy” characters. Mental illness.. really is’nt a joke, but they had this girl and also creepy connie on Jesse, and I don’t think their the only “crazy” stalker characters. It’s okay to have a character be mentally unstable or a villian, but ot have the only mentally unstable characters be weird, creepy or stalkers is.. not right. Not at all. And I say that as someone with a mental illness. So austin sings, he gets a dolphin and i’m thankfully free of this mummys curse unless someone pays me to revisit it or emma uses her patreon review for it again. Austin and Ally is a stilted, messy sitcom that tries to use wackiness over jokes, with actors who clearly weren’t made comfortable in their rolls or given time to be and with a stock premise. THank you for reading, and to the actors involved i’m sorry I had to dredge up your pasts. You guys deserve better.

#disney channel #austin and ally #ross lynch #laura marano #rani rodrigeuz #calum worthy #austin moon #ally dawson

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tcm · 4 years ago

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Paul Williams on His Regrets and Career By Donald Liebenson

“Bugsy Malone is like nothing else,” Roger Ebert wrote in his 1976 three-and-a-half-star review. “It's an original, a charming one.”

Alan Parker’s directorial debut, a one-of-a-kind gangster musical acted out by children (including Scott Baio in the title role and a then-13-year-old Jodie Foster as a sassy nightclub chanteuse), was an early career triumph for Paul Williams. Williams is everything that he wanted to be: an actor, an Oscar-winning songwriter of era-defining hits and composer of iconic movie scores. He’s something else, too: sober. Earlier this month he celebrated just over 30 years of sobriety. “When I got sober, the career I thought I had been gone for 10 years,” he says. “I feel like Lazarus; I’m 80-years-old, and I feel like a tired 34.”

But he’s ebullient talking about BUGSY MALONE, a cult favorite in the United States, but in its native England, it is something of a viewing rite of passage for children, thanks in part to a 1980s stage adaptation by Micky Dolenz. The film itself won four BAFTAs, including Best Screenplay and Best Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress for Foster. Williams was nominated for two Golden Globes, including Original Score and Original Song.

He has completed a new musical, Fortunate Sons, about how the Vietnam War draft lottery affects two households. His last major acting role was as ex-lawyer and informant JT on two seasons of the Amazon series, Goliath. “I’ve always said I’m a pretty good songwriter for an out-of-work actor,” he jokes. “Acting is where I got my start.”

Where in the process did you get involved with Bugsy Malone?

Paul Williams: BUGSY MALONE began as a bedtime story Alan made up for his kids. Every night he put his kids to bed, they said, ‘Tell us more about Bugsy tomorrow night, dad.’ So maybe the answer to that question is that the headwaters of BUGSY MALONE is Alan’s love for his children and his great love for the traditional American gangster film. He found a place where those two things would meet in a way that was really unique.

How did Bugsy Malone come to you?

PW: Alan Parker liked my songs, but I don’t know where he got the idea to approach me. It was around the time of A STAR IS BORN (for which he co-wrote the Oscar-winning song “Evergreen” with Barbra Streisand). He sent me a batch of beautiful color drawings of the cars, the splurge guns and the sets. Then he sent me the script, and I loved it. I was playing Vegas a lot and when I agreed to do it, he came over to talk to me. I was opening for Liza Minnelli or Olivia Newton John, I don’t remember who. Alan and I sat down at a deli, drank coffee and I was just singing bits and pieces of songs that I thought would be good ideas. I thought we needed to open with a song about Bugsy. It poured out of me. When the marriage is right, that seems to happen with me.

What was your own connection to American gangster movies? Were you a fan?

PW: Oh, my god, I was a huge Humphrey Bogart fan. One of the great times that I ever had was doing THE CHEAP DETECTIVE, because I was playing Elisha Cook’s role from THE MALTESE FALCON. As a little boy, I knew his name before I knew Santa Claus. I remember when I first came back to Hollywood to try and make it as an actor, one of the first things that happened was I walked into a drug store just as (character actor) Royal Dano was walking out. You’ve seen him in a hundred movies. I said, ‘Hiya, Mr. Dano,’ and he snapped his head around and said, ‘Hello, young man.’ I told that story on Carson, and I got a letter from Royal Dano. He said, ‘Although I don’t remember meeting you, it seems to me you were thinner then.’ I love that.

How did you approach writing the songs, because they are songs being lip-synced by children, but they are not children’s songs.

PW: The script is the Bible. The two basic tasks a songwriter have are to move the story ahead and to display the inner life of the characters. Alan Parker was similar to Jim Henson in that the rule of writing was to not write down to kids, but to write accurately for character and story. The characters Alan wrote were so strong; they are archetypes of the great Warner Bros. characters. Bugsy was John Garfield meets Humphrey Bogart.

Where did the idea come from to have the child actors lip-sync to adult voices?

PW: They got kids that could act, they got kids that could dance, but the songs had intricate rhythms and to find kids who could sing them was a challenge. I thought that if the automobiles are these weird little hybrids that make the sound of an engine but are being pedaled, and the guns shoot cream, then why couldn’t the kids sing with adult voices? It would have the feel of an animated film. It solved the whole problem. The one regret I will have my entire life is that I put another (singing) voice in Jodie Foster’s mouth; one of the great actors in American film history. That’s a terrible legacy (laughs). I did that with (the character) Beef in PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE. I used a guy named Ray Kennedy who had a great beefy voice, but when I heard Gerritt Graham sing later, I thought maybe I should have given him a shot.

This was before your collaboration with Jim Henson and the Muppets. Was Bugsy Malone a project you personally wanted to take on as something your own children could see?

PW: Bugsy Malone is the one motion picture I’ve written songs for that I’ve seen more than anything that I ever worked on, and there’s a simple reason for it. When my wife and I broke up, I would spend the weekend with my kids and I would plunk them down in front of the TV with pizza and, god bless them, they must have seen BUGSY MALONE for years. Eventually, I learned how to talk to my kids and be a sober real dad, but my kids just love BUGSY.

The closing number, “You Give a Little Love,” is Bugsy Malone’s legacy song, much like “The Rainbow Connection” is for The Muppet Movie. It was even used in a Coca-Cola Super Bowl commercial.

PW: That song is pretty much my philosophy. I absolutely believe it. My entire life has proven to me that there is something about the elegance of kindness that has always had a solid return. The core philosophy of BUGSY MALONE is, ‘We could have been anything that we wanted to be/and it’s not too late to change.’

In America, Bugsy Malone received good reviews and is a cult favorite. But it’s huge in England. Why do you think it was so embraced there?

PW: We took it to the stage in the 1980s. Every kid in England, Wales and Ireland, but especially in Great Britain, grew up seeing BUGSY MALONE. It’s like GREASE in this country. Edgar Wright did BUGSY as a kid, which led me to a role in BABY DRIVER.

Where do you rank Bugsy Malone in the Paul Williams canon?

PW: It is probably the best opportunity I ever had in this life to preach a little kindness. It’s probably the best opportunity I’ve ever been given to express the possibilities and probabilities that we could be anything we want to be. I was the runt of the litter from the Midwest; this little dude who didn’t fit into any world. I just absolutely loved music and movies and without thinking twice, I thought, ‘I’m going to do that.’ I hope BUGSY MALONE inspires that for anyone looking up at the screen and is attracted to the possibilities of telling the truth about themselves in a way that helps someone else.

Bugsy Malone is but one chapter in an incredible life and career. Have you given any thought to writing your autobiography?

PW: You know what? In recovery we call it an inventory (laughs). I think I’m at a place in my life where I feel like a beginner, like I’m just getting started. I know how idiotic that sounds at 80, but I want three digits on my driver’s license, and I think the one thing that gives me a shot at that is that I love being busy and doing the things that matter most to me, and that’s trying to tell the truth in a way that helps someone else.

#Bugsy malone #gangster pictures #warner bros #Jodie foster #child stars #child actor #old Hollywood #classic #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #Paul Williams #Donald Liebenson

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smutty-ki113r · 4 years ago

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🎥It’s been so long 🎥||

Comfort one-shot reader x creepy pastas (Slenderman, Jeff, Toby, E.J, BEN, Sally, Masky, Hoodie, Jane and L.J.) ((Beauty and the beast spoilers))

Inspired by: The living tombstone

The following morning you got ready to go to Hollywood studios. It was pretty chilly so you wore a jacket, bunched up in the car with everyone else. On the way there BEN wouldn’t stop talking about the new Star Wars exhibits.

Parking in one of the spots you all rode the tram to bring you to the entrance. All of the creeps stood in awe at the decorations at the entrance. Slender had to shoo them to disperse before they could hold up the other people coming in. Jeff looked irritated, probably cause he left his knife at the hotel as instructed.

A lot of people were dressed as people from the 50’s and such for Halloween weekend. Some of them gave strange looks at your groups’ costumes, but there was definitely compliments too. At least L.J was happy because there were less annoying children.

First up was the tower of terror, which you guys had a hard time finding since it was to the farther side of the park. BEN kept whining that he wanted to go to the Star Wars rides, but Jeff and you were pretty headstrong on wanting to go on this one.

The line was long too, about an hour in the hot Florida sun. Thankfully it was windy, and you sat on the ledges for the wait. Hoodie and Sally opted out since she was too short and he had a slight fear of heights. Slender could actually fit this time so he was pretty excited.

Jeff was pretty restless the whole time, fiddling with his hands in his hoodie pocket. BEN sat next to you on the ledge with his head on your shoulder, he seemed tired. Probably because he brought his Nintendo and played it all night even though you advised him not to.

Eventually you all made it inside where you looked at the “spooky” decorations. If slender had a face he would have one of disgust at the cobwebs. There was no comparison to his mansion, not creepy at all -in his opinion.

“Spooky does not mean unclean” he kept muttering to you guys telepathically.

Jeff rolled his eyes and Masky nodded his head, his arms crossed as you guys moved along. Then you were moved in to a separate room to watch some recording giving a backstory to the hotel. You were really focused on the video, there was even ominous music in the background.

There was this annoying whirr in your ear, you had to swat off the wind blowing on it. If the place really was haunted you were the victim. You felt a pair of hands grab your waist and you jolted, looking behind to find a cackling BEN.

“YOU SHIT” You slapped his arm- obviously- he deserved it.

He kept trying to fend you off until Masky gave both of you a really dangerous look. At least you didn’t need to be scared of ghosts anymore, Masky was the scariest thing there. Plus, BEN wasn’t exactly a terrifying ghost with those cute ears of his.

Finally it was time to get on the ride, slender looked really excited in his own way. He had his hands over his lap, the seatbelt buckled securely. You sat on the end with Jeff next to you and BEN next to him and then Toby after.

LJ was on the row behind you with Masky and EJ, you gave them a look as the cart moved. Then the doors opened and there was a stiff in the movement. Abruptly it shot upward, staying still for a second. You got to look at the beautiful view of the whole park before it dropped.

You felt your stomach drop as you clenched your hands on the handles, screaming along with LJ in the back. Glancing at him you saw the feathers on his shoulders fly up at the fall, Slender had his arms up, it was adorable. Toby was CRYING, holding onto the handles for dear life just like you.

After a few times of rising and going down Jeff started yelling at BEN, “STOP TAMPERING WITH THE CONTROLS”

“I’M NOT” he screached, holding onto his hat and trying to shake off a clingy Jeff. The outdoor daylight flashing onto his face, making his wide smiling face illuminate.

“STOP IT BEN” he kept repeating until there was one last drop. He gave a sigh of relief.

The people on the opposite rows looked mortified, scooting past you as you checked the pictures. They were absolutely hilarious, Jeff was gripping on for dear life to BEN, with Slender blocking the family in the back row and there was an open mouth shot of you.

It was a bit dizzying, so you held onto BEN until you regained your balance. He was a bit shocked too, a look of terror displayed at how Jeff yelled at him 50 feet in the air. Toby was pretty petrified too, his ticking increased and you had to rub him on the back to calm him down.

“I liked it” E.J said, shrugging at the picture and moving to the exit. Masky agreed with him, going to find his buddy Brian outside.

Toby needed something to take his mind off of the ride, so you took him and Sally to the Beauty and the Beast show. E.J tagged along too, which was pretty bizarre but hey maybe he liked theatre. The others went to the guitar ride while you waited for the next show to start.

The four of you sat in a back row to have the whole view of the stage. Needless to say that Toby and Sally really enjoyed themselves listening to the actors sing. When the conflict started Sally got anxious and you had to hold her in your lap.

Jack was quieter than usual watching the show, occasionally shushing Toby’s whimpers so he could concentrate. Gaston got on stage and started singing about killing the beast. You looked over at EJ who had his fists balled up in rage, he was really getting into it.

Giving a snarl when Gaston killed the beast but a huff of approval when he turned out to be okay. He didn’t say it but he kinned the beast, and he secretly wanted the happy ending. When the show ended you could have sworn there was tar rolling down his mask, you have him a little pat of affection.

He smiled at you under his blue mask and stood up, excusing himself for a moment. You shrugged as he went behind the stage, probably to get a snack. Leaving the gaston actor with one less kidney than when he started the show.

Then you pushed him out of there with the other two creeps, going across the road to find the rest of the group at the guitar ride. Slender was outside waiting with Hoodie and Jane, Sally ran up to give him a hug.

“They’re in the line for another round” he sighed, “go join them” he called to you and E.J.

You swerved through the other people, excusing yourself because you had to find your group. They told you all about how exciting it was, in the dark and super fast. Jeff was ranting, impatient once again. When you got inside BEN played with the marbles on the door, Masky was shooting him a disapproving look.

Jeff and BEN went in the cart in front of you, you went with L.J who wouldnt stop grinning. It would have been creepy if you weren’t used to it, but the lady making sure you were buckled seemed pretty terrified. Masky and E.J were behind you.

The car took off with a blast, music bursting in your ears as it climbed the tracks. You were overwhelmed with glowing decorations and unplanned curves, taking loopdy loops and hearing BEN and Jeff scream in delight.

You had to give heavy pants when it finished, catching your breath from all your screaming. You laughed along with L.J, whose hair was messed up. Reaching over to make it neater as the cart reached the exit point. The pictures made you cackle, especially since Masky and E.J on the same row had the same void expression.

After that you all headed to the toy story world. Admiring the green army soldiers and amazing childish scenery on the buildings. There were giant abc building blocks and gears making it seem like you had really shrunk.

Upon seeing the Toy Story mania BEN was teething. For some reason Jane too.

Finding out soon enough when she made you ride with her. Basically it was you and Jane in one cart with Jeff and BEN in the next.

She ignored the objective of the game and instead focused on shooting Jeff with the lasers. You kept telling her she had to shoot them at the targets but she shoved you off.

“I need to shoot this fucker” Jane kept muttering.

“You’ll never get me Jane!” Jeff yelled back.

Jeff aimed his cart towards you guys and started fighting back with the light filled lasers. You and BEN looked at each other like 😐, it was useless to break them up.

So you tried to win as much points as you cold but eventually BEN got more, he probably cheated. He did a little victory dance as you exited, you would definitely hold that against him later.

Slender wanted to go on the movie ride, which Jeff protested against but he wasn’t given much of a choice. Slender really liked the infographics and the interactives. Appreciating the realistic scenarios from the Indiana Jones movie and the Wild West.

Jeff did have a laughing fit when he saw the Alien from the Alien movie, saying it looked just as bald as slender. You were sure to give him a smack at that too. Overall though, you all enjoyed it, even Masky did too.

Next was the muppet show, so you all headed that way. While you all waited for the next viewing to start Toby was playing with the 3-D glasses. He kept walking with his arms out and pretending to be dizzy. Then he started “accidentally” bumping into Masky, poor Masky.

Thankfully for him, the doors opened and he sat as far as possible from Toby. You were sandwiched in between him and BEN. You guys lightly chattered until the lights dimmed and you had to put on your glasses.

L.J was having a laughing attack during the show, joined by Sally who actually really liked it. Then there was a part where the little muppet started spitting water, landing onto the audience. Now here was the part where a certain someone started screeching like a little girl, and it wasn’t Sally.

Benny was shivering in fear trying to cower on the floor, your ears rung as you tried to calm him down. You had to assure him like 20 times for him to come back, drying his seat so he could go back. Jeff was laughing but you quickly shut him up.

“It’s gonna be ok BEN, the show’s almost over” you said, giving him your jacket to warm up.

To compensate for BEN’s panic attack you convinced Slender to go to the Star Wars world next. At least BEN was pretty excited for that one, so you managed to diverge his attention to that instead.

His eyes widened and he started jumping up and down when you guys got there. Since there were so many rides you guys started just by walking around. It was pretty incredible, like straight out of the movies.

The architecture was amazing, with rusted technological buildings and the makeshift rocky terrain. The roofs of each buildings were domes, most of them were circular and extraterrestrial.

The stone was so realistic, some the walls were painted with a light aquamarine and some buildings with a yellow. The roofs were made up of a chipped bronze.

Even the ship which stood at the center was unbelievable, Slender made you and BEN take a picture together. You could see the grin of a lifetime on his face follow as you waited in line for the live action ride.

It was so fun! Even slender loved it, he knew he intimidated the storm troopers and if he could grin it would be a smug one. The design of the ride was amazing, the inside was like the real ships.

After you bought BEN a green milk and got a Blue one for yourself. It was sweet on your tongue, cold like a slushee too. You let BEN try yours after he gulped his own down and then he nagged you until you let him have the rest of it.

The next ride was the interactive one, this time you went with Masky and Hoodie. He had been quiet most of the time but this really fired him up. It was a three person ride, the mission was to get to a certain planet in the galaxy while escaping an evil ship.

Masky took all the control on this one, he was the pilot. He put Hoodie as the repair guy and you were the ammo man. He was solely concentrated on maneuvering that ship, swerving left and right like a pro. When the other ship started attacking he began commanding you too.

“SHOOT” he yelled back at you. He sure was bossy sometimes. “ARE YOU SHOOTING?”

“I AM” you said, pushing the button a million miles a minute to see the red laser shoot out on the screen.

Your wrist hurt from how hard you pushed it time and time again. “SHOOT THE GODDAMN SHIP” he said before you landed a good shot and got it out of the way, giving a sigh of relief that he would stop telling you what to do.

Hoodie was on repair duty so he just made sure you guys stayed a flight, silent and concentrated on his task.

Coming out of the Star Wars world you guys moved on to the Indiana Jones show, leaving Toby and Sally at the Frozen sing along with L.J as a chaperone. He was in literal hell, with so many little kids. He did like any reasonable adult and left, leaving the irresponsible person and Sally alone.

The Indiana Jones was one of the evening showings, probably the last one of the day before the main event. The whole thing was really thrilling, full of action and suspense. It was very exciting, and Jeff got a little too hyper.

He saw the weapons and started bouncing his legs on the floor. You eyed him suspiciously for a bit, he got so pumped he started raging. Luckily you covered his mouth before he could start yelling.

The smiling killer gave you a deadly look as he took his illegal knife out if his pocket. The very knife he promised he left at the hotel. You wondered how he snuck it in, probably his pants this time.

“You fucker” you deadpanned, moving out of his knife range. This was all while Indiana Jones was rolling over makeshift buildings with that dramatic music in the background. Thank goodness for the music, or else people would start calling security.

“BEN, E.J, HELP ME” you whisper yelled at them. They took Jeff by the arms and made him calm down, through your hand he gave muffled remarks.

His lidless eyes only widened as swords came into view, he simped over those blades like no other. Pulling and fighting for you to let him go, he wanted to cause rampage with his knife.

“I COULD BEAT THE SHIT” he paused to lick your palm which you made a squirmy face at but refused to let him go “OUT OF THOSE GUYS” you took his knife at this point.

You had to keep him restrained until the show ended, meeting up with the other half of your group then as you were walking to the restroom your group was encountered by a double line of storm troopers.

They stopped to make a round, approaching Masky and E.J, since they had masks. First was E.J, where they interrogated him with questions about if he with the first order cause or not.

“Are you part of the resistance” the trooper asked in a filtered voice.

“No” he said calmly.

“How can we know for sure?” the man in the white suit asked.

“I’m not one of the good guys, trust me” he said with a light chuckle. You laughed a little too and they moved to near Masky.

“Trooper get back in line” they said. You almost levitated, it was so funny you had to take a picture. Side by side his mask kind of resembled the storm troopers’.

“I’m not one of you” he said, boiling with anger as a few other troopers marched their way over to him.

“So you’re a Jedi in disguise then?” Another asked, face inches away from Masky.

“No” he said, the boy was about to burst with rage, too serious to take this as a game and gripping his fanny pack in anger to refrain from punching the guy.

The commander in a black mask passed by and spoke “Cleared”, the troopers dispersed, leaving a less distressed Masky behind.

Jeff was laughing at least, and L.J too, who appeared behind you mysteriously. Slender towered over him and asked where Sally was, the monochromed clown just gave a toothy smile and told him he dropped them off at the little mermaid show.

When that was over you guys got good seats at the fantastmic show, with the exception of BEN who feared water and was still having flashbacks from earlier. He gave rounds on the guitar ride with Jeff who opted to skip out with him, its not like he could sit still any longer too.

You hoped they didn’t kill anyone (they probably did), while the show went on. It was a beautiful display of lights in the water. There was a story told on the mountain and then the dancers came out. You smiled at the sight, it was another heartwarming day spent with the creeps. Holding Sally in your lap as she squealed at the pretty lights you were happy and at peace.

#slenderman #creepypasta #ben drowned #jeff the killer x you #jeff the killer x reader #jeff the killer #slenderverse #ben drowned x reader #masky x reader #creepypasta masky #brian thomas #eyeless jack x you #eyeless jack x reader #eyeless jack #ticci toby #jane the killer #sally williams #creepy

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nitrateglow · 4 years ago

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Favorite films discovered in 2020

Well, this year sucked. I did see some good movies though. Some even made after I was born!

Perfect Blue (dir. Satoshi Kon, 1997)

I watch a lot of thrillers and horror movies, but precious few actually unsettle me in any lasting way. This cannot be said of Perfect Blue, which gave me one of the most visceral cinematic experiences of my life. Beyond the brief flashes of bloodletting (you will never look at a screwdriver the same way again), the scariest thing about Perfect Blue might be how the protagonist has both her life and her sense of self threatened by the villains. The movie’s prescience regarding public persona is also incredibly eerie, especially in our age of social media. While anime is seen as a very niche interest (albeit one that has become more mainstream in recent years), I would highly recommend this movie to thriller fans, whether they typically watch anime or not. It’s right up there with the best of Hitchcock or De Palma.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (dir. Sergio Leone, 1966)

Nothing is better than when an iconic movie lives up to the hype. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef play off of one another perfectly. I was impressed by Wallach as Tuco in particular: his character initially seems like a one-dimensional greedy criminal, but the performance is packed with wonderful moments of humanity. Do I really need to say anything about the direction? Or about the wonderful storyline, which takes on an almost mythic feel in its grandeur? Or that soundtrack?

Die Niebelungen (both movies) (dir. Fritz Lang, 1924)

I did NOT expect to love these movies as much as I did. That they would be dazzlingly gorgeous I never doubted: the medieval world of the story is brought to vivid life through the geometrical mise en scene and detailed costuming. However, the plot itself is so, so riveting, never losing steam over the course of the four hours it takes to watch both movies. The first half is heroic fantasy; the second half involves a revenge plot of almost Shakespearean proportions. This might actually be my favorite silent Fritz Lang movie now.

Muppet Treasure Island (dir. Brian Henson, 1996)

I understand that people have different tastes and all, but how does this movie have such a mixed reception? It’s absolutely hilarious. How could anybody get through the scene with “THA BLACK SPOT AGGHHHHHHH” and not declare this a masterpiece of comedy? And I risk being excommunicated from the Muppet fandom for saying it, but I like this one more than The Great Muppet Caper. It’s probably now my second favorite Muppet movie.

Belle de Jour (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1967)

I confess I’m not terribly fond of “but was it real???” movies. They tend to feel gimmicky more often than not. Belle de Jour is an exception. This is about more than a repressed housewife getting her kicks working as a daytime prostitute. The film delves into victim blaming, trauma, class, and identity-- sure, this sounds academic and dry when I put it that way, but what I’m trying to say is that these are very complicated characters and the blurring of fantasy and reality becomes thought-provoking rather than trite due to that complexity.

Secondhand Lions (dir. Tim McCanlies, 2003)

The term “family movie” is often used as a synonym for “children’s movie.” However, there is an important distinction: children’s movies only appeal to kids, while family movies retain their appeal as one grows up. Secondhand Lions is perhaps a perfect family movie, with a great deal more nuance than one might expect regarding the need for storytelling and its purpose in creating meaning for one’s life. It’s also amazingly cast: Haley Joel Osment is excellent as the juvenile lead, and Michael Caine and Robert Duvall steal the show as Osment’s eccentric uncles.

The Pawnbroker (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1964)

Controversial in its day for depicting frontal nudity, The Pawnbroker shocks today for different reasons. As the top review of the film on IMDB says, we’re used to victims of great atrocities being presented as sympathetic, good people in fiction. Here, Rod Steiger’s Sol Nazerman subverts such a trope: his suffering at the hands of the Nazis has made him a hard, closed-off person, dismissive of his second wife (herself also a survivor of the Holocaust), cold to his friendly assistant, and bitter towards himself. The movie follows Nazerman’s postwar life, vividly presenting his inner pain in a way that is almost too much to bear. Gotta say, Steiger gives one of the best performances I have ever seen in a movie here: he’s so three-dimensional and complex. The emotions on his face are registered with Falconetti-level brilliance.

The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960)

While not the most depressing Christmas movie ever, The Apartment certainly puts a good injection of cynicism into the season. I have rarely seen a movie so adept at blending comedy, romance, and satire without feeling tone-deaf. There are a lot of things to praise about The Apartment, but I want to give a special shoutout to the dialogue. “Witty” dialogue that sounds natural is hard to come by-- so often, it just feels smart-assy and strained. Not here.

Anatomy of a Murder (dir. Otto Preminger, 1959)

I’m not big into courtroom dramas, but Anatomy of a Murder is a big exception. Its morally ambiguous characters elevate it from being a mere “whodunit” (or I guess in the case of this movie, “whydunit”), because if there’s something you’re not going to get with this movie, it’s a clear answer as to what happened on the night of the crime. Jimmy Stewart gives one of his least characteristic performances as the cynical lawyer, and is absolutely brilliant.

Oldboy (dir. Park Chan-Wook, 2003)

Oldboy reminded me a great deal of John Webster’s 17th century tragedy The Duchess of Malfi. Both are gruesome, frightening, and heartbreaking works of art, straddling the line between sensationalism and intelligence, proving the two are not mutually exclusive. It’s both entertaining and difficult to watch. The thought of revisiting it terrifies me but I feel there is so much more to appreciate about the sheer craft on display.

Family Plot (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1976)

Family Plot is an enjoyable comedy; you guys are just mean. I know in an ideal world, Hitchcock’s swan song would be a great thriller masterpiece in the vein of Vertigo or Psycho. Family Plot is instead a silly send-up of Hitchcock’s favorite tropes, lampooning everything from the dangerous blonde archetype (with not one but two characters) to complicated MacGuffin plots. You’ll probably demand my film buff card be revoked for my opinion, but to hell with it-- this is my favorite of Hitchcock’s post-Psycho movies.

My Best Girl (dir. Sam Taylor, 1927)

Mary Pickford’s farewell to silent film also happens to be among her best movies. It’s a simple, charming romantic comedy starring her future husband, Charles “Buddy” Rogers. Pickford also gets to play an adult character here, rather than the little girl parts her public demanded she essay even well into her thirties. She and Rogers are sweet together without being diabetes-inducing, and the comedy is often laugh out loud funny. It even mocks a few tropes that anyone who watches enough old movies will recognize and probably dislike-- such as “break his heart to save him!!” (my personal most loathed 1920s/1930s trope).

Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

This feels like such a zeitgeist movie. It’s about the gap between the rich and the poor, it’s ironic, it’s depressing, it’s unpredictable as hell. I don’t like terms like “modern classic,” because by its very definition, a classic can only be deemed as such after a long passage of time, but I have a good feeling Parasite will be considered one of the definitive films of the 2010s in the years to come.

Indiscreet (dir. Stanley Donen, 1958)

Indiscreet often gets criticized for not being Notorious more or less, which is a shame. It’s not SUPPOSED to be-- it’s cinematic souffle and both Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant elevate that light material with their perfect chemistry and comedic timing. It’s also refreshing to see a rom-com with characters over 40 as the leads-- and the movie does not try to make them seem younger or less mature, making the zany moments all the more hilarious. It’s worth seeing for Cary Grant’s jig (picture above) alone.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (dir. Joseph Sargent, 1974)

This movie embodies so much of what I love about 70s cinema: it’s gritty, irreverent, and hard-hitting. It’s both hilarious and suspenseful-- I was tense all throughout the run time. I heard there was a remake and it just seems... so, so pointless when you already have this gem perfect as it is.

They All Laughed (dir. Peter Bogdonavich, 1981)

Bogdonavich’s lesser known homage to 1930s screwball comedy is also a weirdly autumnal movie. Among the last gasps of the New Hollywood movement, it is also marks the final time Audrey Hepburn would star in a theatrical release. The gentle comedy, excellent ensemble cast (John Ritter is the standout), and the mature but short-lived romance between Hepburn and Ben Gazarra’s characters make this a memorably bittersweet gem.

The Palm Beach Story (dir. Preston Sturges, 1942)

Absolutely hilarious. I was watching this with my parents in the room. My mom tends to like old movies while my dad doesn’t, but both of them were laughing aloud at this one. Not much else to say about it, other than I love Joel McCrea the more movies I see him in-- though it’s weird seeing him in comedies since I’m so used to him as a back-breaking man on the edge in The Most Dangerous Game!

Nothing Sacred (dir. William Wellman, 1937)

I tend to associate William Wellman with the pre-code era, so I’ve tried delving more into his post-code work. Nothing Sacred is easily my favorite of those films thus far, mainly for Carole Lombard but also because the story still feels pretty fresh due to the jabs it takes at celebrity worship and moral hypocrisy. For a satire, it’s still very warm towards its characters, even when they’re misbehaving or deluding themselves, so it’s oddly a feel-good film too.

Applause (dir. Rouben Mamoulian, 1929)

I love watching early sound movies, but my inner history nerd tends to enjoy them more than the part of me that, well, craves good, well-made movies. Most early sound films are pure awkward, but there’s always an exception and Applause is one of them. While the plot’s backstage melodrama is nothing special, the way the story is told is super sophisticated and expressive for this period of cinema history, and Helen Morgan makes the figure of the discarded burlesque queen seem truly human and tragic rather than merely sentimental.

Topaz (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1969)

Another late Hitchcock everyone but me seems to hate. After suffering through Torn Curtain, I expected Hitchcock’s other cold war thriller was going to be dull as dishwater, but instead I found an understated espionage movie standing in stark contrast to the more popular spy movies of the period. It’ll never be top Hitchcock, of course-- still it was stylish and enjoyable, with some truly haunting moments. I think it deserves more appreciation than it’s been given.

What were your favorite cinematic discoveries in 2020?

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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What Went Wrong With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze?

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The story of how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went from underground comic book to the highest grossing independent film of all time is the stuff of Hollywood legend. But ask producer Tom Gray about the sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and you are likely to hear an altogether different tale. One of a frantically rushed production, censorship backlash and a change of director and direction. Actors were replaced, there were clashes with the comic book creators and a series of strange and unusual characters were added to the mix – including Vanilla Ice.

Gray was head of production at Golden Harvest, the Hong Kong studio behind martial arts classics like Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon, when comedian-turned screenwriter Bobby Herbeck first approached him about a live-action film adaptation of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s cult comics.

It’s fair to say he took some convincing.

“I hated the idea. I thought it was stupid,” Gray tells Den of Geek. Undeterred, Herbeck pestered Gray for months until the Golden Harvest chief had a sudden change of heart.

“I had an epiphany and thought we could just put stunt guys in turtle suits and make all our money in Japan. That was why I was interested; making it low budget. It escalated when Steve Barron came onboard.”

Barron had made his name with groundbreaking music videos for Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and A-Ha’s “Take on Me” and sold Gray and TMNT creators Eastman and Laird on his vision for the movie.

More importantly, he enlisted the late Jim Henson and his legendary Creature Shop to bring the Turtles to life using state-of-the-art animatronics, which came at no small expense.

Even so, Gray found the project was a hard sell when it came to finding a major studio willing to distribute the movie.

“George Lucas’s Howard the Duck had just come out and bombed,” he recalls. “When I went around people would say ‘oh no I’m not going to put my name on the next Howard the Duck. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, how absurd.’ Nobody wanted to step up in the major studios.”

Undaunted by the mass rejection (“Hollywood is always the last to know”) Gray eventually secured a deal with New Line Cinema, then best known for A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The rest, as they say, is history.

That first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came from nowhere in the spring of 1990 to make an astonishing $135 million, becoming a cultural phenomenon in the process. A sequel was inevitable but the results were anything but.

“It was rushed,” Gray says when asked for his overriding feelings about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. “Once the first film opened, we figured we had to get another one out as quickly as possible because this whole thing could fade away very quickly if we didn’t come back.”

Incredibly, a release date for the sequel was set for almost exactly a year on from the original. That seems crazy to think now, in the era where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is carefully plotted out years in advance, but this was 1990 and New Line Cinema. At this point the production company which was working on its sixth Nightmare on Elm Street Movie in the space of just seven years. The quality of those films had varied wildly but one thing had remained consistent: the quick turnaround.

“New Line wanted it out on pretty much the same date, maybe a week earlier in fact. So, we rushed into the production, got a script together. The overarching thing was speed. We had to get it out,” Gray remembers. “I think that’s probably the reason why it doesn’t top many people’s list of the best Turtles movies.”

A Change in Tone

One of the first challenges facing Gray was a tonal one. While the first TMNT film had garnered praise for maintaining the dark and dangerous feel of the original comics, not everyone was happy.

“We started getting some pressure from parental groups. They felt it was a little too dark and a little too frightening for children,” Gray says.

In the US, there were reports of Turtles toys and merchandise being banned in schools over worries they encouraged aggressive behavior in kids. In the UK, the characters were even rebranded the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles amid concern among censors that the word “ninja” promoted violence. Michelangelo’s nunchucks were also banned. It wasn’t just the censors who expressed concern either.

“The toy company was also telling us that maybe we shouldn’t be too dark,” Gray said. “And then, of course, then there was Jim Henson himself, who died while we were making the first film. His whole thing from the beginning was that he didn’t want to make a really dark film. Steve [Barron] was able to convince him it was the way to go even though it was different from the Muppets and everything he had done before. They had a great relationship. Jim trusted Steve.”

The decision was made to approach the material with a lighter tone, with Todd Langen’s original script undergoing a major rewrite to address the change. Despite the change Gray insists an attempt was made to retain some of the darker elements.

“We tried to get somewhere in between but probably didn’t succeed.”

Ultimately, however, the looming deadline left little room for nuance.

“If you sit down and think about this thing too much, you’re never going to get underway,” he reasons.

A New Director

In another notable shift that fans have questioned down the years, Barron did not return for the sequel.

The Irish filmmaker told Flickering Myth that the shift in sensibilities was the deciding factor.

“[It was] lighter, and all the instructions that had gone on from the first film were coming from the producers about keeping the color and lightness and getting away from the dark edge in number two,” he said. “For me it was poppy, and that wasn’t my sensibility.”

Gray tells Den of Geek Barron didn’t come back “for reasons that I won’t go into” but during the interview paints a picture of difficulties during their work together on the first film.

“I fought with the crew every single day but they did a hell of a job. Budgets were not adhered to but I’ve always given them credit because of their vision,” Gray says.

The producer also revealed that the first film was re-edited from Barron’s original version after his bosses were left unhappy with the director’s cut.

“The studio did edit the film in the end to come up with a different version. It was felt it was cut so you didn’t get to see the roundhouse kicks and fighting which was the hallmark of Golden Harvest. When the bosses saw it in Hong Kong, they complained that they couldn’t tell what the turtles were doing. They wanted to see these guys kicking and fighting. Steve’s style was good but we wanted another look.”

Despite Gray’s diplomatic tone, it’s not difficult to imagine such developments might have created tension. In Barron’s place came American filmmaker Michael Pressman, who Gray knew from his days at United Artists.

“What I liked about Michael was that he was a disciplined director. Having gone through the problems with the first picture I wanted someone who shot fast and stayed on budget. That was my main motivation,” the producer says.

A capable director who has gone on to enjoy a long and varied career in television, little of the blame for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2’s failing can fall at Pressman’s feet though it’s undeniable that some of the creative spark of the first film was lost with Barron’s exit.

So was much of the original’s violence, with the Turtles rarely shown using their weapons in the finished film while the action set pieces were also significantly watered down.

Eastman and Laird

Despite the criticism levelled at the sequel for failing to retain the tone of the comics, all of what went into the movie was greenlit by the TMNT creators. Part of the deal inked by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman saw them retain final approval on anything in the film. But that created other issues both at script and production level, as Gray recalls.

“Kevin was certainly more malleable with going along with things because of the budget but Peter was very difficult to get things by because he would say ‘Oh, well Michelangelo would never say that’. So, it was very hard from the point of view of the writer trying to figure it all out.”

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With Barron no longer around to mediate and sell them on the plans and with time ticking on, the pair’s reluctance to sign off on ideas led to increased tensions.

“We argued a little bit,” Gray says. “These things are never sweet or nice. It gets down to what we can do and, in the time provided. It’s about compromise. In the end they approved Langren’s changed script. Maybe it was reluctantly but we weren’t going to meet the demand and get this out if they kept changing things.”

Tokka and Rahzar

One of the most noted criticisms of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 concerned the decision to introduce two new sidekicks alongside returning villain Shredder, rather than draw on the wild array of mutant animals that had featured in the comics and TV series.

Many fans had expected to see Bebop and Rocksteady, the mutant warthog and rhinoceros supervillains made famous in the cartoon, feature. However, that cartoon outing proved both a blessing and a curse.

“I didn’t want them in any of the movies,” Laird later revealed on his personal blog. “It’s not so much that I disliked the characters so intensely, but more that I found their constant one-note shtick in the first animated series to be extremely annoying and silly to the point of being stupid.”

Gray’s version of events differs slightly.

“We wanted new villains because we would get a piece of the royalty, which we didn’t have with the first movie. We figured if we created something they didn’t come up with we would get a piece of the pie. It was a business decision.”

Together with the creatives at Henson’s Creature Shop, they “threw together” Tokka and Rahzar, a mutant Alligator Snapping Turtle and wolf respectively, based on pretty much whatever was available.

“Those things were basically the Henson Creature Shop’s ideas, because they had to figure out, technically, what they could do, how big they were going to be and how they could move,” Gray says. “They had to design all this stuff, put someone in the suit and then wire them up or get the animatronics going to make it work. So, we just went to them and said we need a couple of villains.”

Indeed, the resulting animatronics proved less complex and less compelling than the heroes in a half shell – and it showed on screen.

“They were just big models,” Gray admits. “We cut corners, there’s no question about it.”

Sweaty and Claustrophobic

Meanwhile, the turtle suits themselves had undergone little in the way of upgrades since the first film, when the actors playing the four leads experienced any number of issues. Not the least of which being the claustrophobia and sweating that comes with wearing up to 70lbs worth of turtle suit.

The animatronics also, despite being state-of-the-art, continued to suffer their fair share of glitches.

“We knew what the difficulties were and they were unbelievable,” Gray says. “There were days when we couldn’t even get these things set up. We were filming right near the Wilmington Airport. We set up a shot and when it came time for action the Turtles would not speak. We realized they were on the same frequency as the airport.”

Gray blames the lack of a major upgrade, in part, on the lack of additional budget.

“The budget didn’t exponentially go through the roof, because of the speed,” he explains. “I have read things saying it was $20 million. It wasn’t, it was $16.5 million.”

A New April O’Neil

Away from the animatronic issues, the human cast of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 proved a mixed bag. Corey Feldman didn’t return to voice Donatello after pleading no contest to a drug possession charge while, more notably still, Judith Hoag was replaced by Paige Turco as April O’Neil.

Hoag later told Variety she was never approached about the sequel, claiming her omission was a result of the fact she complained about the level of violence in the first movie and the six-days-a-week shooting schedule.

“Everybody was beating everybody up,” Hoag said. “I thought the movie suffered because of that. It was something I spoke to the producers about, I think they thought I was too demanding, and moved on.”

Not that Gray felt the production suffered as a result of either changes.

“No, not at all,” he says. “Certainly not with Corey Feldman because it’s a voice. Remember when you play that movie around the world it will be in 40 or 50 different languages and subtitled anyway. It makes no difference and nobody overseas even knew Corey Feldman was doing a voice…With Judith, we thought it might be of concern but then again it’s all about the Turtles. People aren’t showing up for Judith – though she did a fabulous job – it was really all about the Turtles.”

Elias Koteas also failed to return as the ice hockey stick-wielding vigilante and ally Casey Jones – though that was more down to the film’s shift away from adult themes and one of the more violent human characters.

“Casey was discussed but the reason he dropped out – and I don’t think this was a major issue – was the direction we wanted to take the film,” Gray says. “We wanted to go lighter. That was part of cleaning up the act.”

In his place came Ernie Reyes Jr, a rising martial arts star who had served as a stuntman on the first film and was introduced as Keno, a pizza delivery boy who befriends the turtles. It was a stark departure from Koteas’s character but, once again, it was one Gray says came with the backing of the TMNT hierarchy.

“If Peter and Kevin had wanted Elias back, he would have been back. So, either we were able to convince them that we wanted to go with Ernie and they went along with it.”

Vanilla Ice

Quite how they were convinced to include rapper Vanilla Ice in the proceedings is anyone’s guess, with the rapper turning up in a mid-film nightclub scene to perform new single “Ninja Rap.” His cameo continues to delight and horrify fans to this day. Few will be surprised by the commercially-minded circumstances that led to his appearance.

“SBK the record label producing the soundtrack album said ‘You gotta have Vanilla Ice in this, he’s hot’ so we put him in…We had a good album out of it. Sometimes you don’t make the movie for the reason of art you make it because the thing could go away in a heartbeat. I’ve always been fairly honest and upfront about our motives. It is a business.”

While others might disagree, Gray stands by the inclusion of Vanilla Ice in the film.

“He actually did a very good job. He’s a very cool operative and he loved doing it.”

Shredder or Krang?

Looking back on the sequel, as much as anything, the most disappointing aspect was the decision to resurrect Shredder rather than explore different villains in the way other comic book franchises have.

While Shredder has always been the main antagonist, as with Bebop and Rocksteady, there remained a plethora of colorful villain characters that could have been plucked from the pages of the original comic or the animated series. But the decision to stick with Shredder was not one takem lightly by anyone, and others were discussed.

“We went through the whole catalogue of villains and certainly Krang and all these other characters were in play,” Gray says. “We thought of them but we stayed with what works and that’s what you do in these situations. Don’t try and get too clever.”

As much as anything he blames the Hollywood system and a refusal to take risks. New Line too, would have no doubt been happy to press ahead with a Shredder-oriented sequel, seeing him as the TMNT’s very own Freddy Kreuger of sorts.

“Nobody trusts their instincts,” Gray says. “You go with what worked before and try to modify it a little bit. If it works [and the plethora of Freddy sequels suggests it did] then you are justified in using the same thing over and over again.”

Once again though the decision to stick with Shredder and avoid the kind of time and expense required to create something like Krang, a brain-shaped alien carried around in the waist of a robot man, was influenced by that release date.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze opened in theaters on March 22, 1991, less than a year on from the original. It went on to make over $78 million to become the second most successful independent film of all time.

Despite turning a profit, the film garnered mixed reviews and left Gray and others disappointed.

“It didn’t deliver on what we had hoped because there was this race against time to get it out one year after the first one. When you do that, you really have to compromise.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

After the rush to make a second film, it was decided that they would take more time over the third one.

But anyone hoping for a return to form was left disappointed by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in TIme, which saw the gang head to 17th century Japan.

“With number three, we were aiming something at the Japanese market, which was the number one market for foreign films,” Gray explains. “That’s why we had the time travel storyline with the samurais. That was definitely one of the motivations.”

There was just one problem though.

“We hoped it would get the film released in Japan. To this day, it has not been released in Japan.”

Though Gray returned to produce an animated fourth film in the 2000s box office returns diminished with every film. By the time Michael Bay got involved in the franchise, Gray was long gone. He now considers himself “out of the turtle game” with this being one of the last interviews on the subject. But despite the highs and lows endured on the second film, Gray remains proud of what was achieved.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“These movies were made by committee. It’s amazing they turned out so well.”

The post What Went Wrong With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3c7N9be

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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photolover82 · 4 years ago

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The Masked Singer Season 4 Episode 2: Group B kicking it off... with a twist!! Guesses and Commentary

Hello my fellow Masked Singer guys and gals! It's that time of the week again (albeit I am a bit late, but let's go with it), time for Ana's Masked Singer recap woohoo! *insert fanfare here* This episode was such an insane one not gonna lie, Group B came in with a bang like wow... let's just get into it because it's a crazy episode in it of itself.

Firstly, I gotta point out the contestants of Group B, which this time were 6 unlike A and C which only have 5 contestants total.. and those 6 are (order from left to right, top row first then bottom row in the image below) Crocedile, Gremlin (the purple fluffy guy), Seahorse, Whatchamacallit (the blue and red hair cousin It thing), Baby Alien, and Serpent.

Alrighty so this elimination is gonna be a bit different than usual because it isn't the norm of what usually happens with these sorts of things (I'll tell you what I mean in a sec)...

So the first contestant unmasked for Group B actually wasn't eliminated (I know what you are thinking... "whaaatttt Anaaaaa that makes no sense")... but actually he unmasked himself (whatttt?! yeah you read that right, he legit was hot and suffocating and he seemed super over it and just took it off by himself... yup, that happened like what mind blown!

Anyways the mask who did this was...

*DRUMROLL PLEASE*

THE GREMLIN

Performance: He sang Stand by Me by Ben E. King and honestly it was meh, it was really breathy as if he forgot some of the words, I don’t know if he was overcome with emotion (because he dedicated it to his friend who passed away) or what, I felt kind of bad but I low key feel like he was going to go home regardless, but on the bright side I love the costume and it was a great song choice for his range. He has a very raspy voice... like almost like a smoker’s voice and I can kind of tell that he’s an older man, but I couldn’t recognize the singer.

So the Gremlin ended up being revealed to be....

*DRUMROLL PLEASE*

MICKEY ROURKE

Ugh this upsets me because I don’t know who he is so I really couldn’t guess him correctly. I searched it up and apparently he’s an actor and director and was in Iron Man 2, which I’ve never seen like ever. But yeah, he did good, he looked kinda drunk not gonna lie and I guess he was suffocated and got over it.

Alright now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to my favorite part, the remaining 5 contestants:

1. THE SEAHORSE

Performance: I really love Seahorse, she’s one of my favorites of the night and so far in the season in general. Her performance of Rihanna’s Only Girl in the World was amazing and I definitely knew who that voice is...

My guess and I am so sure about this guys is singer, songwriter, American Idol alum...

TORI KELLY

Dude like that voice is so recognizable... but also because of the clues:

Emotion Ocean= she’s super emotional when it comes to songwriting, like she legit said in an interview that she cries a lot

Tea Party= she hosted tea parties with her fans in 2019 (well before all this ofc)

Rainbow Frog= sang Rainbow Connection with Kermit the Frog

Judges’ Guesses:

Jenny: Halsey (say what now? This doesn’t sound like her... is Jenny ok? This episode she’s been messing up with guesses more than Ken... you’ll see what I mean)

Nicole: Hailee Steinfeld (meh, that’s ok I guess, but not quite)

Robin: Bebe Rexha (he was onto something when he said country but then he said this, but this is the closest guess of the 3)

2. THE SERPENT

Performance: This one is my other favorite of this group. His performance of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers was absolutely stunning, I got chills! If it is who I think it is, I love him (partially because I think I know who it can be)

I think the Serpent can be actor of the iconic Broadway sensation Hamilton aka Aaron Burr, Sir:

LESLIE ODOM JR.

Dude like I feel pretty good about this guess because of the voice and the clues:

Map of the Caribbean= reference to the beginning of Hamilton where Alexander Hamilton is from

Jr. References= he’s a jr.

Between medicine & music= he played a doctor on Murder on the Orient Express in 2017

Number 31118 (this was from the Sunday before the premiere but still worth noting)= 3 albums, 11 stage productions, 18 years on Broadway OR bible verse Romans 3:11-18 which was written by Paul, a character he played on Rent

Judges’ Guesses:

Jenny: John Legend (See what I’m saying? Jenny, what are you doing man? That is not John Legend, like they don’t sound alike at all)

Ken: Daveed Diggs (Wow! Ken got it kinda close, I’m proud, that’s an achievement for him we gotta give it to him)

Nicole: Leslie Odom Jr. (WOOOO!! Yesss Nicole!!) 👏🏼

3. THE CROCODILE

Performance: I also really liked Crocodile and his performance of It’s My Life by Bon Jovi was great! I feel like I know who this is, and I am pretty familiar (well, more or less) with 90s and early 2000s boybands and this one is someone in that realm I am so sure of it...

Ok so being more specific, I think it’s boybander from The Backstreet Boys:

NICK CARTER

The voice and the clues were a dead giveaway:

The Vegas vibes in the clue package= he performed in Vegas with Backstreet Boys

Water clues (the water slide and happiest in water)= he was born in Orlando, FL home of the theme parks and FL is also some of the Gators so it would makes sense with the costume

Grew up in Hollywood= moved there when really young

Judges’ Guesses:

Ken: John Hamm (and he’s back, that was a terrible guess)

Nicole: Nick Lachey (so close, but not quite)

Robin: Donnie Wahlberg (um, Jenny agreed, how does she not know that this ain’t your husband?!)

4. THE WHATCHAMACALLIT

Performance: His performance of “I Wish” by Skee-Lo was good, not my favorite, but I didn’t hate it. I am kind of feeling that it’s an athlete due to the height and also how he speaks.

So this guess is an idea I got from the Internet (subject to change because I have no clue about sports players):

Rashad Jennings?

The only thing I got from the clues was:

Dancing with Stars= he won DWTS

Clues IDK

Orange Jelly= ?

The clock with the Bear Mask on the 5= ?

Swinging Keys= ?

Judges’ Guesses:

Nicole= Swiss Beats (meh idk)

Ken: Damon Lillard (I like this guess, tbh.. I kinda agree with it being a sports player)

Robin: Tyler the Creator (that would be cool but I don’t think so)

5. THE BABY ALIEN

Performance: His performance of Faith by George Micheals was good too, better than I expected for the costume ngl. I had pretty low expectations but I am pleasantly surprised. He isn’t my favorite by any means and I am also a bit stumped by him especially because of that fake Russian accent, but I am in between 2 people at the moment....

The 2 people I am in between are either Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham or actor

JASON SEGEL

It kinda sounds like him and the clues are a bit confusing but there’s one I understand too:

Tony Awards Reference= he’s been on Broadway

The mask’s a puppet and Segel is a big fan of puppets (He was also in the Muppets movie)

CLUES IDK

Space clues= ?

Friends Reference (2nd Gear)= ?

Ferris Beuller references= ?

Judges’ Guesses:

Jenny: Ralph Macchio (meh I guess that’s good)

Nicole: David Schwimmer (not bad, but idk it doesn’t really sound like it)

Ken: Freddie Prinze Jr. (ya, no)

Alright so that’s it! I am so sorry for it being late, but better late than never... I’ve been pretty busy so hopefully this weekend I will have tonight’s episode recap up... THANK YOU FOR READING AND I WILL SEE YOU IN THE NEXT ONE *blows kiss* byeeee!

#mickey rourke #the masked singer #masked singer season 4 #gremlin mask

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alovevigilante · 4 years ago

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Me: Ok. I’ve made an executive decision on behalf of all of us...

Me also: are you an executive?

Me: yes.

Me also: at what company?

Me: ours. Yours and mine.

Me 3: and mine too!

Me: yes, at threes company, ok? Will you just listen to me? (The other me’s sit, silent) thank you. Now, we have all come to terms with the fact that we’re 46 and still not sure where the hell we fit in in society, let alone a career to help aid it, right?

Other me’s: yes, Agreed, (hub hub etc...)

Me: ok, good. Well, not good, but yes, we all concur. Now, we, collectively, are a fucking mess, so I propose this: we start from scratch. At zero point, ok? Ok! Great!

Me also: um, question?

Me: yes?

Me also: I don’t mean to be a contrarian or anything, but we’ve been here on earth now for 46 years, and we’ve experienced a butt ton. So, how do you just scrap it all, and have that be something that’s widely accepted by society as a whole?

Me 3: yeah! Cause I saw this one “I love Lucy” where she couldn’t even audition for a tv show without having some experience.

Me: yeah, but we’re completely walking away from the entertainment industry...

Me also: yeah, but what are we going to do? Walk into a different profession, let’s say, being an astrophysicist, and they say, “hey lady, where are your degrees and your on the job training, & oh, I see here on your non resume that you have never even taken a physics class. Were you in a coma for 50 years or something?” And then we’ll look like an asshole.

Me: good point. So, since we can’t start at a zero point, how do we make life ok from where we’re at if we’re feeling lost and confused about what to do next?

Me 3: I dunno.

Me also: well, maybe we can mediate.

Me: eh. You feel like that?

Me 3: not particularly. Me also?

Me also: I was hoping one of you would do it for me...

Me: no.

Me 3: no.

Me also: fine. Any other ideas?

Me: well... how about thinking about shit.

Me also: that’s what got us in this mess to begin with!

George Carlin: hello ladies! May I be of some assistance here?

Me 3: why not? We’re plum out of ideas...

George: ok, well, let’s simplify a bit, Kari, singular, let’s chat.

Kari: hey George.

George: love the pic you choose to rep me.

Kari: yeah. You’re being a lil Italian when you talk with the garlic clove shaped hand you got going there. 🤌 🧄 🇮🇹

George: Yeah. I’m diggin it. But you know, in your mind, I’m one of the reasons you’re here in this ass place.

Kari: you are? how do you figure?

George: people don’t like the fact that you write on behalf of the deceased.

Kari: well, Tim burton did it in beetle juice and a lot of folks love him..

George: ok Kari, can I be Frank... Sinatra-like with you?

Kari: I dunno, can you?

George: yeah. Just pretend I’m sporting a fedora, a cigarette in one hand, and throwing my jacket back over my shoulder with the other looking at you coyly.

Kari: ok... if you want to... but is the cigarette in his pocket? Cause if it’s lit, that shits gonna hurt his Netherlands eventually....

George: (like Sinatra) no. Now listen up, baby, it’s not normal to write on behalf of a dead person that was not a character, and that whom was once alive. People get touchy about it. We have friends still alive that knew us and probably don’t dig it.

Kari: I see.

George: so it seems like we’re at a crossroads here. What do you want to do about it?

Kari: do about what?

George: your writing! It’s freakin everyone out! Kari, look, you know how normal Hollywood is, ok? They are all normal, non creative, in the box gladly thinker kinda people...

Kari: they are?

George: yes!!! Come on, keillor, get with the program! You are too far fetched for these folks! They want normalcy, and sameness, and only all the shit that’s ever been shat!

Kari: George, are we talking about Hollywood California, here? Or Hollywood podunk nah? Because Hollywood California is where all the creatives go to create!

George: right! And guess what, Kari Keillor! You are not welcomed in Hollywood, California! They have a sign up with your picture on it at the airport that says, “beware! No to this woman! Too much with the weirdness! She writes dead people!”

Kari: I write live people too... hey, do I have a cowboy hat and a mustache on for my mugshot on that sign?

George: nice one Cookie Monster! Well, Keillor why not?! You may as well, because this story has as much validity as any other story you make up and make worse in your head cause you’re sensitive about of your writing...

Kari: you’re the one that said all that shit! You planted it in my head!!!

George: so I did, but remember, I’m a facet of you. So, decide. Is there any validity to what I/you said?

Kari: how the hell should I know?! I haven’t been in lax recently...

George: right! So you never know until you try talking to some people.

Kari: I’ll call the airport... Listen, George, I’ll be perfectly Frank Sinatra with you now, ok.?

Don rickles: no mere woman can be like ole blue eyes...

Kari: Shut your misogynistic, ass-kissing pie hole, Pickles.

Pickles rickles: oh fuck... she does it to me every time...

Frank Sinatra:, you tell him, baby!

Kari: I’m 46. (Back to George Carlin) Anyway, look George, I have had a few successful people from my entertainment past either shun or block me for no apparent reason, so I’m pretty sure that I’m not well received again, for whatever reason... probably because I wrote the truth about a second city class I took when I was 16, about the current state of snl which I am completely unfamiliar with because I do not watch it, and the way comedy has changed or not over the last many years. Come to think of it, maybe it was because I love frank oz, and frank was mad cause I wrote that belushi John was teasing him and calling him an asshole, another ironic statement because clearly frank oz, NOT an asshole, was many of the muppets for years, and Frank is one of my idols! (Not a true central religious figure to me, but someone I admire a lot...)

Frank Sinatra: who loves ya, baby??

Kari: (to Frank) kojak. (Back to herself) Or it could be because i called bill murray, the beloved patron saint of comedy, an asshole like me, yes, I said like ME, out of jest and irony, because yes, he cared about the kid in meatballs making friends, ok?! That’s probably it. & yes, i was kinda stoned when I wrote it, and also yes, I still can’t figure out why the movie was ducking named “meatballs”, cause there wasn’t an Italian to be seen in it! Ok?! And come to think of it bill as Peter venkman in ghostbusters 2, written in part, by him I think but let’s just say yes cause it supports my point, called all of New York City and it’s tri state area, all 3 million people, miserable assholes, and they took a head count, & they still (probably mostly) all love him! & that shit was good (I love that movie so much) and it was made in 1989, and that was a long ass time ago, ok? And some of those people, have procreated since then, and again, they all love bill Murray and now those “miserable asshole’s” kids, ALSO love Bill now! Double the miserable assholes! Why?! Because he’s funny, and much like me when I’m being tongue and cheek, he didn’t mean for people to take the shit he says seriously! See for yourself! https://youtu.be/t1gkRAWvxOs (1:15 on)

youtube

So yes!!! I just think people are not into that kind of talk from me and me alone, even though it wasn’t coming from a mean or spiteful place. It was coming from a place of love for my craft, and of both frank oz, and bill Murray. The rest, as I say once again... I dunno....

George: Kari, frank just told you he loves you, and you blatantly ignored him...

Kari: no, he asked who loved me. He didn’t say he loved me.

George: Keillor, stop being so mean to the dead crooners, ok?

Kari: pickles isn’t a crooner! He’s a ye olde well paid curmudgeon who made fun of everyone like a jerk fach.

George: um, Kari...

Kari: no, ok? No! The difference between me and pickles, besides everything under the sun other than the fact we’re both human, is the fact that I am pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of the way we are set up as society, and wanting to heal it within myself to make it a more palatable world for me and my family and friends and acquaintances to live in. And pickles thought making fun of people was ok. What royal lineage did pickles come from that he’s able to rip on everyone the way he did? And even if he was of a royal bloodline so fucking what?! And dude got paid to be mean! And normal people made him rich and famous! And how did that become prevalent, let alone celebrated in this world?! Roast em! Yes! Hilarious.

Dean Martin: oh noooo... hey, listen pally...

Kari: dean, don’t get me started, ok? Cause I like you, I really do, but you know how I feel about that shit... Listen, Dean, you left a legacy here that was mostly great, but in my opinion needs a lil tweaking. Instead of “roasts” which people do to this day, and I can’t see how it can make the honoree feel anything other than like major ass, we should have “toasts” (copyright Kari keillor 3/19/21 actually before this date but I never published publicly...)

Pickles rickles: toasts?!? What is THAT supposed to mean?!

Kari: it means, my curious lil ornery pickles, that instead of roasting someone and being a mean rotter egg to them, you can “toast” them. Cheers to you, honoree, we salute you, in a hilarious way, by being honest about you but not vicious, viper like, and cruel. It’s where everyone laughs together cause it’s not a character assassination, instead of ripping on someone. It’s being funny, and yes, in a KIND and uplifting way. Where you actually celebrate the person being honored. Now, will that take a lil more brain power then the go-to usual jerk fach? Yes. But, it’s a challenge I hope everyone will accept for the good of all of us. Cause I guarantee that no one walks out of a roast feeling great. And if they do, cause they thought they killed or whatever, they probably did. And not in a good way. And that, again, is ass. No one wins. It’s a short lived feeling, the feeling of “one upping” a person. It never makes you feel better about you in the long run.

Dean: I see. I think I’ll go work on my volare now...

Kari: see?!? Now THAT I like! It’s not at anyone’s expense!

George: oh shit.... kari.... Why do you give a fuck about all this?

Kari: you know why George? Cause this has become our accepted collective energy! The haves and the have nots! Take away your money and what have you got?! Who are you, without the people who have made you who you are?! People, make other people in the 3D reality we live in. So take away everyone’s cash money, homes, clothes, and all the cars, and all the shit, and what do ya got? A bunch of naked humans starring at our different body bits, ok?! We’re All the f’n same. So think about it. What are we each individually contributing energetically to the whole of us? What message are we sending the next generations In our every day lives? I’ll tell you what message. Whatever we feel about ourselves individually both good and bad. THAT’S what energy we all give, and receive from one another. That’s what we’re teaching the kids. They model themselves after how we feel, and how we choose to think, and how we decide to act toward others. So let’s all collectively recognize that, and how we treat other human beings and wake up first inside ourselves then beyond ourselves so we can all make the whole, better.

I am not an asshole or a human joke or any other kind of joke. I’m not going to cry over the fact that I’m not accepted by people who’s energies don’t match mine. And by the by, no one is a joke, no matter who they are, or what their socioeconomic standing is. So I don’t wear an ascot and a smoking jacket, and a neck full of gold chains and chest hair, holding a whiskey on the rocks with an umbrella in it saying “see that?! be somebody!” ok?! I’m not Steve Martin in the jerk, ok? https://youtu.be/tBfXTyzaUfQ

youtube

I’m not even close to Hollywood! I live in the Midwest! I’m Kariwood, ok? And I’m not even kari wood, I’m no woods, ok? cause I’m pretty much never in the woods or the outdoors for that matter, so much so that I just purchased a sweatshirt that says, “indoorsy” on it, ok? True story! So yeah. Cause one time I was in Wisconsin in the woods, and I was thinking, “look at me! I’m in the woods! Weird, no?!” (Cause never in the woods, but I thought, I’ll give it a shot! What’s the worst that can happen?) And guess what? Despite my shower the night before, I felt something on the base of my skull the next morning, and I picked out a really nasty, creepy and scary tick. And it was alive, and disgusting, and wiggly. And I started screaming. And I am still freaked out to this day about it. And that happened at least 17 years ago. And I didn’t like it. So that’s how “non woods-y” I am... I’m not even a fan of woodsy the owl, ok?

So I don’t know how I feel about all that. All this to say that I am definitely not Hollywood, but yes, I am included, as a “somebody”. I may not be an award winning, keillor, but I am still somebody, and I may not be rich and famous, but yes, I am somebody, and I may have been on one trajectory and now I do t know what the heck I am now, ok? It’s true, and yes, I’ve posted this before and I’ll keep posting it until everyone in me gets on board with it, yes! I am still somebody because yes, dear me, we are all this: somebody! : https://youtu.be/tu0lNcrZjG8

youtube

George: hard to argue with that.

Kari: eh. You know what I am, George?

George: yes, Kari. I know what you are. But do you?

Kari: well, I feel, like I’m one of those kids on Sesame Street sometimes, looking up at and intently listening to Jesse Jackson, wondering how to get from small to big, and from where I am, to the success that he reps, you know? The importance of being admired by many. Having a big platform to play on. A huge soapbox to stand on, you know?

George: yes. I get it, Kari, I really do. And we’ve all been there. But everyone’s story about themselves, is different. How we all got to where we are, was our own personal trajectory that we designed with our beliefs. And our thoughts. There’s no set pattern or manual to follow. The only energy you must follow, is your passion and your joy, aka the love. That’s it. So, if you want to be, and decide to be, you ARE Hollywood,. Because Hollywood isn’t a specific person or group of people, it’s a place, and an energy. Hollywood is what you make it to be with how you view it. You don’t have to “be” Hollywood to be in Hollywood...

Kari: you said I wasn’t allowed in Hollywood..

George: you may not be. All I’m saying, is that you are whatever you decide you are. The end.

Kari: well, am I or not? Cause I don’t want to go and be turned away. Besides, I love visiting olvera st.

George: Its a fine street, it is. Great margaritas... listen Kari, you cannot achieve anything in this life that you don’t truly believe is in the realm of your possibility. So yes! You can be, and pretty much are are Hollywood keillor, even if it’s in the Midwest in your own home.. You are creative, and love the arts, and are nutsy, and ballsy, and you may hold the title as being the first person to ever separate the two, and bring them back together in a scote sack, ok? So keep writing, and be yourself.

Kari: I dunno. But what I do know is this: I did it again...

George: did what?

Kari: reactivated all the shit memories and feelings from the past that I’ve felt about my career, allowing myself to relive all those fun feels of inadequacy and upset alllll over again.

George: aww, it’s happened to the best of us. Listen Kari, you are, in my humble not so humble opinion, since I’m still you, a loving person. So you reflect that way; with humor, and yes, absurdist, surreal comedy.

Kari: well, I’ll try.

George: You already do. Your credentials are superfluous. Your love and support of you no matter what you do moving forward is what you’ll feel when you choose to, and it’s available anytime you want to feel it. And when you feel that, it really doesn’t matter what you do.

Kari: ok, well, thanks George. It’s nice to know I have you around.

George: Kari, you were once told that you are golden, no?

Kari: well, I was told that I’ll be golden at some point moving forward doing whatever it is I choose to do.

George: right. So, when are you going to decide to experience that?

Kari: hopefully soon.

George: Kari, why do you chop to talk to and write about us “passed over folk”?

Kari: I dunno. I guess it’s cause I love and miss you guys in theory, even though I didn’t know you personally. And I like to re-experience your energy, as I appreciated and admired it. It helps me feel better.

George: you’re now golden.

Scene.

Appendices: if you choose to perform this scene, good luck. I’d like you to do it all in one breath, if you are a more advanced, and professional actor. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣💕💕💕💕

#choose love #love matters #love manifestation #self reflection #self love #self care #self esteem #selfworth #self development #self improvement #self definition #self image #love yourself #george carlin #a love vigilante

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idasessions · 5 years ago

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Famous Muses & Groupies in Rock Music Pt. 51

GROUPIE: Mimi Georgette ‘Mireille’ Machu (AKA, IJ Jefferson)

This series is currently just an excuse to make bios on Monkee girls I find interesting (which is a little funny because I originally started this project as an excuse to write about Zeppelin groupies/girlfriends, lol). Mimi’s another lady who can easily fit into either the music section or film section of this series, but I chose to go with music since her fling with Sonny Bono ran a bit deeper than her thing with Jack Nicholson. Mimi was born a Los Angeles, CA native and broke through professionally when she was 20 years old as part of the LA’s famous Gazzarri’s Dancers troupe. While with the group from 1964-66, Mimi performed regularly at popular Hollywood clubs and TV variety shows, most prominently “Hollywood a Go-Go,” where she was also a choreographer. In September 1965, Mimi broke her ankle while dancing at The Trip nightclub and was personally escorted to the ER with none other than a member of Buffalo Springfield (weirdly enough, there’s no credit to exactly which member aided her that night). Because of her injury, she had to take a three month break from dancing.

Mimi’s most famous moment in showbusiness was appearing as ‘Lady Pleasure,’ i.e. the lucky girl who kisses all four Monkees in their film vehicle Head (1968). At the time she was dating soon-to-be movie star Jack Nicholson, who was then a friend and writing partner of the film’s director, Bob Rafelson (which was basically the only reason she got a cameo in the movie). Shockingly, Mimi’s never been interviewed or spoken on record of her memories of filming this #iconic and #legendary screen moment (that I can find). So unfortunately we don’t know if the kisses were really ‘even’ like she claimed in the scene or who was really the best (it’s totally Mike). Besides Head, she also appeared in Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), Psycho-Out (1968) and Drive, He Said (1971), all featuring Jack as a co-star and the latter as also the writer-director. Their relationship ended when Mimi became suspicious of Jack cheating while on location in Canada and Oregon shooting Bob’s Five Easy Pieces (1970), which is a little bit of karma because Jack left ex-wife Sandra Knight for Mimi.

After Mimi and Jack broke up, Mimi left Hollywood and spent a few years in the Oregon mountains before returning to SoCal in the mid-1970s for arguably the most interesting period of her life and career. Feeling the need for a change from dancing and acting, she signed on to be former “Monkees” episode director Jim Frawley’s assistant during production of The Muppet Movie (1979); and it was through Jim that Mimi became pals with fellow film director Hal Ashby. This then led to her crossing over to film editing, where she worked on Hal’s movies Being There (1979), Second-Hand Hearts (1981) and Lookin’ to Get Out (1982), which eventually led to her editing for Paramount’s TV department up into the late 1990s.

Besides Jack, Mimi also had a fling with another celebrity, musician/producer/politician Sonny Bono in 1963, which resulted in son Sean born in 1964. Sonny was dating future second wife Cher the whole time they were together, so that was primarily why their dalliance only lasted a couple of months. I guess Sonny was never really a part of Mimi’s and Sean’s lives because when he died in 1998, Sean filed for a portion of Sonny’s estate and had to prove he was his son with a blood sample. Cher also filed her own claim at the same time for overdue alimony (even though she was loaded too…). Awkward. In the end, Sean withdrew the case and wasn’t included as an heir.

Contemporarily, Mimi resides in Haleiwa, HI near Monkees producer Chip Douglas’ homeland. During her heyday in the 1960s, fellow Head actors/Raybert girls June Fairchild, Teri Garr and Toni Basil were also close friends of Mimi. Surprisingly, ‘Mimi’ is her real first name and not a nickname, yet for whatever reason she was only ever listed as ‘Mireille Machu’ or ‘IJ Jefferson’ on film and TV credits.

#mireille machu #mimi machu #i.j. jefferson #groupies #jack nicholson #sonny bono #the monkees #ij jefferson #i wrote this bio before the fandom imploded :/#musesandgroupiesseries

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rachelthompsonauthor · 5 years ago

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Hi, everyone! It’s time to venture back out into the world which is a little scary, right? That’s where we are in Northern California – like turtles starting to stick our heads out just a little bit. We’re starting to visit family, actually going to the grocery store, and getting haircuts for everyone – a good thing since we’re all looking a bit like muppets.

Though with the latest numbers in California, who knows where we’re headed. It’s terrifying. Masks, masks, masks, wash, wash, wash.

In case you missed the last two installments of my blog posts, you can catch up by clicking here for week one and here for week two.

This week I’m thrilled to share an insider look into the mind of author Barbara Delinsky, who just dropped her latest hot read, A Week At The Shore, which immediately hit the New York Times bestseller list – her twenty-third novel to do so.

Both Pip and I enjoyed A Week At The Shore immensely.

Full disclosure: Barbara is one of my BadRedhead Media clients (and I’m supremely grateful for that!). I handle her social media, street team, blog and book review optimization, and a good deal of her book promotion.

After finishing the book (which I loved), I had a few questions for Barbara about her writing style, so I emailed them to her and she was kind enough to respond.

A Week At The Shore by Barbara Delinsky Interview

Q: I notice you don’t only use ‘she said’ for dialogue, which I personally love, though as I’m sure you know well, it’s a DEBATE.

A: I’ve actually spent a lot of time thinking about this. I don’t use half as many other words (“she exclaimed,” “she intoned,” or “she declared”) as much as I used to. Yes, there’s something to be said for simple and real. That said, the constant monotony of “she said” gets boring, so I try to find a comfortable balance. This actually ties in with your next question.

Sometimes, the sub for “she said” can express emotion, as in “she cried,” or “she dare say,” or “she whispered.” So it does add something. Still, though, not quite the “show, not tell” rule (see more on that below).

Q: Also, the ‘show, not tell’ rule regarding feelings. You sometimes say what emotions Mallory {Ed. the main character} feels (at times). If I wrote that in my creative writing classes, my teacher would’ve jumped out a window, yet it works. Again, love. All this ‘do this, not that’ advice can be confusing for writers, regardless of genre, myself included.

A: Yes, it does work at times, at least, for me. But then, I never took a creative writing class, so maybe I just don’t know how to show rather than tell. Here, too, I think you have to be guided by common sense. If by “show,” you mean having a character “start to huff and puff,” to show upset, rather than simply to “cry in alarm,” I’d opt for the simpler.

The image of huffing and puffing will distract the reader from what you’re saying. IMHO, the “show, not tell” rule applies to larger things, like rather than saying “her husband could be nasty,” saying something like, “her husband could see her scrubbing the dinner dishes and tell her she was made for this.” So, it’s really giving an example of what you’re saying in summary. Does that make sense?

Q: Yes, absolutely. Also, you write about the past in the present tense – I do this with memoir and blog posts, and prefer to read books or even blog posts/articles written this way. It’s more immediate. When I work with writers in my workshops, they tend to write in the past tense. I haven’t read all of your other books, so I wonder if you do this with all your books?

A: I’m actually not even aware of writing about the past in the present tense, unless it’s a bonafide flashback, in which case it would be in the present. I’ve been experimenting with different tenses book to book. My last book, BEFORE AND AGAIN, was in the first-person past tense, A WEEK AT THE SHORE is in first person present tense.

The latter took some getting used to. And it’s possible that I botched the flashback tenses simply because I’m not ultra-experienced with first-person present. My editor didn’t catch or change anything, though. I agree with you. There is an immediacy to first-person present tense that is nice. That said, the new book I’ve started is in first-person past tense.

Q: Basic skills – I get it. This is how new writers learn. You aren’t new (after writing hundreds of books and stories), so you break rules – is that it?

A: I’m not “schooled” in writing, so I don’t know I’m breaking the rules!!

Q: You’re so skilled, Barbara. Your characters are intricate and layered. This book is a CLASS in writing. Do you ever think about young writers reading your work and learning from you?

A: You are too kind, Rachel. Seriously. I’m just muddling along, basically doing what works for me as a reader, since I have no formal training. Truly. Now I’m just enjoying it.

Barbara has written a few articles for me on my biz site about breaking the writing rules, which I hope you’ll read. She’s a true writer’s writer. I hope you’ll read her books and articles. She’s also an avid reader herself and does weekly book reviews on her blog.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m now reading the third book in the Discovery of Witches series, The Book of Life, and it’s fabulous, just like the others in this series. I’m not going to spoil it for you if you haven’t read these. Harkness is a wonderful writer, and she weaves history, passionate love, and the supernatural together in a way that carries you into other worlds. Even though it’s vampires, witches, and demons, it’s not glowy, corny vampires and evil witches on broomsticks. Harkness’ stories are wholly imaginative.

When I found out Sundance made the first book into a series, I paid for the app ($5.99/month – totally worth it) and watched the entire series in one day. SO GREAT. Perfectly cast, well-acted, leaving me yearning for more. I’m now re-watching it.

What Else I’m Watching

I never did see Being John Malkovich so I watched it with my daughter. Weird flick. Good, but super weird. Definitely takes the, ’15 minutes of fame,’ motto and turns it on its head. Speaking of heads, I’ve never seen such horrible hair in any movie.

Have you seen it? What are your thoughts?

Space Force just came out on Netflix and it’s hilarious. If you’re super conservative, you may not like it, so beware (though they poke fun at both parties). If you can laugh at the ridiculousness of government, please watch. Carrell is great, as usual, and the relationship dynamics are brilliant (and there’s John Malkovich again – great, as usual).

Vanderpump Rules I mentioned previously that this is the one reality show I watch with my 20-year-old daughter, Anya, and we watched the reunion shows – all three of them. I know, ridiculous. Jax is such a joke (his blatant homophobia disgusts me, though he says he supports gays – what?), Jax and Brittany together are just ugh, and Max makes me want to vomit (breaking news – he just got fired – ha!).

And honestly, could Vanderpump be any more white? We’ve been saying this for years.

SO much has happened since last week – wowzers. They’ve fired four people as of this writing for making racist remarks. Either the show will be retooled or canceled. I’m sad to see the epitome of white-girl whiteness Stassi gone – she was at least honest about her privilege. What do you think?

I’d be pretty much done with this show if it wasn’t for my daughter begging me to watch with her (we do watch movies and other shows as well). I’m glad Pumpy fired their asses, otherwise, I’d be done DONE.

Compassion

What’s missing from most reality shows is compassion, which is why I don’t enjoy watching them. We see (and hear, loudly and repeatedly) the negativity, toxicity, and the worst in people because that’s what the editors and producers know will keep viewers coming back – drama.

There are flashes of compassion, e.g., when dealing with the death of a loved one, coming out, infidelity, or mental health issues. I appreciate when Bravo, for example, handles these issues well. I don’t appreciate it when they have not – and they have not in many cases. An overall lack of compassion appears to be missing from many of these people’s lives; however, using The Four Agreements, that’s an assumption on my part; we don’t see behind the scenes or when the cameras are off.

I do have compassion for the casts of these shows who have decided money is worth more than their privacy. They are adults making decisions about their lives, and all that comes with it, as any celebrity does. Now, they’re dealing with the fallout.

“Make good choices!” as Jamie Lee Curtis’s mom in Freaky Friday admonishes a young Lindsay Lohan’s Anna (and we all know how that turned out). Oh, Lindsay. Honestly, she’s such a product of dysfunction, it’s truly sad, but that’s a whole other post.

If only people would listen to their Hollywood movie mothers…

Products Supporting Black Lives Matter

In no particular order, here’s what I’ve bought and am loving:

YUBI: The original fingertip makeup brush is amazing. Worth every penny. How did I not know about this?

Pat McGrath Real Makeup: I’m a sucker for a great eye shadow palette. McGrath’s are pricey but fab-u-lous. Why so spendy? All her products are highly-pigmented so you don’t need much; they’ll last a good long time. Here’s the one I purchased on Amazon. For when, ya know, I actually have somewhere to venture out to.

Body Butter Lady: Lip stuff and of course, body butter. Affordable, smells amazing, and will last a good, long, time.

LipBar: Lips for days, tons of colors and textures to suit anyone.

LipSlut: Awesome colors, and 50% of all proceeds go to support women and children’s charities all the time. Right now, they’re supporting Black Lives Matters. 50% towards charity, 100% against tyranny. Cruelty-free, Vegan.

Their newest shade, F*ck Trump on pre-order, will support civil rights organizations specifically targeted by the Trump organization – I mean, administration. Oopsies.

Here is my current personal selection (F*ck Kavanaugh is a favorite – a pretty brownish-red that wears well):

***

So that’s it for this week. Would love your feedback on COVID-19, books, movies, shows, makeup, racism, or whatever you want to discuss. Thanks for stopping by!

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

The post Venture Out Of Quarantine With Me appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

via Rachel Thompson

#IFTTT #Rachel Thompson

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brookylnboy · 6 years ago

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Happiest Place Part 2

A/N: Again, sorry for the inaccuracies, typos, or weird sentences. Hope you enjoy!

You followed behind Chris as you walked into the open theatre and texted in your group message.

You: Going to watch Beauty and The Beast since you saw it without me.

Chris walked ahead of you and sat down on one of the empty bleachers to the right. You were slightly behind him as you slowed down to text your friends and not trip like you were prone to do. Once you sat down you saw a text.

Mara: Is it okay if we head back to the hotel or do you want us to wait for you?

“Sorry,” you told Chris as you texted back that they could go without you and you’ll see them once they get back to the park.

Kate: Way to ditch us!

“Texting your friends?”

“Yeah they are heading back to the room for a little while and wanted to make sure I was okay to stay by myself.”

“That was sweet of them.” He offered you a smile and you couldn’t help but smile back. A part of you wondered why he was spending time with you, but you tried to ignore it and just enjoy.

“It was.” You paused a moment before deciding to continue. “So, what is Captain America doing at Hollywood Studios?” You offered him a smile and you asked quiet enough that no one could overhear.

He laughed throwing his head back and you smiled wider as you got to witness IN PERSON a little bit of his famous laugh. Not full laugh but enough. “Well right now he is spending time with this cute girl that he met in line.” He winked at you making your cheeks heat up. “I wasn’t sure if you knew me. Not saying that you have to know me or anything but you know I always have to-” You were surprised that he was rambling on nervously.

“I understand what you mean. Well not personally cause I’m not famous but I understand. Plus, it took me a while to realize where I knew you from. Even though your disguise isn’t the best.”

“Well anything more would be too obvious.”

“You just look like yourself at a baseball game.”

“Alright Paul Rudd,” he said laughing and you joined him. Smiling you asked him about his trip and was hopeful to hear that he still had a week left of his trip, although you didn’t get your hopes up that you could get to spend more than just a few hours with him.

He talked about his family happily and even talked about the mischief him and his brother Scott got up to the other night when they visited Mickey’s Dark Side.

“How is Mickey’s Darkside?”

“You haven’t been.” He placed a hand on his chest dramatizing his shock.

You shook your head. “No one ever wanted to go with me or they weren’t old enough to go.”

“I might just have to take you myself.”

After the show ended, you and Chris were two of the last people to leave the theatre and you sang Be Our Guest, while you skipped up the stairs. Once at the top, you turned around to see Chris shaking his head but smiling at you causing you to spin around on one foot with arms out wide and your backpack swinging around with you as you continued to sing.

You paused for a moment as the song switched to Lumiere’s dramatic solo hoping that Chris would join you. He did sing just a few lines before stopping. You clapped for him cheering bravo. “How about we go get some ice cream?”

“I’ll never say no to ice cream,” you told him as you slightly followed behind him towards the ice cream stand not sure where he wanted to go exactly since you remember there being a few ice cream spots in Hollywood Studios.

You ordered the Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich, while Chris got a Mickey Ice Cream Bar, treating you to the dessert even though you tried to pay.

The two of you sat and talked at an empty table near sunset boulevard.

“You ordered the wrong one,” Chris said gesturing with his mickey to your own.

“The ice cream sandwich is better.”

“It is not!”

“Ice cream sandwiches are always the best!” He shook his head. “I grew up eating these with my family every time that we came to Disney World. That’s five people to one.”

He laughed. “I’ll give you that. You’ve been to Disney a lot?”

You nodded and started telling him a little bit about your family vacations to Disney World, although you’ve been to Disneyland once before. You told him about your family themselves. Chris then talked about his own family trips to Disney World growing up.

“Once we got off the ride he ran with our mom to the bathroom needing to change his clothes. I kind of felt back but at the time it was hilarious.”

“Poor Scott.”

“Don’t worry he got revenge on me since. Where to next?”

You looked around even though you knew all the rides that were around you and what rides were farther away. “There’s Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, and Muppets.” You turned your attention back to him.

“I’ll let you pick.”

“I narrowed down your options,” you told him really not wanting to pick. You hate having to pick things, especially when you had no idea what the other person likes to go on.

He leaned forward just inches away from your face and you could feel your heart rate pick up. “If you give me a kiss, I’ll pick.”

Thinking quickly, you offered him a peak on the cheek and threw your hands up, “you never specified where.” A proud smile appeared on your face as you felt your heart rate slow down. You were not nearly brave enough to kiss him on the lips.

He pouted before answering. “How about Toy Story Mania?”

“Be prepared to lose,” you told him.

“Oh, I’m very much prepared to win.”

He picked up the two wrappers from the table and started to get up to throw them away, when you said, “Race you.”

You took off running and turned around once you got to the end of the street to see him just turning around to chase after you. Sprinting past the restaurant at the corner, you hurried around the bend of Animation Courtyard and to the back of the Chinese Theatre. You looked for the sign only to see it gone.

“Shoot,” you whispered before hurrying off to the new part of Toy Story Land hoping that it would be there. It didn’t take you too long to find it just behind where the line used to be. Catching your breath, you stood outside waiting for Chris.

“I didn’t realize that they moved it,” he said as he approached you just a few minutes later. “I kept thinking that I missed it.”

You headed into the queue with Chris following close behind you. The wait wasn’t as long as it normally was and you were surprised that you were close to the front and loved looking at all the new decorations in the queue like the Mister Potato Head that actually talked.

“How about we make this interesting,” Chris said. You turned towards him and raised your eyebrow at him curiously. “If you win, you can ask for anything.”

“Anything,” you asked with a light chuckle.

“Anything.”

“And if you win?”

“I’m not sure yet.” You stuck out your hand for him to shake not thinking about it too much.

“Deal,” you asked and he took your hand.

“Deal.”

“Well, what would you like,” you asked Chris as you spotted him exiting the ride. You waited nearby sitting on the railing as you waited. The two of you got split up by a large family exiting at once.

“I’ll let you know, when I decide.” He stopped next to you and you pouted slightly causing Chris to laugh.

“You’re adorable when you pout.” You pouted even more and Chris hesitated a moment before leaning in and kissing you. Before you had time to react, he pulled away and you smiled, heat raising to your face. “No more pouting.”

“No more pouting? Well if that’s the response for pouting,” you said slowly thinking about it teasingly. You couldn’t believe you were managing to tease. And Chris Evans at that! He was just about how you imagined him being in real life and probably was even better.

“Where to next,” he asked you chuckling. Your phone started ringing and you pulled it out to see Kate calling. You answered giving Chris an apologetic look.

“Y/N! You didn’t answer our texts and we got worried.”

“I was on a ride sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Kate said. “We’re heading back to the park now and will be there in like 10 minutes?”

“Where do you want to meet?”

“We were thinking of going on Toy Story Mania since we haven’t been on it yet.”

“Sounds good! I can wait for you guys there if that’s alright.”

“Perfect! See you!”

“Your friends returning,” Chris asked. You nodded.

“If you aren’t meeting up with your family yet, my friends wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t have plans till after 6,” Chris told you smiling.

“I have to warn you that my one friend is going to freak out when she sees you. So, I’m going to apologize now. Maybe both of them actually.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he smiled setting you at ease. You knew that it couldn’t have been easy for him to be famous. You couldn’t imagine what it’s like.

“Do you care if we walk around a little? I haven’t seen Toy Story Land yet.”

“I haven’t either,” he said as he gave you a hand to grab onto as you jumped down even though you didn’t need it. He kept a strong grasp on it as you walked further in weaving through the crowd as best as you could almost getting lost a few times.

The two of you were walking around as aimlessly as you could pointing to all the different details you could find from the movies until you phone buzzed. You pulled it out and looked to see a picture from your friend with a lot of question marks. Chuckling, Chris turned towards you, “what?”

“My friends are here and snapped a photo of us.” You showed him the photo. It was taken from behind with you guys hand in hand without many people around you. Chris was looking towards you in the photo a smile on his face. “I have some explaining to do.” The next one was a photo of Chris making a weird face.

“I need that photo.” You turned around heading towards your friends and handed your phone over to him to send the photos to himself and type in his number.

“Y/N, what are you doing-,” Kate started to ask once they got passed a family blocking them from you and Chris. She stopped in her tracks as did Mara.

“No,” Mara whispered.

“Yes,” you said.

“No,” her hand shoot up to her mouth. You nodded and she shook her head.

Kate walked closer to you. “Is that really-”

“Yes,” you interrupted her.

“How did this? When did this? WHAT!”

You only laughed linking you arm through hers and through Mara’s and pulled them towards the entrance of the ride. “All because you didn’t ride Tower of Terror.” You turned to see Chris right behind you. The four of you entered and quickly caught up to the line, which was slightly longer than it was about forty minutes ago. Mara and Kate stood in front of you and Chris as the line settled.

“So Chris,” Mara started. “What is your intentions with our friend?”

“Mara,” you slightly yelled.

“What? It’s a valid question.”

“It’s not the 1800s,” Kate said.

“Chris this is my bestie Kate and my bestie Mara. I’ve known them since Kindergarten.”

“Hi,” Kate said with a slight wave.

“Are you not going to introduce him,” Mara asked.

“Nope,” you told her with a smirk. Chris only laughed.

“It’s nice to meet you guys,” Chris told them.

Kate leaned against Mara. “So, Chris, do you like our girl here,” Kate asked and you felt heat rise to your face.

“You guys suck.”

“No, we are being good wing women.”

“Are you going to tell him how I can make bread,” you asked referencing the time that she tried talking up a guy for you and that was what she came up with.

“You can make bread,” Chris asked.

“See,” Kate yelled back. “How long do you think this line is going to be?”

“I would say about forty five minutes,” you told her.

“Plenty of time to play heads up,” she hinted.

“Y/N and Chris against me and you,” Mara asked Kate.

“Hell yeah!”

“We should do the Marvel pack,” Mara added.

Kate grabbed your phone from your backpack, unlocking it and pulling up the game. She found the right pack and handed the phone over to Chris as it started to play. He did and Kate moved you so that you were facing him.

You gave her a look before reading the first clue. “Oh um... Sebastian Stan.”

“Winter Soldier,” Chris asked and you nodded. He pulled down the phone and up swiftly.

“Robert Downey Jr!”

“Iron Man!” He didn’t even wait for you to respond before clearing it.

“Oh!! Um, he has cards.” Chris gave you a look. “I think he’s a part of the X-Men. Long trench coat?”

“Gambit?”

“Yes!” You said pointing. “He’s super fast.”

“Quicksilver.” You nodded.

“God of Thunder!”

Chris couldn’t help laughing at your deep voice trying to mimic Chris Hemsworth. It took him a few moments to calm down enough to answer, “Thor.”

“Controls the weather. Um.. Another x-men!”

“Storm?”

You nodded before laughing at the next one. “You.”

“Captain America.” You shook your head.

“No, the other one.”

“The Human Torched,” he asked laughing and you nodded your head. “Wow, that seems like forever ago.”

“Little baby Christopher.”

“I was 24!”

“Times up,” you told him and he moved it down watching each one get counted as you squished against him to watch.

“Not terrible,” he said as he handed the phone over to Mara.

“Not at all.”

#chris evans imagine #chris evans #chris evans x reader

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son-of-alderaan · 6 years ago

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There’s a desert valley in southern Jordan called Wadi Rum, or sometimes “the Valley of the Moon.” There are stone inscriptions in Wadi Rum that are more than 2,000 years old. Lawrence of Arabia passed through there during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. More recently, J. J. Abrams went there to film parts of the latest Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, because it’s largely uninhabited and starkly beautiful and looks plausibly alien, and one of the things that has always made the Star Wars movies feel so real—as if they had a real life of their own that continues on out beyond the edges of the screen—is the way they’re shot on location, with as few digital effects as possible. George Lucas shot the Tatooine scenes from A New Hope in southern Tunisia. For Skywalker, it’s Wadi Rum.

They don’t do it that way because it’s easy. Abrams and his crew had to build miles of road into the desert. They basically had to set up a small town out there, populated by the cast and extras and crew—the creature-effects department alone had 70 people. The Jordanian military got involved. The Jordanian royal family got involved. There was sand. There were sandstorms, when all you could do was take cover and huddle in your tent and—if you’re John Boyega, who plays the ex-Stormtrooper Finn—listen to reggae.

But in a way that’s the whole point: you’re out there so the world can get up in your grill and make its presence felt on film. “It’s the things that you can’t anticipate—the imperfections,” says Oscar Isaac, who plays the Resistance pilot Poe Dameron. “It’s very difficult to design imperfection, and the imperfections that you have in these environments immediately create a sense of authenticity. You just believe it more.” When Isaac arrived in Wadi Rum for his first week of shooting, Abrams had set up a massive greenscreen in the middle of the desert. “And I was like, ‘J. J., can I ask you a question? I notice we’re shooting on greenscreen.’ And he’s like, ‘So why the hell are we in the desert?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ And he said, ‘Well, because look: the way that the sand interacts with the light, and the type of shots you would set up—if you were designing the shot on a computer you would never even think to do that.’ There’s something about the way that the light and the environment and everything plays together.” It’s that something, the presence and the details and the analog imperfections of a real nondigital place, that makes Star Wars so powerful.

It was powerful enough to bring 65,000 people to Chicago in April for Star Wars Celebration, a fan convention where you could see a giant Stormtrooper head made out of 36,440 tiny Lego Stormtrooper mini-figures, which is a world record of some kind, though I’m not sure exactly what, and where people were dressed up as Muppets who were themselves dressed up as Star Wars characters. But the main event was the launch of the trailer for The Rise of Skywalker, which was held in a 10,000-seat arena and was such a big deal that even though the trailer was going to be released on the Internet literally seconds after it was over, I—an at least theoretically respectable member of the media—was not only tagged, wristbanded, escorted, and metal-detected, but sniffed by a K-9 unit before I could go in.

J.J. Abrams, alongside Stunt Coordinator Eunice Huthart, directs the Knights of Ren; elite fearsome enforcers of Kylo Ren’s dark will.

I sat down with Abrams a couple of hours later. For the occasion, he was wearing a suit so black and sharp, he could have been doing Men in Black cosplay, but his most distinctive feature is his dark curly hair, which is upswept in a way that is only slightly suggestive of devil horns. Abrams talks rapidly, as if he can barely keep up with the things his racing brain is telling him to say. When I told him that not only was Star Wars the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter, but that all 10 of the Top 10 trending topics were Star Wars–related, and that he personally was No. 5, he was visibly stunned.

Then he recovered enough to say: “Well, I aspire to No. 4.” (For the record, No. 4 was the late Supreme Leader Snoke, who frankly did seem beatable. If you’re curious, No. 11 was pro golfer Zach Johnson, who had just accidentally hit his ball with a practice swing at the Masters. Life goes on.)

Disney executives talk about how important it is to “event-ize” Star Wars movies; i.e., to make them feel not just like movies but like seriously momentous occasions. They won’t have much trouble with this one: The Rise of Skywalker isn’t just the last movie in the Star Wars trilogy that began in 2015 with The Force Awakens; it’s the last movie in a literal, actual trilogy of trilogies that started with the very first Star Wars movie back in 1977, which began the saga of the Skywalker family. The Rise of Skywalker will finally, after 42 years, bring that saga to an end.

FIRST LOOK Vanity Fair reveals Keri Russell as the masked scoundrel Zorri Bliss, seen in the Thieves’ Quarter of the snow-dusted world Kijimi.

We all thought the story was over in 1983 with Return of the Jedi, and then we really thought it was over in 2005 with Revenge of the Sith. But Star Wars has always been an unruly beast, too big and powerful (and profitable) to be contained in one movie, or even in a trilogy, or even in two trilogies, let alone numberless novels, TV shows, comics, video games, Happy Meals, and so on. Now Abrams has to gather all those threads and bring closure to a story that was started by somebody else, in an America that feels a very long time ago indeed. “That’s the challenge of this movie,” Abrams says. “It wasn’t just to make one film that as a stand-alone experience would be thrilling, and scary, and emotional, and funny, but one that if you were to watch all nine of the films, you’d feel like, Well, of course—that!”

Like a lot of things that we now can’t imagine life without, Star Wars came really close to never happening in the first place. In 1971, Lucas was a serious young auteur just five years out of film school at U.S.C. He had only one full-length movie on his résumé, and that was THX 1138, which is the kind of visionary but grindingly earnest science-fiction epic that only the French could love. (They were pretty much the only ones who did.) Everybody expected Lucas to go on and make serious, gritty 1970s cinema like his peers, Brian De Palma and Francis Ford Coppola. At the time Lucas and Coppola were actively planning a radical epic set in Vietnam with the provocative title Apocalypse Now.

FORCE MAJEURE First Order leaders General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant) on the bridge of Kylo Ren’s destroyer.

But Coppola would have to finish that one on his own, because Lucas went a different way. “I had decided there was no modern mythology,” he said in 1997. “I wanted to take old myths and put them into a new format that young people could relate to. Mythology always existed in unusual, unknown environments, so I chose space.” Lucas tried to acquire the rights to Flash Gordon (that would’ve been a dark timeline indeed), but when he couldn’t, he came up with his own original science-fictional epic instead. He called it The Star Wars. Like The Facebook, it would have to shed a direct article on its way to glory.

Even though American Graffiti had made Lucas a bankable director, Star Wars still came together slowly. In the first draft, Luke was an old man, Leia was 14, and Han Solo was “a huge green-skinned monster with no nose and large gills.” Fox executives were baffled by Star Wars, and they squeezed Lucas relentlessly for time and money. We forget now how jerry-rigged the first movie was: the cantina aliens weren’t finished, and the monumental Star Destroyer that dominates the opening shot is, in reality, about three feet long. The Death Star interior is basically one set re-arranged several different ways. To make Greedo’s mouth move, the woman in the Greedo suit had to hold a clothespin in her mouth. “What I remember about working on the first film,” says John Williams, the legendary soundtrack composer, “is the fact that I didn’t ever think there would be a second film.” (He also, like everybody else, thought Luke and Leia were going to get together, so he wrote them a love theme.)

But wherever real mythology comes from, Lucas had gone there and brought something back alive. People wanted movies that gave them something to believe in instead of relentlessly autopsying the beliefs that had failed them. We’d had enough of antiheroes. We needed some anti-antiheroes. “I realized after THX that people don’t care about how the country’s being ruined,” Lucas said. “We’ve got to regenerate optimism.” Like American Graffiti, Star Wars is a work of profound nostalgia, a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate anthem of longing for the restoration of a true and just power in the universe—the return of the king. And at the same time it’s a very personal hero’s journey, about a boy who must put right the sins of his father and master the strange power he finds within himself, and in doing so become a man.

Star Wars is also an incredibly enduring vision of what it’s like to live in a world of super-advanced technology. Science fiction often ages badly, turning into kitsch or camp—just look at Flash Gordon—but Star Wars hasn’t. More than any filmmaker before him, Lucas successfully imagined what a science-fictional world would feel like to somebody who was actually inside it—which is to say, it would look as ordinary and workaday as the present. He even shot it like it was real, working close-in and mostly eschewing wide establishing shots, more like a documentary or a newsreel than a space opera. “It feels very grounded,” says Naomi Ackie, who’s making her Star Wars debut in Skywalker playing a character named Jannah, about whom she is allowed to say literally nothing. “There’s the kind of spectacular-ness, and the supernatural move-things-with-your-mind magic stuff, but then there’s also this really grounded, rugged nature where everything is distressed and old and kind of worn out and lived-in. And I think playing with those two ideas means that you get this feeling that it could almost be real. Like, in a galaxy far away, it could almost be the case that you could have this.”

When Lucas made the first Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, he cheekily labeled it Episode V, then went back and re-labeled the first movie as Episode IV, as if the movies were an old-fashioned serial that the rest of us were all just tuning in to. Around that time, he also started talking about Star Wars as a nine-part epic—so in 2012, when Lucas retired and sold Lucasfilm to Disney, it wasn’t exactly heresy that Disney announced more movies. At the time, Kathleen Kennedy had just been named co-chairperson of Lucasfilm, and she tapped Abrams to direct the first Disney-owned post-Lucas Star Wars movie. It was a bit like saying, Make the lightning strike again, please. Exactly here, if you could. Oh, and could you also earn back that $4 billion we just spent to buy Lucasfilm? (Narrator voice: He could.)

At first blush, Abrams’s debut Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, looked like an elaborate homage to the original. Just like in A New Hope, there’s a young Force-sensitive person on a poor desert planet—that’s Rey, played by Daisy Ridley—who finds a droid with a secret message that’s vital to the Rebellion (or wait, sorry, it’s the Resistance now). There’s a villain in a black mask, just like Darth Vader, except that it’s his grandson Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), né Ben Solo, son of Han and Leia. Kylo has a planet-killing weapon, much like the Death Star but way bigger, which becomes the target of a desperate attack by Resistance X-wings. There’s even a bar full of aliens.

Abrams also insisted on keeping to the analog aesthetic of the original trilogy: those aliens had to be latex and yak hair, not bits and bytes, and everything possible was shot on location using film cameras, not digital ones. Even Lucas had abandoned that approach by the time he made the second Star Wars trilogy, but many fans consider those movies to be a cautionary tale. “Famously, the prequels were mostly greenscreen environments,” Abrams says. “And that was George himself doing that, and it ended up looking exactly how he wanted it to look—and I always preferred the look of the original movies, because I just remember when you’re in the snow on Hoth, when you’re in the desert on Tatooine, and when you’re in the forests of Endor—it’s amazing. If you put a vaporator here, there, all of a sudden almost any natural location suddenly becomes a Star Wars location.”

But the more interesting thing about The Force Awakens and its successor, The Last Jedi, written and directed by Rian Johnson, was how they subtly complicated Lucas’s vision. Thirty years have gone by since the ending of Return of the Jedi, during which time the newly reborn Republic became complacent and politically stagnant, allowing the rise of the reactionary neo-imperial First Order, whose origins we will learn more about in Skywalker. “It was almost like if the Argentine Nazis had sort of got together and actually started to bring that back in some real form,” Abrams says. Just like that, the rules of the Star Wars universe changed. It wasn’t all over when the Ewoks sang. Obi-Wan Kenobi and all those Bothans had died in vain. Even Han and Leia split up. It’s all a little less of a fairy tale now.

The feather-haired godling Luke suffered the trauma of having a Padawan go bad on his watch. It’s an echo of what happened to his old mentor, Obi-Wan, with Anakin Skywalker, who became Darth Vader. But where Obi-Wan made peace with it, waiting serenely in the desert of Tatooine for the next Chosen One to arrive, Luke’s guilt curdled into shame. He hid himself away, so that his Chosen One, Rey, had to spend most of The Force Awakens searching for him, and then another whole movie convincing him with the help of Yoda’s Force ghost to keep the Jedi Order going at all. Star Wars arrived as an antidote to the disillusionment of the 1970s—but now, in its middle age, Star Wars is grappling with disillusionment of its own.

DESERT POWER Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), Ridley, Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), and John Boyega (Finn) await the call to action for a chase scene.

By dint of advanced Sith interrogation techniques, I was able to obtain valuable advance information about The Rise of Skywalker. Here it is: common emblem.

Anthony Daniels, who plays C-3P0, is the only actor who has appeared in all nine movies of the Star Wars triple trilogy, so if anybody’s entitled to leak, it’s him. Daniels says he loved the script for The Rise of Skywalker, but he didn’t get it until the last minute, right before shooting started, and for some reason he just couldn’t memorize his part. “My first line would not go in my head!” he says. In person Daniels is like a C-3P0 whose preferences have been reset to charming and voluble. “The line that I couldn’t say was two words: ‘common emblem.’ Common emblem, common emblem—I would say them thousands of times. My wife would say it back. I just couldn’t say them!”

Fortunately C-3P0’s mouth doesn’t move, so he could add the line in postproduction. Anyway, there’s the big scoop: “common emblem.” I don’t know what it means either. (Also I 100 percent guarantee that they will change the line before the movie comes out so that this scoop will end up being fake news.) Daniels also told me that C-3P0 does something in this movie that surprises everybody—but he wouldn’t say what. “He keeps his clothes on. It’s not like he suddenly does this thing, but …”

The only other member of the old guard on the set this time was Billy Dee Williams, who plays the charismatic Lando Calrissian. At 82, Williams has lost none of his roguish charm, but now it comes wrapped in a kind of magisterial dignity. People tend to remember Lando for the deal he cut with Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, rather than for his redemptive comeback in Return of the Jedi, and Williams appears to have spent the last 45 years defending him. “He’s a survivor. It’s expediency for him,” Williams says. “You know, he was thrown into a situation which he didn’t look for and he had to try to figure out how to deal with an entity which is more than just a human.” And, he adds, with the weary air of somebody who has spent way too much time justifying the behavior of a fictional character, “nobody died!”

HOT TAKE Members of the crew shade and shine Daniels, the only cast member to appear in all nine of the Skywalker films, while BB-8 looks on.

Chewbacca is still here, too, but it’s not the same man in the suit. The original actor was Peter Mayhew, a seven-foot-three-inch gentle giant who was working as a hospital orderly in London when Lucas cast him in the first movie. Mayhew retired after The Force Awakens, and he died on April 30 at 74. His replacement is Joonas Suotamo, a fresh-faced former professional basketball player from Finland who always wanted to be an actor but was hard to cast because he’s six feet 11 inches tall. “When I first met [Mayhew] he told me I was a wee bit too skinny,” Suotamo says. “But we also had a Wookiee boot camp, which lasted for a week. He told me all kinds of things about the moves that Chewbacca does, how they came to be and his reasoning behind them.” Suotamo has now played Chewbacca in four movies and enjoys it about as much as I’ve ever seen anybody enjoy anything. “It’s very much like silent-era film, with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin,” he says. “He’s a mime character and that’s what he does, and I guess in that minimalism comes the beauty of the character.”

Other things we know about Skywalker: We can safely assume that the Resistance and the First Order are headed toward a final smash, which will be a heavy lift for the good guys because, at the end of The Last Jedi, the Resistance was down, way down, to a double handful of survivors. They’ll face a First Order who suffered a stinging but largely symbolic loss at the Battle of Crait, and who, I feel confident, have learned something from the previous eight movies. The Empire built and lost two Death Stars. The First Order has already lost one super-weapon in The Force Awakens. Presumably it won’t make the same mistake twice, twice.

But the stakes go even higher than that, cosmically high. Sources close to the movie say that Skywalker will at long last bring to a climax the millennia-long conflict between the Jedi Order and its dark shadow, the Sith.

HORSING AROUND Finn and new ally Jannah (Naomi Ackie), atop hardy orbaks, lead the charge against the mechanized forces of the First Order. “It’s extremely surreal to be in it,” says Ackie, “and see how it works from the inside.”

STAR CROSSED Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey battle it out with lightsabers in a stormy confrontation. Their Force-connection—what Driver calls their “maybe-bond”—will turn out to run even deeper than previously revealed.

The hottest area for speculation, however, is the identity of the titular Skywalker, because at this point there aren’t many Skywalkers left to rise. One is General Organa, the former Princess Leia, Luke’s sister—but Carrie Fisher, who plays her, passed away in 2016. That was a deeply painful loss for Abrams personally, but it also presented him with an impossible choice as a filmmaker. He needed Leia to tell the story, but Abrams didn’t feel like a digital Carrie Fisher could do the job, and there was no way Lucasfilm was going to re-cast the role.

But then a strange thing happened. Abrams remembered that there was some footage of Fisher left over from The Force Awakens, scenes that had been changed or cut entirely, and he dug them up. “It’s hard to even talk about it without sounding like I’m being some kind of cosmic spiritual goofball,” Abrams says, “but it felt like we suddenly had found the impossible answer to the impossible question.” He started to write scenes around the old footage, fitting Leia’s dialogue into new contexts. He re-created the lighting to match the way Fisher had been lit. Bit by bit, she found her place in the new movie. “It was a bizarre kind of left side/right side of the brain sort of Venn diagram thing, of figuring out how to create the puzzle based on the pieces we had.” Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, appears in the movies as a Resistance officer named Lieutenant Connix, and at first Abrams deliberately wrote her out of the scenes in case it was too painful—but Lourd said no, she wanted to be in them. “And so, there are moments where they’re talking; there are moments where they’re touching,” Abrams says. “There are moments in this movie where Carrie is there, and I really do feel there is an element of the uncanny, spiritual, you know, classic Carrie, that it would have happened this way, because somehow it worked. And I never thought it would.”

The only other member of the surviving Skywalker bloodline—that we know of!—is Leia’s son and Luke’s former Padawan, the fallen Jedi Kylo Ren. Kylo probably isn’t capable of actual happiness, but things are definitely looking up for him: by the end of The Last Jedi he has taken control of the First Order and killed or at least outlived his actual father and both of his symbolic fathers-in-art, Luke and Supreme Leader Snoke. Sources at Disney also confirm that his long-rumored Knights of Ren will finally arrive in Skywalker. “And then he had been forging this maybe-bond with Rey,” Driver says, “and it kind of ends with the question in the air: is he going to pursue that relationship, or when the door of her ship goes up, does that also close that camaraderie that they were maybe forming?”

SANDBLAST Camera operator Colin Anderson readies a take for a chase sequence spotlighting the heroics of Chewbacca, BB-8, and Rey.

Darkness in the Star Wars movies tends to come from fear: for Anakin Skywalker, Kylo’s grandfather, it was his fear of losing his mother and his wife. After two movies it’s still not so easy to say exactly what Kylo Ren himself fears, even though he’s as operatically emo as Vader was stoic. He’s fixated on the past—he made a shrine to his own grandfather—but at the same time the past torments him. “Let the past die,” he tells Rey in The Last Jedi. “Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.”

Presumably whatever’s eating at Kylo started in his childhood: maybe being the kid of literally the two coolest people in the galaxy isn’t as fun as it sounds. Driver—who has obviously thought this through with a lot of rigor—points out that, as cool as they are, Han and Leia are both obsessively committed to lifestyles (smuggling, rebelling) that don’t leave much room for kids. He also points out that, unlike Luke and Rey, Kylo never got to go on a nifty voyage of self-discovery. Instead he grew up under the crushing pressure of massive expectations. “How do you form friendships out of that?” Driver says. “How do you understand the weight of that? And if there’s no one around you guiding you, or articulating things the right way … it can easily go awry.” By the emotional logic that governs the Star Wars universe—and also our own—Kylo Ren is going to have to confront the past, and his fears, whatever they are, or be destroyed by them.

Where Lucas’s trilogies tended to follow the roots and branches of the Skywalker family tree—their personal saga was the saga of the galaxy writ small—the new movies have a slightly wider aperture and take in a new generation of heroes. There’s Rey, of course, who sources say will have progressed in her training since the end of The Last Jedi to the point where it’s almost complete. With that taken care of, all she has to do is reconstitute the entire Jedi Order from scratch, because as far as we know she’s the Last One.

If Kylo Ren can’t be redeemed it will almost certainly fall to Rey to put him down, in spite of their maybe-bond. Their relationship is the closest thing the new trilogy has to a star-crossed love story on the order of Han and Leia: a source close to the movie says that their Force-connection will turn out to run even deeper than we thought. They’re uniquely suited to understand each other, but at the same time they are in every way each other’s inverse, down to Kylo’s perverse rejection of his family, which is the one thing Rey craves most. “I think there’s a part of Rey that’s like, dude, you fucking had it all, you had it all,” Ridley says. “That was always a big question during filming: you had it all and you let it go.”

PUNCH IT! In a historic reunion, Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) retakes the helm of the Millennium Falcon, joined by Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Chewbacca, D-O, and BB-8. “He’s a survivor,” Williams says of Lando.

Rey is also, according to totally unsubstantiated Internet theories, a leading candidate to be the Skywalker of the title, pending some kind of head-snapping reveal about her ancestry. (For the record, the other leading unsubstantiated Internet theory has the “Skywalker” of the title referring to an entirely new order of Force users who will rise up and replace the Jedi.)

Rey seems ready for it all, or as ready as anybody could be. “It’s nice having that shot at the beginning of the teaser,” Ridley says, over avocado toast at a fancy Chicago hotel, “because I think it’s quite a good visual representation of where she is now: confident, calm, less fearful.… It’s still sort of overwhelming, but in a different way. It feels more right—less like inevitable and more like there’s a focus to the journey.” Focus is a good word for Rey: on-screen Ridley’s dramatic eyebrows form a wickedly sharp arrow of concentration. I asked Ridley what she’s thinking about when Rey is using her Force powers, and it turns out Rey seems focused because Ridley is actually seriously focused. “I literally visualize it. When I was lifting rocks I was visualizing the rocks moving. And then I was like, Oh, my God, I made it happen! And obviously there’s loads of rocks on strings, so, no, I didn’t. But I visualize that it’s really going on.” (That scene, which comes at the end of The Last Jedi, is another example of classic nondigital Star Wars effects: those were real rocks. “It was actually really amazing,” Ridley says. “It was sort of like a baby mobile.”)

There’s also Finn, the apostate Stormtrooper, played by the irrepressible Boyega, who in person practically vibrates with energy and speaks with a South London accent very different from Finn’s American one. In some ways Finn has gone through a complete character arc already: he confronted his past—by beating down his old boss, Captain Phasma—and found his courage and his moral center. He has had a tendency to panic, if not actively desert, in clutch situations, but at the Battle of Crait he proved that he was past that. “I think he’s just an active member of the Resistance now,” Boyega says. “Episode Eight, he couldn’t decide what team he was fighting for. But since then he’s made a clear decision.” (Cast members tend to refer to the Star Wars movies by their episode numbers: four is the original movie, seven is The Force Awakens, and so on.)

Finn still has to make a clear decision about his romantic situation, though. As Boyega put it at Star Wars Celebration: “Finn is single and willing to mingle!” The movies have been teasing his emotional connections with both Rey and the Resistance mechanic Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, with whom he shared a fleeting battlefield kiss in The Last Jedi. Rose seems like the more positive choice, given that she stops Finn from deserting early in the movie and saves his life at the Battle of Crait, and that the precedents for romantic involvements with Jedi are extremely bad. Tran is the first Asian-American woman to play a major role in a Star Wars movie, and she has been the target of both racist and sexist attacks online. But she has come through them as a fan favorite: when she appeared onstage in Chicago, she got a standing ovation.

Finally there’s Poe, who has mostly struggled with his own cocky impulsiveness, because he’s a loose-cannon-who-just-can’t-play-by-the-rules. Poe will have to step up and become a leader, because the Resistance is seriously short on officer material. In fact, some of that transformation will already have happened where The Rise of Skywalker picks up, which is about a year after the end of The Last Jedi. “There has been a bit of shared history that you haven’t seen,” Isaac says. “Whereas in the other films, Poe is this kind of lone wolf, now he’s really part of a group. They’re going out and going on missions and have a much more familiar dynamic now.” Star Wars has always been about friendship as much as it is about romance, and as of the end of The Last Jedi, Rey, Finn, and Poe are all finally in the same place for the first time since The Force Awakens.

The Rise of Skywalker introduces some new players, too. There’s a tiny one-wheeled droid called D-O and a large banana-slug alien named Klaud. Oh, and Naomi Ackie, Keri Russell, and Richard E. Grant have all joined the cast, though, again, we know practically nothing about who they’re playing. Going from being outside the Star Wars leviathan to being right in its belly can be a dizzying experience for a first-timer. “I actually tried to do this thing while we were filming,” Ackie says, “where I’d go one day, walking through London without seeing a Star Wars reference somewhere. And you can’t do it. You really can’t. So it’s extremely surreal to be in it and see how it works from the inside.

WELL MET Jordanian locals play the Aki-Aki, natives of the planet Pasaana.

If anything, Star Wars is only getting more omnipresent. The franchise under Lucas was a colossus, but he still ran it essentially as a private concern. He could make movies or not, as his muse dictated—he was beholden to no shareholders. But Star Wars under Disney makes the old Star Wars look positively quaint. Between 1977 and 2005, Lucasfilm released six Star Wars movies; when Skywalker premieres in December, Disney will have released five Star Wars movies in five years. “I think there is a larger expectation that Disney has,” Kennedy says. “On the other hand, though, I think that Disney is very respectful of what this is, and right from the beginning we talked about the fragility of this form of storytelling. Because it’s something that means so much to fans that you can’t turn this into some kind of factory approach. You can’t even do what Marvel does, necessarily, where you pick characters and build new franchises around those characters. This needs to evolve differently.”

A useful example of that fragility might be the relatively modest performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018. Solo was a perfectly good Star Wars movie that has made almost $400 million worldwide—but it’s also, according to industry estimates, the first one to actually lose money. In response Disney has gently but firmly pumped the brakes: the first movie in the next Star Wars trilogy, which will be helmed by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the duo behind Game of Thrones, won’t arrive till Christmas of 2022, with further installments every other year after that. There’s no official word as to what stories they’ll tell, or when a second trilogy being developed by Rian Johnson will appear.

But even as the movies pause, Star Wars continues to colonize any and all other media. In addition to video games, comics, novels, cartoons, container-loads of merch, etc., there are not one but two live-action TV series in the pipeline for Disney+, Disney’s new streaming service: The Mandalorian, created by Jon Favreau, and an as-yet-untitled show about Cassian Andor from Rogue One. I have personally tried a virtual-reality experience called Vader Immortal,written and produced by Dark Knight screenwriter David Goyer. At the end of May, Disneyland will open Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, a massive, 14-acre, $1 billion attraction where you can fly the Millennium Falcon, be captured by the First Order, and drink a blue milk cocktail (it’s actually nondairy) and Coca-Cola products out of exclusive BB-8-shaped bottles at the cantina. It’s the largest single-theme expansion in the park’s history: Take that, Toy Story Land. The Disney World version will open in August.

You realize now that, under Lucas, Star Wars always slightly had the brakes on—we were always kept a little starved for product. With Disney driving, we’ll really find out how big Star Wars can get.

ENCORE Composer John Williams conducting the Star Wars score, drawing on themes and motifs he has woven across four decades. “I didn’t think there would ever be a second film,” he says.

When people talk about the new Star Wars movies, they tend to talk about how faithful they are to the originals. What’s harder to say is how exactly the new films are different—how movies like Skywalker keep their connection to the past while at the same time finding a way to belong to the world of 2019. Because regardless of whether or not Star Wars has changed since 1977, the world around it has, profoundly. “There’s a loss of innocence, a sense of innocence that existed in the 70s that I don’t think to any extent exists today,” Kennedy says. “I think that has to permeate the storytelling and the reaction to the stories and how they’re set up. It has to feel differently because we’re different.”

We know things, as a people and as an audience, that we didn’t know back then. For example: back then it felt sort of O.K. to like Darth Vader, because even though he was evil he was also incredibly cool, and the kind of fascism he represented felt like a bogeyman from the distant past. But now fascism is rising again, which makes the whole First Order subplot look super-prescient, but it also reminds us that fascism is not even slightly cool in real life. “Evil needs to feel and look very real,” Kennedy says, “and what that means today may not be as black-and-white as it might have been in 1977, coming off a kind of World War II sensibility.” In the Star Wars–verse, Dark and Light are supposed to balance each other, but in the real world they just mix together into a hopelessly foggy, morally ambiguous gray.

But the changes are liberating too. Star Wars doesn’t have to stay frozen in time; if anything it’s the opposite, if it doesn’t change it’ll die. It will turn into Flash Gordon. For Abrams, that means he can’t go through this process so haunted by the ghost of George Lucas (who is of course still alive, but you get what I’m saying) that he winds up doing a cinematic Lucas impression. At some point Abrams has to let Abrams be Abrams.

The Rise of Skywalker might be that point. “Working on nine, I found myself approaching it slightly differently,” he says. “Which is to say that, on seven, I felt beholden to Star Wars in a way that was interesting—I was doing what to the best of my ability I felt Star Wars should be.” But this time something changed. Abrams found himself making different choices—for the camera angles, the lighting, the story. “It felt slightly more renegade; it felt slightly more like, you know, Fuck it, I’m going to do the thing that feels right because it does, not because it adheres to something.”

There are a lot of small subtle ways that Abrams’s Star Wars is different from Lucas’s, but if there’s a standout, it’s the way that the new movies look at history. Lucas’s Star Wars movies are bathed in the deep golden-sunset glow of the idyllic Old Republic, that more civilized age—but the new movies aren’t like that. They’re not nostalgic. They don’t long for the past; they’re more about the promise of the future. “This trilogy is about this young generation, this new generation, having to deal with all the debt that has come before,” Abrams says. “And it’s the sins of the father, and it’s the wisdom and the accomplishments of those who did great things, but it’s also those who committed atrocities, and the idea that this group is up against this unspeakable evil and are they prepared? Are they ready? What have they learned from before? It’s less about grandeur. It’s less about restoring an old age. It’s more about preserving a sense of freedom and not being one of the oppressed.”

FROM THE ASHES Mark Hamill, as Luke, with R2-D2. Speculation is rampant about who will “rise” as the Skywalker of the movie’s title—and how that choice will reflect the way the world has changed since Star Wars debuted in 1977.

The new generation doesn’t have that same connection to the old days that Luke and Leia did. It’s not like their parents destroyed the Old Republic. We don’t even know who their parents were! They’re too young to remember the Empire. They’re just here to clean up the mess they got left with, the disastrous consequences of bad decisions made by earlier generations, and try to survive long enough to see the future. Is any of this resonating with 2019? Might there possibly be a generation around here somewhere that’s worried about the consequences of its own decisions for the future? Star Wars has never been and probably never should be a vehicle for political arguments, but to paraphrase Ursula Le Guin, great science fiction is never really about the future. It’s about the present.

You could even—if you’re into that kind of thing—imagine the story of the new Star Wars trilogy as a metaphor for the making of the new Star Wars trilogy. In fact, I was totally prepared—because I am into that kind of thing!—to try to push this overthought metafictional hot take onto Abrams … but I didn’t have to. Abrams got there ahead of me. “The idea of the movie is kind of how I felt going into the movie as a filmmaker,” he says, “which is to say that I’ve inherited all this stuff, great stuff, and good wisdom, and the good and the bad, and it’s all coming to this end, and the question is, do we have what it takes to succeed?”

Kylo Ren has it all wrong: you can’t bring back the past and become your own grandfather, and you can’t kill the past, either. All you can do is make your peace with it and learn from it and move on. Abrams is doing that with Star Wars—and meanwhile the Resistance is going to have to do that, too, if they really are going to bring this saga to an end. Because we’ve been here before, watching a band of scrappy rebels take down a technofascist empire, and it seemed to work fine at the time—but it didn’t last. The same goes for the Jedi and their struggle with the Sith. To end this story, really end it, they’re going to have to figure out the conditions of a more permanent victory over the forces of darkness. Their past was imperfect at best, and the present is a complete disaster—but the future is all before them. This time, finally, they’re going to get it right.

#star wars tros #the rise of skywalker #vanity fair #long post

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 Review: Still Possesses Turtle Power After All These Years

Cowabunga all you happy people! I freaking love the Teenage Ninja Turtles. I grew up with it from Turtles in Time, which was my first video game, to the 2003 cartoon, which I covered the first three episodes of last month, and on to present day as I re-read the idw comics after finally reading the original eastman and laird run of mirage, and impatiently waiting for Shredder’s Revenge to come out after a LONG drout of no good TMNT games. I”m a fan of these heroes four, their dynamic as a family, the endless possiblities that come from it’s long history and ablitlity to go anywhere in any genre, and the wonderful goofy shit that happens when you have a franchise about mutant turtles learning ninjitsu from a rat and fighting a dude covered in knife covered samurai armor.

So with me finally covering the guys after almost a year last month and with a new movie set to debut at some point this year, I had the bright idea to revisit the FIRST TMNT movie after way too many years of not watching it. This movie is anear and dear to my heart: When I first started getting into the boys big as a kid with the 2003 cartoon, I badly wanted more turtles. But back then it wasn’t nearly as easy to glom onto some more of the sewer shock pizza kings: Streaming sites with all the cartoons on them weren’t all that accesable, dvd’s were expensive for the 87 cartoon, Mirage wasn’t reprinting the comics in any meaningful way and my local comic shop didn’t have any at all and I could only play the SNES when my brother had it set up on occasion like at our Grandma’s farm.

As you probably guessed though there was one exception: the original 1990 movie, which I got at Walmart for 5 bucks and haven’t let go of since. It was one of my first dvds and is still one of my most precious. Said film hit the spot just right as like my beloved 2003 series, it was a mildly goofy but still fucking cool adaptation that stuck closer to the mirage comics, even more than the 2003 series would, while taking a few queues from the 87 series. This film is as precious to me as the 2003 series and a with a brand new movie coming up, I figured it was the exact right time to dig into this classic: what makes it still good to this day, what’s fun to point and laugh at, and how the heck Jim Henson got involved in this. So join me under the cut as I take a look at my boys first theatrical outing and why I still love watching a turtle.

No One Wanted To Make This: Before we get into the film itself some background. As usual I struggled a bit, but thankfully found some help in the form of this Hollywood Reporter article. It’s a fascinating read worth your time, providing an oral history of the film from the people who worked on it.

The film was the baby of Gary Propper, a surfer dude and road manager for the prop comic Gallagher, aka that guy who used to smash watermelons but now has instead opted to smash what little’s left of his career by being a homophobic douchenozzle. He found an ally in Showtime producer Kim Dawson who’d produced Gallagher’s special. I don’t think there will be more of an 80′s sentence than “Gallagher’s surfer dude agent wanted to make a teenage mutant ninja turtles movie”. Propper was a huge fan of the comics, and with Dawson’s help convinced Laird and Eastman to let them option it to studios.

It may come as a shock to you but the road agent for a homophobic watermelon man and a producer at a niche cable channel wanting to make a movie based on an underground comic book about masked turtles at a time when the two most recent comic book movies were Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Howard the Duck, did not go well. Every door in Hollywood got slammed in their face, even Fox> Even the eventual backer of the film, Golden Harvest, a hong kong action film studio, took months to convince to actually back the film.

Things did not get easier from there: The films writer Bobby Herbeck had trouble getting a story agreed on because Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s working relationship had deteroiated horribly from the stress so naturally the two could not agree on a damn thing and argued with each other. Peter Laird made a tense siutation even worse by constnatly sniping at Herbeck and feeling he was a “Hollywood outsider infringing on his vision and characters”

Granted the script was apparently not great... but Pete still comes off as a pretnetious ass who views his weird indie comic as THE HIGHEST OF HIGH CALLINGS HOW DARE YOU SOIL IT. And continued to be kind of a prick like this throughout the rest of his time with the property.

Thankfully the film found i’ts voice, vision and director in Steve Barron. Barron was a music video guy who knew the producers and while reluctant, eventually dove into the project rightfully thinking the film would need to be a mix of the mirage comics and 87 cartoon, keeping aprils’ reporter job, the turtles lvoe of pizza and their iconic color coding from the cartoon but adapting several stories from the comics as the backbone of the film. The guys liked barron MUCH better and things ran smoother.

Barron also brought in one of the film’s biggest selling points and it’s most valuable asset: it’s triumphantly awesome Jim Henson costumes. Barron had worked with good old Jim on the music videos for Labyrinth, and while it took some convincing since the comics were violent as hell and that wasn’t Jim’s style, Barron eventually got him on board. This naturally doubled the budget, but given Henson’s costumes STILL hold up today and look better than the cgi used in the platinum dunes films... it was a good call. And this was brand new tech for jim, having to invent tons of new ideas and mechanisms just to make the things work, and said things still were absolute hell on the actors. Jim later ended up not liking the film for being too violent... which I find hilarious given how many muppets got eaten or blowed up real good on his show but regardless, I thank this legendary and wonderful man as without him this film WOULD NOT have worked. The costumes here look great, feel realistic, and you can’t tell the actors were dubbed much less horribly suffering in those suits. Much like Disney Land.

The film would get picked up for distribution by New Line, and despite i’ts weird as hell origins and the long shot it had.. the film was a MASSIVE hit at the box office, owing to a combination of Batman 89 the previous year having proved comic book movies can work for audiences, the cartoon’s runaway sucess, and a massive marketing campaign. The film made it’s mark. So now we know how we got here let’s get into the film itself.

What’s the Story Morning Glory?:

So the story for this one is largely cobbled together from some of the more notable arcs Eastman and Laird did before handing off the book to others full time as the stress of the company and the mounting tension with each other made it near impossible to work together on the book itself.

To Save time i’m just going through what hte movie takes from the comics plot wise now to save me the trouble later:The movie takes elements from the first issue (The Turtles, Splinter and Shredder’s backstories, Shredder being fully human and the main antagonist, Shredder’s design and the final rooftop showdown that results in Shredder’s death), second and third, (April’s apartment over her dad’s old store and the turtles moving in when their home is ransacked and splinter has gone missing), the rapheal micro series (A tounge in cheek way of cashing in on the Mini-Series craze of the 80s, a one shot by modern standards and something that’s tragically been underused as an idea as only TMNT and MLP have used the idea at IDW, Raph meeting casey and their fight with one another), the return of shredder arc (One of the turtles being ambushed and mobbed by the foot and then thrown though a sky light (Leo in the comic and Raph here), the turtles being horribly outnumbered by them, Casey coming ot the rescue and metting the non-raph turtles for the first time, and them being forced to escape when the place goes up in flames), their exile to northampton (April writing in a journal, casey working on a car with one of the guys and one of hte guys looking over hteir injured brother), and finally, their triumphant return which was very loosely adapted as there are no deformed shredder clones and shredder not being dead yet in this version was not brought back by a colony of super science worms.

So as for how this all comes together: Our story takes place in New York: A crimewave is high with muggings mysterious. There are a ton of phantom thefts going around and at most people have been seeing teens responsibile. And the police.. are at about this level of useful:

The only person doing something is April O’Neil, played by Judith Hoag. Hoag is easily the standout of the film, giving us a strong, confident woman with a wonderful sense of humor. She honestly might be my faviorite April O Neil, and given we’ve had some great ones with 2003, 2012 and Rise, that’s not something I say lightly. I honestly wish I’d recognized her in more stuff as she was both on Nashville and the mom in the Halloween Town films, and most recently was on the ScFy show the magicians. She’s a talented lady and i’m glad she’s still goin.

April is a reporter for Channel 3 like the cartoon, though for some weird reason her boss from the cartoon is replaced by Charles Pennigton, played by Jay Patterson, whose currently dealing with his troubled son Danny, played by Micheal Turney. Pennington is horribly useless at both jobs: At work he tries to ease April off calling out Chief Sterns, who refuses to listen to April’s evidence gathered from japanese immigrants that the crimes resemble similar ones in japan in favor of trying to get charles to shut her up. Danny meanwhile is a member of the foot becase his dad thinks shouting out him and talking about him like he’s not there and generally being a dipstick will actually do anything to help him.

I love the concept for the foot here. In addition to being a Ninja Violence Gang as always, they now recruit new members by finding kids without families or with troubled family lives and giving them a sense of family with the foot, and sweeting the bargin with a giant cave filled with arcade machines, a skate ramp and general late 80′s early 90′s kids goodies. Is it rediculous? Yes. Is it also clever as it gives Shredder an easy army of plausably deniable theives that he can pick the best out of to put in his elite that will be tirelessly loyal to him and him alone? Also yes.

So April being public about this stuff gets her attacked, which naturally leads to our heroes coming in, first in the shadows and later directly when April wont’ give up on the case and Shredder sends some ninjas to go shut her up.. which he does weirdly as the guy jsut slaps her and tells her to cut it out like he’s on a domestically abusive episode of Full House. Raph saves her, and we get the turtles origin.. though weirdly they cut it in half. We get the ooze portion but Splinter’s past with Saki, Saki’s murder of his master and his master’s partern Tang Shen is left for later in the film and the fact Shredder’s saki is treated as a big twist despite the fact the biggest audience for the film would be kids... and kids would’ve been familiar with the cartoon where the giant brain monster routinely screeches out saki at the shredder. Maybe Barron just thought he was an alcoholic I don’t know. It just would’ve made more sense to have it all at once and let the audeince put it together.

April becomes good friends with the turtles over a night of frozen pizza and camradrie, but the Splinters return home to find it ransacked, Splinter kidnapped by the foot, and are forced to Stay with april. Charles meanwhile tries to get April to backoff because he made a deal with the police to clear Danny’s record, without TELLING her any of this mind you, but I will save my rage on that little plot point for in a bit as Danny who he drug along sees the turtles and tells the Shredder.

So we get the return of the shredder arc as Raph goes through a window, our heroes fight valiantly, and Raph’s friend Casey who he met earlier shows up, the two having bonded as all true friends do.. by beating the shit out of each other ending with raph shouting DAMNNNNNNN really big and dramatically into the sky for some reason. The Turtles and friends escape with an injured raph from April’s burning second hand store. She had a second hand store it was poorly established and only there because she had it in the comics.

Our heroes retreat to a farm April’s grandma owned in Northampton, Massachutes, where Mirage was located at the time the original comics where they were exiled to the place were written and a location that has been a staple of the turtles ever since. The turtles slowly recover, lick their wounds, talk about who hooked up with who on gilligans island etc, before Leo connects with Splinter via meditation, who tells them to come back. Splinter also starts to connect with Danny and convinces him to swtich sides.. or at the very least squat in the boys old home.

The boys return home, find danny, and prepare, Danny goes back and ends up giving away the Turtles are home.. but the turtles are ready and in an awesome sequence kick the fuck out of the foot squad sent for them with some well prepared steam vents. Casey goes to get splinter since Danny told them and with Danny’s help, finds him, since Danny found out they were gonna kill him. Casey beats up Tatsu, shredder’s right hand man, and they get him out.

We get our final fight which is awesome up until the climax.. which is splinter casually tripping shredder with nunchucks and thier bloody history being kind of rushed and unsatsifying. Casey crushes shredder with a garbage truck, April gets her job back, more on that in a moment, she and casey hook up, and we end with the fucking awesome song T-U-R-T-L-E Power by partners in cryme. Seriously check it out it’s fucking triumphant.

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The song is just good.. cheesy? Sure but that’s half the fun. It’s the gold standard for movie theme songs for them and stacks up handily with the various animated series themes.. all of which slap. Okay... ALMOST all of which slap. Fast Forwards is aggressively medicore, which is doubly suprising to me since 4kids was REALLY damn good with theme songs. It was one of the three things they were best at along with finding VERY talented voice actors and setting japan based works in america because merica dammit.

The plot is very solid: It skilfully packed half of eastman and laird’s run on TMNT into 90 mintues while adding things like April’s job at channel 9, the way the foot recurited kids etc. The plot flows well for hte most part and apart from one annoying subplot we’ll get to never has a moment that feel unecessary or dosen’t pay off later. And the stellar plot and fun pacing of it helps boilster the characters that do work... and help paper over the ones that are so thin the’yd fall down a grate...

Our Heroes, Villains and Annoying Middle Aged Guys:

Yeahhhh character is hit and miss here. Some are rather strong, others are the bare basics for the character their adapting and most are just to serve the plot but some work some don’t, So let’s talk about it starting with our boys:

Raph is the most fleshed out of the turtles, being the main focus of the first 2/3 of the film, and having his anger be part of what SHOULD be a character arc, learning to temper it. And while granted MOST TMNT properties do this, to the point that Rise Raph is so loveable in part because his boisterous bruiser big bro attitude is a refreshing break from the usual grumpus we get. But at the time this hadn’t been done in every version but the 87 cartoon, so exploring it was valid.. but despite saying this should be a thing htey just forget about it and the most plot relevance he gets is going thorugh a window. He dosen’t really get a resolution.. his arc just kind of stops dead for the final half and it’s one of the film’s weaker points, one I only just now noticed on this rewatch. He’s still the most entertaining.

Leo is the weakest of the turtles. He really lacks a personality here mostly just being leader and while his spirtual side is touched on, it’s mostly a plot device. He’s just kinda the leader because he was in the comics to the point Partners in Cryme called Raph the leader. His role in getting taken out by the foot was taken by Raph, so he just has.. nothing to do for most of the film other than gripe at raph ocasionally and say orders. He’s probably the worst Leo i’ve seen outside of Next Mutation. I prefice that because after watching Phelous’ review it’s VERY clear those four are the worst versions of the characters, and no personality is still better than either having your team do nothing or yelling at them as your personality. I chalk this up to the Mirage Leo, and the mirage turtles to a poit being kind of bland. Not TERRIBLE characters, especially for the time, but not nearly as fleshed out or individualized as they woudl be in other adpatations, and with most traits LEo DID have, like his badassery flat out gone, he’s just.. nothing here.

Mikey and Donnie are a double act here with both sharing a brain. Interestingly instead of his normal genius character, Donnie is Mikey’s best friend and the two simply trade jokes and schtick together. The two are interchangable.. but easily the best part of the film and a lot of the most memorable gags and lines, from Ninja Kick the Damn Rabbit! to “Do you like Penicllin on your pizza”, are from them. Thier there almost entirely as comic relief but it works, with both clealry being more modled ont he 87 cartoon turtles, a move that helps lighten the mood in darker moments. Their just genuinely charming and it’s intresting to see such a diffrent version of Donnie, and other incarnations, specifically the 2003 and Rise versions, would retain the sarcastic edge.

Splinter is splinter. That’s about it, he’s peformed well and the puppet is amazing but he gets kidnapped a half an hour in and outside of influcencing Denny, more on that in a moment, and finishing Shredder he dosen’t do much but spout exposition. He’s not bad or anything, but he’s essentially a rodent shaped plot device. He was also puppeted by Kevin CLash, aka the guy who does Elmo. So there you go.

April on the other hand.. is truly excellent. This might be my faviorite April. Judith’s april nicely blends the cartoon and mirage versions: She has the cartoons energy and job, but the comics sheer will and casual nature. Judith just oozes personality and her April is just a joy to watch, from her breezy chemistry filled interactions with the guys to her confrntation with Chief Sterns, knowing she’ll get thrown out by the asshole. She’s confident, and even when afraid dosen’t back down to her attackers and even helps out during the sewer ambush. I mean it’s a pot on the head but still it’s neat. She’s easily the best part of the flim and the most fleshed out of the cast. The worst I can say is they kinda shove her store from the comics, Second Time Around, in there for no other reason than it was in the comics: It dosen’t come up until it’s needed for the foot’s assault on her place. But overall.. she’s just fantastic to watch.

Speaking of fantastic to watch, Elias Koteas is fantastic as Casey. Seriously he’s only second to the 2003 version in my eyes, getting the concept of a testorone filled average guy who decided to just go out and hit people with sports equipment after watching too much A-Team.. I mean that part of it’s not in this version but it’s implied, just right. Like judith, Elias is just really funny to watch and his big scenes, showing up just in time during the foot assault on april’s place and his fight with Tatsu are some of the best parts of the film, the former taken directly from the comics. This version isn’t without problems: His friendship with Raph, his most endearing aspect and one that has been carried throughout eveyr version Casey’s important, with the only exception so far being rise and we have a movie to fix that, is absent here. HE does save the guy, but they don’t really bond or anything. In fact he disappears for about half an hour after his big fight with Raph. But... again he’s just so damn entertaining, down to his JOSEEEEEEEEEEE Conseco bats (There was a two for one sale!).

Shredder is just a LITTLE better than splinter, if only because his actor projects a true aura of menace and I feel this version had some influence on the pants crappingly terrifying 2003 version. And the idea of the foot recurting teenagers like I said is a good one: He gives them home and a cause, they give him plausably deniable backup. And his fight with the boys in the climax is really awesome... the conclusion sucks but otherwise h’es okay. Not the deepest villian, but he has enough presence to be enjoyable.

His right hand man Tatsu, whose been adapted ocasionally since this and reimaigned as Natsu in the IDW comics, a female version, is also fine. He’s your standard grimacing goon but has enough presence to work.

So that brings us to the penningtons. Charles, april’s boss at the station and his son Danny who’s joined the foot as he feels his dad dosen’t love him. Charles..is about as interesting and likeable as a dog turd and is the worst aspect of the film. No debate there, he just sucks. He sucks so hard he’s classified as a black hole. The film wants you to see him as a put upon wokring dad whose frustrated with his son’s increased moodiness, skipping school and crminal undertakings and just wants to help him and loves him deep down. The problem is his actor’s delivery instead of concerned.. is just pissed. He just seems pissy and upset about the whole thing and comes off like he’s only mad about Danny doing this because he’s embarassing him and not because you know, it’s bad. When confronting Danny about stealing, he dosen’t consider MAYBE he’s part of a gang or needs help, but just wonders “Why are you stealing when I give you stuff”. Because, Dipshit, sometimes kids do crimes not because they need the stuff but because they WANT to, and because they want to act the fuck out.

The most he does for the kid is agree to try and get April to back off the police when Cheif Sterns offers to let Danny go and not put him on record in exchange for it. The problem.. is this makes him even MORE unsympathetic. While I do get wanting to help your child, I do and it’s a sucky position... he again should be sympathetic.. but he handles the thing so badly it sucks. He just tells april to ease off, with no reason given, then fires her when she SHOCKINGLY dosen’t give up taking the guy whose refusing to take her hard work seriously or actually solve the crime wave problem to task for his shitty behavior as ANY person facing a shitty, corrput cop would. She just wants to hold him acountable and get him to actually do something. He clearly knows her on a personal level too as he talks about his issues with his son freely with her, something you don’t do with an employee unless their also a friend on some level.

He could have TOLD april what was going on. She’d be furious at Stern’s naked corrpution and prioritizing shutting her up over actually solving crimes.. and thus put at least some of that energy into shutting him down or finding a way around it, going to the papers or something like that. Even in 1990 pre-internet, there were ways to get around Sterns blackmail and expose him so someone who’d actually do the job could get the job. Instead he just comes off as a selfish coward who rather than try and fight the guy blatantly abusing his power and using Charles own son as barganing chip, goes along with it because it’s the easier option to simply bow to him instead of TRY and stop this. And it’s not like he’s even going after a beloved public figure or someone who could hide behind his rep: Sterns was blatantly failing a crime wave, April had called him out on his failrues and coverups multiple times. The public was against sterns.. finding out he tried to blackmail the media into shutting up about him would PROBABLY end him... I only say probably not because the public wouldn’t skewer him, but because police tend to escape consequences for blatantly murdering someone on a daily basis and Andrew Cumo is STILl mayor over in new york, the same city this movie takes place, 31 years later, depsite EVERYONE asking him to resign over a long history of sexual harassment and a more recent but still horrible history of hiding death numbers. I don’t doubt people being stupid enough to ignore this or the bilaws with cops being stacked enough for him to get away with it, but just because someone gets away with a crime dosen’t mean you shoudln’t try and go after them in the first place. Fuck. Charles. Pennington.

Danny on the other hand is FAR more interesting and I think gets way too much flack when it comes to this subplot. Unlike his dad, whose dead weight, Danny is intresting: He provides a POV character for the foot’s MO in the film of taking in wayward teens, and his character arc is pretty engaging, slowly realizing the foot dosen’t care and that hte turtles are the good guys. HIs actor does a great job and while not the biggest presence, he’s not a bad addition to clan hamaoto and I wish other adaptations would find a way to use him. The pull between doing the right thing and his found family is a good struggle. My only real issue with his plot is the moviies flawed aseop about family. It tries to contrast shredder and his using the kids blatnatly with Splinter and Charles really loving their sons. And it works with Splinter and the kids because despite being a tad strict, Splinter clearly loves his sons and works with them to help them. The problem is ENTIRELY with Charles and Danny. As I said Charles love comes off as transasctional: He either thinks he can buy it or just expects it because he shot a bunch of goop into Danny’s mom after two minutes of disapointment. It dosen’t work with them because neither option is good for Danny. His father is neglectful, chooses throwing his jounralistic integrity out the window over talking to his son or his best friend about another way, and abrasive. Danny is no saint, he does do crimes, but it’s clearly a result of a shitty upbringing and the shredder and co actually offeirng him the love he desperatly craves. Danny goes to the foot because his dad is bad at his job but the film never adresses that and just expects Danny to go back to his dad because the plot says so. Danny would HONESTLY be better off with Splinter. No really. Sure he’d have to live in the sewers.. but he did so for a few weeks in the course of the movie. He’s fine down there. Splitner actually cares about him and took an intrest to him and knows how to raise a child. Let him become the fifth turtle. An aseop about family is not a bad thing: Loaded subject that it can be given how many outright abusive families exist, i’m one of the lucky ones who dosen’t have that issue, family is an important thing and can be a source of comfort and support. But this film tells you you should love and respect someone who does not love, respect or value you because he spent a minute in your mom’s vagina and that’s not how family should work and is outright dangerous to kids in an abusive situation. Love the film otherwise but fuck this aseop skyhigh.

Final thoughts:

Overall though.. the film is bodacious. It’s funny, well paced, has an awesome cast, and outside of a certain bald asswipe... it’s a really good superhero film. Is it the best i’ve seen? Nope. Not even close and character wise most of them are as thin as a wet paper bag covered in ranch dressing. But it’s still a fun as hell with awesome corepgraphy, a killer soundtrack, seriously the soundtrack is damn excellent and only didn’t get it’s own section because I didn’t have enough to say and some of the best effects work i’ve seen in a film in the turtle suits. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to check it out: it’s a breezy 90 minutes, it’s on hbo max and it’s a shell of a time. Will I do the next film?

We’ll see how this one does like wise and such, but I will be doing the rise film whenever it comes out this year. So look for that and keep possesing turtle power my dudes. If you liked this review subscirbe for more, join my patreon to keep this blog a chugging, comission a review if you have more turtle stuff you want me to cover, and comment on this. What do you think of the movie, what are your thoughts on the review, what can I do better, what other turtle stuff would you like me to cover/ Let me know and i’ll see you at hte next rainbow.

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles 1990 #leonardo #raphael #donetello #michealangelo #casey jones #april o'neil #the shredder #oroku saki #new line cinema #golden harvest #film #90's movies #the 90's #partners in cryme #judith hoag

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a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives · 5 years ago

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From Michael Hutchence to a Pirate: Why Luke Arnold's Career Is Sailing Smoothly

Luke Arnold has been working steadily as an actor in Australia for years, with roles on Winners & Losers and Rush, but the gig that really put him in the spotlight this year was his turn as Michael Hutchence in the two-part telemovie INXS: Never Tear Us Apart. Luke was praised for his performance as the iconic rock star, and now he's returning to the small screen as another familiar character: Long John Silver in the Starz action drama Black Sails.

The show takes place before the events in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, in the 1700s during the Golden Age of Piracy. There's a lot that happens in the pilot, including how Silver gets roped into the pirate industry, the set-up of a plan to find the ultimate treasure, and the battle for captaincy of the ships. There's also a lot of action and a little bit of pirate lovin'.

We caught up with Luke in Sydney yesterday ahead of the show's premiere on Showcase tonight at 9:40 p.m. to discuss the most fun thing about playing a pirate, what he took away from the experience of playing Michael Hutchence, and the craziest Hollywood party he's been to.

Hint: it was at a famous socialite's house.

POPSUGAR Australia: Where are you based these days?

Luke Arnold: Cape Town, while we shoot Black Sails, and that's about seven months of the year. I have a couple of boxes of things in Cape Town, a couple of boxes of things in Melbourne, LA, same thing. Everywhere there's a guitar and a box of basics.

PS: How did you get the role?

LA: So for years I was going to LA once or twice a year, and it just kind of happened that I got cast in Black Sails. I did one audition with the casting director, then met the showrunner, the creator, did one more audition, and then got signed to the show! But when I was signed to it they still didn't know what character I was going to play. They said, "You're a pirate, you're on the show, but we'll work out who you are later on."

PS: So did you test for a few different pirates?

LA: Yeah. Well I auditioned for just Vane, one of the other roles, and never actually auditioned for Silver. They went, 'It depends who else we cast,' and they found Zach McGowan for Vane and so I became Silver.

PS: What's the most fun thing about playing a pirate?

LA: I think it's that you're allowed to be a pirate in real-life, a little bit. You kind of get an excuse, and almost an expectation, to be a little rowdier, maybe a little drunker, in day-to-day life. So yeah, I think that's that.

PS: Which scenes do you enjoy filming the most?

LA: The writers on the show are really fantastic, and also really going for poetry a lot. They're really writing some amazing stuff, and I think that's what you wait for; occasionally you just get these speeches that are beautiful to say, and you can really sink your teeth into. And at the same time I love a big action scene where I've got nothing to say, and just stuff to do. I don't know which I like more, but it's nice to be on a show where you get both. One day I'll just be running up and down a ship that's blowing up, and the next day you get a five-page monologue.

PS: What are those big actions scenes like? Is this the largest scale thing you've done in terms of production?

LA: Absolutely it is. This is one of the biggest television shows ever made, and while there's a lot of visual effects, we have the real ships and the real towns, and we blow up a lot of stuff. So it's amazing. And what's fun — we've done two seasons of Black Sails — is you still never get used to walking onto a new set. Or when you bring in someone else to check out the set for the first time, it's a nice reminder where you're like, 'Oh that's right, this is amazing.' It's just a huge playground we get to play with on the show.

PS: I noticed the director of the pilot is Neil Marshall, who's known for directing the big battle episodes for Game of Thrones. What was it like working with him?

LA: It was fantastic. And that's his trademark, really, he does big action stuff for TV. So having him for Black Sails was fantastic.

PS: I feel like there's a lot that happens in the first episode. What can you tell me about John Silver's story?

LA: There's a lot going on, and I do think the first half of season one is really setting the stage in a lot of ways. Even though the pirate story has been around for ages, because we're doing a grittier, more real, historically-accurate version, there is a lot of setting the scene, and establishing what this world really is. But for John Silver, well I'm the one who's not a pirate. I'm the one guy, when we begin the show, that isn't invested in this pirate world. Everyone else, it's high stakes, they're really serious and they've got big plans, and for Silver, he just wants to get his handful of gold, and then head off to the next place. I think he realises that it's a pretty dumb career choice, if you can avoid becoming a pirate. It's dangerous; it kind of sucks, really! It's not a fun life. So I think the kind of lightness that John has at the beginning comes from that, that he's not invested in this world and he's breezing through.

But the story for him, really, is knowing that it is about him being sucked into this world, becoming one of the crew, and eventually becoming Long John Silver in Treasure Island.

PS: What kind of prep did you have to do for the role? Were you familiar with the character from Treasure Island?

LA: Yeah. I think he's the kind of character that's permanently in pop culture, in a lot of ways since Treasure Island happened. So I'd read the book before, but I'd also seen Muppet Treasure Island, and some of the other versions. And you feel like that character has been referenced in so many other cartoons and things, so it was very familiar. I then did a lot of character research. Also, we all had to go back and look at all the historical stuff, to try and get out of our heads the stereotypes, the clichés, what pirates have become over years of storytelling, and instead try and go back to who these men and women really were.

PS: I also read that physically it was quite a lot of prep?

LA: Yeah, it was. I had a few weeks of training on my own, then we did like a three-week pirate boot camp in Cape Town. It was really full on. It was a mixture of training in the gym, fight training, sailing ships, taking all the modern rigging off and just doing it by hand. It was just exhausting. In a way it's different on a film because you've got longer to shoot any particular scene, you can put the stunt doubles in, you can work it out. We're shooting a big budget movie every couple of weeks, so we have to just do it, and do it over and over. If we hadn't done all this training, I wouldn't be able to do the job. You wouldn't be able to use any angles on me — like after two times of climbing rope up the side of the ship, I don't even know if I could've done it once before the training. But now, we'll do it 30, 50 times in a day.

PS: Do you still like working out in your spare time?

LA: At the end of season one I was really addicted to it. I actually think the rock star stuff got me out of the habit, because I almost had to stop training, and stop eating to play Michael Hutchence.

PS: So you did Black Sails first?

LA: Yep. I did season one of Black Sails, then did Never Tear Us Apart, then season two of Black Sails. That got me out of the habit, then I had to get back in the habit for season two. I do still enjoy it, but I'm not like a big gym junkie. I would more enjoy kicking up with beers in the mid-afternoon in the sun. But even though the first part of training was tough, I never felt as good as I did when I was at the peak of physical health, and feeling good and eating right. It's just the pain to get to that point — you have to go through that pain to get to the point where you feel really good.

PS: As you do get to shoot in such amazing locations, do you get much time off to relax?

LA: A lot, actually. We only ever shoot a five-day week — sometimes we do six days — but mostly it's a five-day week, and it's an ensemble show, so any day we're not shooting, which is often, we'll generally be rehearsing the next episode, or going off to do costume stuff. It means we do get a lot of half-days, and days off. And Cape Town is a beautiful place for be for time off. The only problem is it's a long way away, so even if you do get a few days off, it's not like you'll go, 'Oh, I'll go visit the family.' We're stuck there. But we definitely get enough downtime, and it's recovery time as well. When we do the big fight scenes, it's like being beaten up for 16 hours, so often we do just need that day. They work us hard when we're working, but the time off in between gives us a chance to recover.

PS: I was going through your Twitter recently and saw Never Tear Us Apart aired in the US recently. What was the reception like to that? Do you even know how people reacted?

LA: It was the same as the Australian one: mostly just on Twitter. I've had a lot of really positive response. You get all the INXS fans coming out of the woodwork, taking the effort to say how much they enjoyed it, my performance and the show. So that's been really great. It's kind of airing over a few weeks there, so it's rolling out and people are still discovering it; obviously it didn't have the same publicity push that we had here. It's nice for the show to get a really good response in the American market.

PS: What's the biggest thing you took away from your experience of playing that role?

LA: It was about how important the people you work with are. They talk about film as a collaborative medium, and it absolutely is. I know that Never Tear Us Apart, there are so many ways it could have not worked. It worked because every single person, from the unit guys who arrived first to set up with the crew area, to everyone involved with props and costume — everyone cared so much. No one was just treating it like a job. And that is why it turned out being as good as it is, because everyone went above and beyond the call of duty to make it great. And I think that was the biggest thing, to see that. And I didn't think I was going to enjoy it; like I really wanted the role, but I thought the pressure of the whole thing was going to make it stressful the whole time. But I had so much fun, and that was just by being around so many passionate people.

PS: Who's on your wish list to work with as a co-star, or director, or producer?

LA: Ooh. There are lots. The actors I'm really loving at the moment: Jeff Bridges and Sam Rockwell are guys I'm looking at as other actors, where you feel you learn so much just from watching them. I'm sure working with them would be really amazing. It's tough to say with directors, because there's so many. The wish list is so big these days. [Martin] Scorsese is always my absolute idol of directors. It's constantly changing, especially in the TV world.

PS: Which TV shows are you obsessed with at the moment?

LA: I'm watching quite a few: Hannibal, House of Cards. Louie is, I think, my all-time favourite show at the moment. And I am a Game of Thrones fan as well. And Breaking Bad, I still think it's the best show that's been on television.

PS: And the Emmys are tomorrow! Are you still into watching things like that?

LA: Yeah! But actually it's funny, less now that we're in TV. It's like, really, you go for the parties, and after-parties, really. Black Sails won two Emmys this year, because we had the Creative Arts Emmys already, so we got the special in visual effects and the sound editing. So we're now an Emmy Award-winning show.

PS: Have you been to any crazy or memorable Hollywood parties?

LA: The first week I was ever in LA, which was about five years ago, like the first weekend I was there, I ended up at Paris Hilton's house at a party. It was like the cliché, LA . . . Like it was my first week and I was meeting people, and they were like, "So, how are you doing in LA, are you settling in?" I was like, "Yeah, I was at Paris Hilton's house on the weekend!" They were like, "Oh, OK, you've settled in fine, then."

PS: Have you seen The Bling Ring?

LA: It's exactly like that. Yeah. When they're walking through, and they've got the club with the poles, it was the same thing. There's like a tequila dispenser in the walls, where you just hold your glass and get shots of tequila. And her face is on everything.

Source: PopSugar Au

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