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cinemavariety · 4 years ago

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The Director’s Series: Paul Thomas Anderson

The director series will consist of me concentrating on the filmography of all my favorite directors. I will rank each of their films according to my personal taste. I hope this project will provide everyone with quality recommendations and insight into films that they might not have known about. Today’s director in spotlight is Paul Thomas Anderson

#8 - Hard Eight (1998) Runtime: 1 hr 42 min Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

John has lost all his money. He sits outside a diner in the desert when Sydney happens along, buys him coffee, then takes him to Reno and shows him how to get a free room without losing much money. Under Sydney's fatherly tutelage, John becomes a successful small-time professional gambler, and all is well, until he falls for Clementine, a cocktail waitress and sometimes hooker.

Verdict: One of the most impressive feature film debuts ever blessed to American cinema. Paul Thomas Anderson was only 25 years old when he broke into the scene and directed this (almost three years younger than me now, how depressing). While it is consistently thrilling and entertaining, Hard Eight oftentimes wears its influences on its sleeve too much. You can see how much inspiration Paul got from Tarantino with this film and it’s one of the 90s best independent movies. The star studded cast doesn’t hurt either.

#7 - Phantom Thread (2017) Runtime: 2 hr 10 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Renowned British dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock comes across Alma, a young, strong-willed woman, who soon becomes a fixture in his life as his muse and lover. Verdict: It’s safe to say that Phantom Thread is PTA’s most lavish and decadent film. It feels like a piece of ancient Hollywood golden-era cinema brought back to life. Johnny Greenwood’s orchestral score is the best sound work he’s ever done, it sweeps you off your feet when it goes along with Anderson’s signature arresting imagery. I’m in the minority who places this near the bottom of Anderson’s filmography, simply because Daniel Day Lewis’s character is so insufferable that it was hard for me to empathize in many ways. It still manages to be one of the most beautiful pieces of modern cinema.

#6 - Inherent Vice (2014) Runtime: 2 hr 28 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry “Doc” Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.

Verdict: Inherent Vice is Paul Thomas Anderson’s most underrated gem. I’ll admit, when I first saw this film, I didn’t really dig it that much and immediately cast it aside as his weakest effort. However, after some maturity, a few more viewings, and also not 100% adoring Phantom Thread, I have developed an immense appreciation for this nonsensical Thomas Pynchon adaptation. Pynchon as a writer is known as being basically unadaptable, but PTA revels in the absurdity of the film’s labyrinth of a plot. It also brings PTA back to his former glory days of ensemble casts and stoner drug fueled mayhem.

#5 - Punch-Drunk Love (2002) Runtime: 1 hr 35 min Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A psychologically troubled novelty supplier is nudged towards a romance with an English woman, all the while being extorted by a phone-sex line run by a crooked mattress salesman, and purchasing stunning amounts of pudding.

Verdict: Punch-Drunk Love plays out like a symphony of color, texture, and absolutely off-putting social interactions. I understand that Adam Sandler had his comeback last year with Uncut Gems, but this film is actually without a doubt the best performance he’s ever pulled off. And I credit that largely in part to the brilliance of Paul who was working behind him. It’s what I would say one of the most unconventional romantic comedies of all time. It’s nerve wracking, a little sad, super awkward - but also somehow manages to be endearing as well. The percussion heavy score brings manic energy to the whole film. Punch-Drunk Love is also a powerful statement on loneliness, unchecked mental illness, and the power of human connection.

#4 - Boogie Nights (1997) Runtime: 2 hr 35 min Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1 & 1.66 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Adult film director Jack Horner is always on the lookout for new talent and it's only by chance that he meets Eddie Adams who is working as a busboy in a restaurant. Eddie is young, good looking and plenty of libido to spare. Using the screen name Dirk Diggler, he quickly rises to the top of his industry winning awards year after year. Drugs and ego however come between Dirk and those around him and he soon finds that fame is fleeting.

Verdict: How this film possibly came from a director who is my age now is almost hard to believe. Boogie Nights is one of the quintessential 90s films. It has one of PTA’s best ensemble casts. Anderson’s sophomore effort was a result of the auteur finding his footing and his directorial voice that went on to enthrall audiences over several decades. PTA’s early visual motifs were lengthy and expertly choreographed tracking shots. Please refer to the scenes in the disco as well as the pool party scene pictured above for some of the best camera operation every committed to celluloid. Boogie Nights could possibly be hailed as PTA’s most consistently entertaining and audience friendly works. It’s a great story of the rise and fall of stardom.

#3 - There Will Be Blood (2007) Runtime: 2 hr 38 min Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A story of family, religion, hatred, oil and madness, focusing on a turn-of-the-century prospector in the early days of the business.

Verdict: Most critics and audiences would agree that There Will Be Blood is the director’s most impressive masterpiece (but who’s counting?). On a storytelling and technical level, I do have to agree that this is probably Paul Thomas Anderson’s best achievement, even if it isn’t exactly my personal favorite. This is the film where PTA really matured with his directorial vision. He abandoned a lot of his earlier flashy work with large casts and a constantly moving camera for something more grounded and more of a character study. There Will be Blood is the story of America in many ways. It’s the story of Capitalism. And how this system leads to so much bloodshed, greed, and hatred as man and man compete to have the most and be the best. This movie will surely stand the test of time and is a shining example of how groundbreaking modern American cinema can be.

#2 - Magnolia (1999) Runtime: 3 hr 8 min Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

An epic mosaic of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

Verdict: Paul Thomas Anderson’s third film found the director taking everything he had learned on his previous two, and expanding on that knowledge and developing more layers to his characters who have never felt so fully realized. Magnolia is the director’s magnum opus. It is epic in its length - clocking in at a little over three hours, making it his longest film by far. It is ambitious in its storytelling approach. Many films utilize the style of a variety of seemingly unrelated characters who connect to each other, oftentimes in a synchronistic fashion as they go about the trials and tribulations of their lives. However Magnolia is one of the few that did it first, did it the best, and set the bar for all of the subpar imitations that would soon follow. It’s also profoundly beautiful in the statements that PTA was trying to make. Paul, just barely 30 years old at the time when this was released, most definitely had an emotional and intellectual maturity that is rarely seen within a director of that age range. Magnolia is about redemption, loss, forgiveness, love, and trying to keep your head above water as frogs rain down on your head.

#1 - The Master (2012) Runtime: 2 hr 18 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm & 70mm

Freddie, a volatile, heavy-drinking veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, finds some semblance of a family when he stumbles onto the ship of Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of a new “religion” he forms after World War II.

Verdict: I’ve always been drawn to films about cults. Something about social behavior and social roles within a cult organization is a really interesting study on a sociological, psychological and anthropological level. The Master takes the cult formula and turns it on its head in many ways, never once foraying into the territory of exploitation or tropes. It instead takes a wholly original approach to the story. I mean, it is Paul Thomas Anderson that we’re talking about here. Joaquin Phoenix delivers his most unhinged, and certainly his most impressive, performance of his career as a mentally damaged alcoholic war veteran with pretty severe PTSD. The Master is also in many ways the story of the founding father of Scientology - L. Ron Hubbard. However, let’s just say it is a Scientology movie “in disguise” as no real historical names are ever spoke, the word “Scientology” is never uttered once, and even the director himself refuses to admit that’s what it is about (I mean who can blame him? He once had to work with Tom Cruise). It is one of the most fascinating character studies I’ve ever seen. Not to mention, it is PTA’s most beautifully shot film in my opinion and Johnny Greenwood’s musical contributions to the score elevate this film to ultimate masterpiece status. By the end, I felt like I had just undergone a transcendent experience of sorts. I hope one day PTA can make a film that “wows” me ever more than this one does.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Why I Am Legend Has One of the Most Frustrating Endings in Science Fiction

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Last March, confronted with a pandemic none of us had expected or understood, many people found themselves rewatching Stephen Soderberg’s Contagion. Whether out of morbid fascination or as a guideline to what we might see in the future it quickly topped charts on streaming services. A year on and another pandemic movie has made it into Netflix’s top 10 – 2007’s I Am Legend, a horror sci-fi starring Will Smith as Dr. Robert Neville, who thinks he’s the last man on Earth after a virus has wiped out most of the population. Directed by Francis Lawrence, who would go on to make the Hunger Games sequels, a new adaptation of Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel had been in the works at Warner Bros. since the mid ‘90s, with various talent attached, including Ridley Scott and Michael Bay as directors and Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger to star.

At its release the movie was praised for Smith’s performance but criticised for an overuse of CGI and a weak third act, but rewatching against the backdrop of 2021 what really sticks is how much of a wasted opportunity I Am Legend was. This is an hour of an excellent film, then 30-odd minutes of rubbish.

What you might remember of I Am Legend is this: cool empty New York stuff, Batman V Superman logo on a building, Will Smith talks to mannequins, the dog dies, CGI zombies, the end. But it’s so much better than that (until it’s not).

The first hour of I Am Legend is incredibly sparse. Virtually silent except for flashbacks, Dr. Neville is alone and talks only to his dog, Sam, and to mannequins he’s placed around shops and the street to try to emulate real life. New York is deserted. Each day when the sun is at its highest point, he waits at a meeting place he’s broadcast on the radio for other survivors to find him. Each day he is disappointed. His routines are down pat. He and the dog eat well from food scavenged during the day. At night they lock down and stay silent, hidden from the initially unseen threat outside. Neville is immune to infection but not to being killed by the creatures that keep him locked away at night, and on whom he experiments during the day. Neville is trying to find a cure using his antibodies, testing first on zombie rats and then on the infected human subjects he keeps chained up in his underground lab. He keeps failing. Is he really trying to save humanity? Or does he just want someone to talk to? Perhaps the two things are the same.

Forget zombies, I Am Legend is an exploration of the pure horror of being alone – it’s resonant as all hell in the current climate where we know that hordes of other people exist but that they pose an actual threat of death. That loneliness is so acute that talking to a dog or a shop dummy – or indeed a plant, your computer, the TV – seems completely legit. Neville’s struggles with socialization once Alice Braga’s Anna is in the picture feel entirely authentic and familiar – has he gone slightly mad from the loneliness and isolation, the film posits? In 2021, have we?

Keeping the CGI baddies in the shadows is a wise move, and even though they really haven’t aged well, in the first hour there’s still scope for a few decent scares. The best comes when Neville is caught in a trap set for him by one of the creatures – a trap which mirrors one he himself had set earlier to capture the latest of the infected he’s experimenting on. Hung up by a foot with the sun rapidly fading, when Neville wakes from his concussion he is in a serious rush to save himself with his faithful friend Sam barking in panic below him.

When it’s him and the dog, Smith is brilliant. Sam (played by two dogs – Abbey and Kona) is also excellent. And at the end of this sequence when the dog dies, bitten by zombie hounds and euthanized by Neville, it is genuinely devastating. Forget Marley and Me, this isn’t canine grief porn – instead the moment a grief stricken Neville goes to the record shop and talks to a mannequin, begging her to “please say hello to me,” is deeply upsetting. Smith does some very heavy lifting and it really holds up. Neville has hit rock bottom. Without Sam there’s nothing left to live for. Neville heads out into the night on a kamikaze mission to take as many creatures with him as he dies. The end. Except it’s not.

Instead, the film is completely ruined by the deus ex machina arrival of another survivor, Anna (Alice Braga) and her son Ethan (Charlie Tahan) who rescue Neville. Anna says she believes God sent her to find Neville and take him to a survivor colony she thinks exists in Vermont.

Anna’s arrival is no doubt supposed to provide hope and redemption in the final act after the incredibly moving end of the previous act but ultimately it does the opposite. Her random appearance undermines the three years Neville has endured. Neville has lived with the frankly torturous concept that he was the last man alive, but instead he’s faced with the possibility of a survivor community that somehow she has managed to track down while he has not, and the thought that for three years (or however long he’s been sending his own broadcast) survivors, in all likelihood, did hear his missive but never responded. His strength and resilience, his battle to stay sane, these were nothing, there were other people who could have found him, or he them, all along. Bad luck Neville, you spent three years trying to find a cure when you could have just had a chat with God (or worked harder on your telecoms). Bleak for him but in this version he becomes a martyr of sorts.

Anna and her son arrive and trigger a mega zombie showdown in the house. In a stroke of luck, Anna’s arrival has coincided with the latest strain of antidote actually working, so when Neville, Anna, and her son barricade themselves in the lab, Neville is able to extract a vial of the cure to give to Anna and then sacrifices himself so she can escape the creatures. Neville is killed but the cure is safe and arrives at the encampment with Anna, his life’s work wasn’t futile, and Anna gives a speech essentially saying how much of a legend Robert Neville was.

Yep, the title of the film has been completely reinterpreted from the original text here to mean “I am a total legend!” rather than the much much darker meaning found in Richard Matheson’s wonderful novel.

In the novel Robert Neville’s foes are vampires and other than the traditional vampire weaknesses – garlic, sunlight, stake through the heart, etc – they are intelligent, articulate, and human-like. In Matheson’s book Neville meets and becomes involved with a woman whom he discovers is a vampire sent to spy on him; the race of infected have managed to treat and control their symptoms and are forming a new society, while he’s been hunting them down. And the woman’s husband is one of the vampires Neville has killed.

The book ends with a dying Neville realizing that, to the vampires, he is the bogeyman, the stuff of nightmares, as vampires themselves were once to humans. He will become a legend, not because he’s a great man, but because in his extinction he will be a cautionary tale and a mythical figure to a newly formed society.

The director’s cut alternate ending of I Am Legend gives more of a nod to Matheson’s book – it’s better but it’s still not great. In this version the alpha male zombie who set the trap for Neville is bashing his head repeatedly on the locked door of Neville’s lab where Neville, Anna, her son, and his latest test subject, a female, are barricaded. Through the glass, the alpha male makes the sign of a butterfly (a call back to a gesture Neville’s daughter makes earlier in the film) to indicate the butterfly tattoo the female has. Neville understands finally that the “darkseekers” have their own relationships and community. The woman is the alpha’s partner. To the darkseekers, Neville is the monster, who has been capturing and torturing members of their group. Behind him is a photo wall of each creature he has experimented on and eventually killed. Willing to sacrifice himself so that Anna and her son can escape, he is now at the mercy of the alpha. In fact, when he apologizes and returns the captured female, the darkseekers show Neville mercy and don’t kill him. In this version Neville, Anna, and her son travel to the survivors’ community together and Neville lives.

This ending works better and gives more resonance to certain earlier scenes – the alpha male exposing himself to sunlight after the female is captured, the trap alpha uses on Neville matching the one Neville used on the female, the scenes of Neville experimenting on the female causing her excruciating pain – the final beats still don’t land. The outdated CGI renders the creatures so far away from humanity that the emotional resonance is lost. “Sorry about torturing your missus,” doesn’t have quite the impact it should and the existence of the community in Vermont, far from feeling hopeful, gives a sense that Neville has just wasted the last three years.

Neither ending properly gets across the significance of Matheson’s title, and the inclusion of reference to Bob Marley’s album Legend only muddies things further.

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Lawrence’s I Am Legend is so nearly a brilliant, thrilling, troubling exploration of loneliness and isolation and it could have had a gut punch ending which remained faithful to the book had they gone for something other than the CGI zombies. Instead it’s a movie which builds to an electric crisis point and then throws it all in the bin with unnecessary new characters, a religious message, and a faux happy ending that no one needed.

I Am Legend is available to stream on Netflix (US) and Sky and Now TV (UK).

The post Why I Am Legend Has One of the Most Frustrating Endings in Science Fiction appeared first on Den of Geek.

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alichay · 7 years ago

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fchanmanthe2nd replied to your post: listen we’re rewatching the mission: impossible…

Can you give me the summary so I don’t have to watch them before mi6 lol

sure! i mean the shorthand is a series of terrible things happens to ethan hunt (tom cruise) while he still somehow manages to stay hopeful and good (#killme) but i can also go into a bit of quick detail

the movies are fairly episodic and apart from returning cast members the plots don’t tend to overlap, i obviously don’t know if that’s going to be the case for m:i f and they are playing the “this is retribution for all the things ethan’s ever done” angle so there might be more picking up on things than usual but they do also try to make the movies so you don’t have to have seen the previous ones to understand it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i will keep it basic and bold people i know are in mi:f but i’m also keeping as spoiler-free as possible so sorry if i miss something/someone that turns out to be important

m:i - ethan’s mentor jim phelps is revealed to be a mole who is trying to sell the aliases of all IMF (impossible missions force……… i know) agents on the black market, he frames ethan as the mole to avoid suspicion (including murdering their entire team) and ethan recruits luther to help reveal phelps as the real mole to the IMF.

m:i 2 - rogue IMF agent sean ambrose gets hold of a deadly supervirus and plans to release it in sydney because he alone has the cure and will therefore make a ton of money selling it. ethan recruits nyah, an ex of sean’s, to steal it from him and she ends up becoming infected with the only surviving sample of chimera. ethan and sean have an interminable ~showdown, sean is killed, nyah is cured. (luther is part of his team for this mission)

m:i 3 - ethan has now retired, only trains recruits, and is planning to settle down with fiancée julia. one of his recruits dies horribly and ethan goes back into the field to catch the man responsible, davian, with luther with him in the field and benji helping from IMF HQ. they discover davian is working with one of their superiors at the IMF, davian takes julia hostage, ethan is thought to be davian’s ally in the IMF and imprisoned. ethan escapes and goes to save julia, thinks he sees her executed but it turns out to be a decoy. he eventually defeats davian and rescues the real julia but not before actually dying and julia (who is a doctor) being forced to resuscitate him.

mi: gp - ethan is in prison after supposedly making a series of unauthorised kills. he is broken out by benji to help take down kurt hendricks, who is trying to steal russian nuclear launch codes from the kremlin. the codes are successfully stolen by hendricks and the kremlin gets blown up. they’re thought to be responsible and therefore disowned by the IMF, and the entire IMF is then shut down. ethan etc carry on independently, joined by brandt, eventually catch up with hendricks and stop him from detonating the nuke just in time. (a subplot of this film is that julia appears to have died, which is supposedly why ethan made the kills, and brandt was responsible for protecting her and thinks he failed - it turns out ethan faked her death to protect her after the events of m:i 3 and they are now separated.)

mi: rn - the IMF is dissolved by the CIA at the hands of alan hunley after a hearing is held criticising its methods and lack of accountability. ethan, who is now a fugitive, continues to try and take down a rogue organisation called the syndicate independently, recruiting benji and luther to help. this brings them into contact with ilsa faust, a syndicate agent who is a double agent also working for MI6. the head of the syndicate, solomon lane, captures benji in an attempt to get ethan to surrender himself and the data he and ilsa have recovered. the data turns out to be access to the syndicate’s funds, and the syndicate is revealed to be an organisation originally set up by MI6 which went rogue. ethan destroys the data and takes lane into custody. hunley, who has been pursuing ethan throughout, is so impressed by their success that he reinstates the IMF and becomes its new head. (a subplot of this film is that brandt is now technically working for hunley and keeps switching back and forth to protect ethan from being killed but also prevent him from doing anything potentially world-ending)

#chanmanthe2nd #i honestly tried to keep it brief these movies are like 75% plot twists and double-crosses and people turning out to be something other #than what you think they are #feel free to ask any questions i'm happy to elaborate on anything that doesn't make sense!

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swimminginthedesert · 7 years ago

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Interesting. I heard about the rumored affair with Nicole Kidman during production of Moulin Rouge, but not all of the ones you mentioned. That Instagram photo though... I don't think it was an old photo. The reason being.. look at Riley' eyes (Mary's ex) and you can see the heartache and disappointment. Meanwhile, Mary is kissing the side of his head like she had just won an argument and was reassuring Riley that this was the right thing to do.

artloverinlimbo Hi, I hope you don’t mind me replying to you like this (my reply is too long so I don’t want to reply directly to my old post).

Yes, the affair with Nicole Kidman during Moulin Rouge was all over the press back in the day since Tom Cruise was (still is) an A+ list. The baby Nicole miscarried was also allegedly Ewan’s child, not Tom’s. However looking back I think Tom/ Nicole marriage was arranged by Scientology in the first place, so I don’t consider Ewan a wife-stealer back then (I use ”wife-stealer” loosely; nobody can "steal” anyone’s wife if the marriage isn’t rocky in the first place).

The thing with Emily Blunt and Michelle Williams wasn’t reported though. Everyone cheats in Hollywood, and I think it was just on-set hookups during filming, not on-going affair like with Nicole, so nobody cared to report it. He and Melanie were also photographed in Paris holding hands and cuddling (clearly not-platonic), but it died down eventually (nobody cared about him in 2010, and perhaps there were some excuses like “she was French and French cuddle their friends like that”).

It’s an open secret for more than a decade that Ewan and his wife Eve had an open marriage, or that’s what he said to his female co-stars to suggest a fling with him (I have nothing against polygamy if the couple agrees with the arrangement, though in this case it seems like the arrangement was made so he could have a fling whenever he wants while she had to stay silent). That’s why Ewan has had a series of affairs since forever, and I think it’s safe to assume that’s the reason Mary agreed to have an affair with him in the first place.

Anyway, apparently Ewan’s and Mary’s affair turned into something more. Why he suddenly developed “real” feelings for one of his mistresses for the first time in 20 years, I don’t know, maybe he’s in mid-life crisis, maybe because she’s a younger version of his wife and he has a type, or maybe miraculously they indeed fell in love with each other (Mary started dating Riley when she was 18, so even though it was a 7-year marriage, it was a 15-year relationship, and she still divorced him to be with Ewan after knowing him for 3 months). We all knows that Mary and Riley posted pics of them on IG after the divorce announcement, claiming their split was amicable, but later deleted it. I think that this is because Riley then knew about Mary’s affair and he was the more monogamous partner in their marriage and was hurt (the one in smaller films/ shows, in less films/ shows, travels to shooting locations less, is less well-known, etc. is almost ALWAYS the more monogamous one).

I love and adore Mary and want nothing but happiness and success for her. I'm not being judg-ey. It's just that once the cast and crew for "Art of Self Defense" was announced, it was revealed Mary would not be involved. Given the whole claim that they would still support one another's careers, I naturally assumed she would remain attached. When it was revealed she was not, it came as a bit of a surprise.

If Riley knew the truth about the reason she wanted to have a divorce, it’s understandable that he didn’t want her to be involved with his film anymore. Hell, it’s understandable if he doesn’t want her to be in his life anymore. Divorcees can remain friends (some even come back together), but when one cheated on the other it’s hard to even look at each other or be physically in the same place.

I'm still hoping Mary (or Ewan, or Riley) will she'd light on everything that happened eventually.

I hope that they don’t. I think I can guess the gist of what actually happened already (see above) so none of them need to clarify anything. I just want all of them to stay silent on press/ social media so his wife and daughters can find some peace. I still remember that article asking Eve why her husband (still not-separated) paraded in the London cafe with a woman young enough to be her daughter, imagine how humiliated a 51-year-old woman felt when she was asked that (and considering the way Eve said that she didn’t like Ewan’s classless Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice speeches, she is still very hurt).

#Ewan McGregor #Eve McGregor #Eve Mavrakis #Mary Elizabeth Winstead

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jakelace · 7 years ago

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2017 IN FILM - PART 1 (84-71)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year again! No, not Christmas. It’s Awards Season, my friends. The time of year where we look back at the films that graced cinemas over the calendar year, and where, just like last year, I tell you all about every new movie I saw in that time. With the announcement of the Academy Awards nominees I’ve decided that we’ll begin our journey today with the worst of the worst that 2017 had to offer. Over the course of the year I saw 84 films. Some were good, some were bad, and still others had Emoji in the title, so without any further ado, my ranked list of every 2017 movie I’ve seen.

84. The Emoji Movie

“We’re number two! We’re number two!”

The Emoji Movie, despite being at the bottom of my rankings, is not the worst movie of 2017. That’s because this ninety minute misstep isn’t a film, it’s an advertisement. While it might seem silly to make such a distinction (there is a plot that actually makes a shred of sense, it’s at least feature length, etc.), it’s incredibly hard to get past just how often this advertisement detours from its central plot just to make a cheap and out of touch product placement for an outdated app like Candy Crush. The Emoji Movie’s greatest offense, however, is when it tries to capitalize on the inherent meme culture that surrounded itself from the pre-production stage by creating a new dance called ‘The Emoji Pop’, that I am absolutely certain they thought was going to catch on with the youth of the world. Sony Pictures Animation’s latest cash-grab is an unoriginal, unfunny, and morally questionable mess. At least the animation is decent?

83. Unforgettable

“There was a time when I thought we were on the road to getting back together...but then he met you.”

Here it is, my lowest rated film of 2017! While a lot of times a movie can be bad for being incoherent, unoriginal, or offensive, I often say that the worst sin a film can commit is being boring. Unforgettable commits that sin. While I can admire Rosario Dawson’s commitment to this truly awful retread of the “crazy ex-wife” trope that was popularized by every Lifetime movie ever, its Katherine Heigl’s performance that makes the film somewhat endurable. It’s over the top in all of the best “so bad it’s good” ways. After thirty minutes of being bored out of my mind I found the best way to get through this cinematic torture was to watch for the next hilariously overacted bit of poorly written dialogue that would come out of Heigl’s mouth. In the end though, you can’t blame her for trying to make the best out of such a predictable and horribly paced film. Unfortunately it would seem that Unforgettable is by far the most forgettable film of 2017.

82. Phoenix Forgotten

“I just want to apologize to Mike's mom, Josh's mom, and my mom. And I'm sorry to everyone.”

Do you remember Phoenix Forgotten? No? Neither do I...yes I know that’s two jokes about forgettable movies with some form of ‘forget’ in the title in a row, but I just couldn’t help myself. Just like the screenwriters for this film couldn’t help themselves from stealing every plot point in the movie from not only the 1999 horror classic The Blair Witch Project, but also taking several ideas from last year’s sequel; Blair Witch. It’s absolutely shameless how little originality can be found within the film’s eighty minute runtime. The film follows three college high-school students lost in the woods desert, searching for a witch aliens who terrorize a town, while footage from the present day follows the protagonist’s brother sister who is still haunted by the sudden disappearance of their sibling. All of this blatant plagiarism wouldn’t have even been so bad had the movie at least been decent, but who needs to make a good film when you can just ride on the coat tails of a horror film that is already beloved? No other release this year sparked such a passionately heated response from me which shocks myself the most considering I’m not even that big of a fan of The Blair Witch Project in the first place! Oh well...at least they don’t fight about a map in this one...or did they?

81. The Bye Bye Man

“Don’t think it! Don’t say it!”

If Phoenix Forgotten is horrible for being unoriginal, then The Bye Bye Man is horrible for being completely and laughably incompetent in every way. The entire film is based on the premise that if you say or think his name then he will come and...make you go bye-bye? The rules are completely unclear, and that’s a huge part of the problem. The threat of the Bye Bye Man (I seriously hate that name) is hindered by the fact that it’s impossible to understand what his powers are. Sometimes he can make our poorly acted main characters see things that aren’t really there. Sometimes he can possess them. Sometimes he can...make them impotent? Who encouraged the thought that that would be a good thing to include in their supernatural horror film? Like, I get it, erectile dysfunction is a serious and scary thing that affects more than three million American men every year, but it’s not really the kind of fear I’m looking for in a movie called The Bye Bye Man. I’d continue to discuss this one, but, I mean, it’s all in the name. Also in this scene from the movie. Enjoy.

80. Amityville: The Awakening

“God gave up on us, sweetheart...”

I had been watching the post-production and release of this film very closely for years before it was eventually released this past October. While that might not seem too out of the ordinary, you have to keep in mind that this was filmed in 2014. That is three years of reshoots and pushed back releases. However, when all seemed bleak and I thought I might never get the chance to watch what was sure to be a glorious train wreck, the film was released to own for free on the Google Play store. However, even with my rock bottom expectations, I was still disappointed by Amityville: The Awakening. While I was expecting something laughably bad, what I got was an end product that was more boring than anything else. And while I haven’t seen any of the other films in the Amityville franchise, I can’t help but feel contempt for its continued use of a real family’s suffering all in the name of making money. I guess it’s a good thing this one only made $742 dollars on its opening weekend then, yeah?

79. Wish Upon

“Hold up, you dig on multiverses?”

One shot. I liked one shot in this entire movie. Everything else is lazily written drivel. It’s not all that hard to get me on board for a movie with Final Destination style deaths. I love how silly and over-the-top those films are, and I’ve always thought that bringing that style of Rube Goldberg death traps into more films could provide for entertaining new ideas. This movie has none of that. Its biggest offenses, however, come when it also tries to tackle the well-worn “be careful what you wish for” message. Besides the weird moment where Joey King’s character wishes that her dad would become cooler which then in turn leads to her friend wanting to to sleep with him, the moral of the story is so trite at this point that even adding a horror element into the mix can’t save this from being nothing but bland. Looks like the director should have wished for a better movie.

78. Rings

“There's a mark on your hand. It says ‘rebirth’.”

If Rings was an attempt to bring the horror franchise into modern technology by presenting Samara’s video as a metaphorical computer virus, or even commenting on the state of internet content as a whole, then this movie completely fails on that front. Seriously, the only time this movie even brings that aspect into play is in the last two minutes of the film. No joke. Everything else up to that point is a senseless retread of the previous two American films in the franchise. On top of that, it is easy to tell that Rings fell victim to countless reshoots and rewrites. There is no finer example of that than the fact that this film has two cold opens. It’s almost as though they had the plane cold open (the one from all of the trailers) from a previous version of the movie and thought it was just so good that they couldn’t leave it on the cutting room floor. If it were up to me I would have left the entire film on the cutting room floor.

77. The Mummy

“Sometimes it does take a monster to fight a monster.”

How do you kill an entire cinematic universe in one fell swoop? Ask The Mummy. Sure, that might be a low blow, but The Mummy is one of the most sorry excuses for a blockbuster I’ve ever seen. When the entire conflict of your entire supernatural action flick can be boiled down to ‘who would Tom Cruise rather sleep with? A mummy or an alive woman’ you know you went wrong somewhere down the line. The worst part about this is that there are moments where you can see where they’re coming from and what they’re trying to accomplish, but they just can’t seem to make any logical sense of it. Scenes are often rushed or dragged on for far too long and it becomes clear that nobody involved had any grasp on how a film should be paced...or written...or acted...or made at all.

76. Rock Dog

“Dad, I’ve decided to become a musician.”

I barely remember this movie. There is a dog. He shoots lasers out of his hands (not kidding). He rocks I’m guessing. I know I watched this, but everything about it was so generic and well-worn that I felt like I had seen this before, just done a lot better. I had never seen laser dog hands before though. Sure the moral about following your dreams and standing up for what you believe in is good, but when it comes to children’s entertainment you can do so much better. Unless you want to see a dog shoot lasers out of his hands. This movie has got you covered on that.

75. Fist Fight

“Teachers can’t fight!”

I wanted to really enjoy Fist Fight. It’s filled to the brim with actors I find quite funny, like Charlie Day, Jillian Bell, and Kumail Nanjiani, but it’s hard for these comedic talents to find anything to work with when the plot for the film is so bare-bones. Outside of the original comedic value in thinking of teachers fist fighting in the schoolyard, it’s hard to find much else to do with that premise. Nothing speaks more to the failure of this film than the fact that I didn’t laugh even once. The story is dumb, the jokes are played out, and worst of all the director wastes some of the best comedic actors in the industry on a movie that barely even functions.

74. Split

“Someone's coming for you, and you're not gonna like it.”

Controversial Opinion Alert! When I first saw Split I felt like I was alone on my island of disapproval of this film. The world seemed to be completely sold on M. Night Shyamalan’s most recent directorial endeavor, but something just felt off to me about it. It took me a few months and discussions with my friend Aaron when he finally cracked the case wide open; while everyone was expecting the film to vilify individuals with mental illness, the exact opposite comes true in the final act. Split goes so far as to glorify mental illness and being ‘broken’ in a way that feels unbelievably gross to me. If you want to read more of my thoughts about the exposition-heavy writing side of the film you can do so here, but I can’t even begin to explain how horrible of a message this is, so let’s just move on, shall we?

73. Sandy Wexler

“You can’t stop a shooting star, scientists have proven this.”

If it weren’t for its ungodly long runtime and constant detours into meaningless garbage, Sandy Wexler might actually be alright. In fact, this film does something that an Adam Sandler film hasn’t done for a very long time: it made me laugh. Sure it was just once and every other attempt at humor is just as overdone and juvenile as anything else he’s made, but a small step in the right direction is still a step. Last year for my ‘year in review’ I covered another Adam Sandler flick called The Do-Over, and in that mini review I called Sandler’s recent string of films a downward spiral in quality and ability. Now, if that was true, then Sandy Wexler is the first step towards getting out of that creative hole he’s found himself in. What can I say? I’m an optimist.

72. Despicable Me 3

“You told me my father died of disappointment the day I was born!”

Despicable Three (yes I’m calling it that and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me) is the same brand of gutter trash we’ve come to expect from Illumination Studios. The story is nonsensical, the animation is sinfully simplistic, and the Minions...my god...the Minions. Once again, I have to ask how Illumination Studios have become so popular with American audiences? I truly do not understand. Every character, every plot line, every joke feels focus tested to death. There is no originality in any of these frames. The heart and soul of the original is gone and replaced with Minions merchandise. Every decision seems to be based around how merchandisable they can make every second of their sensory overloading piece of garbage they have the nerve to call a film. I hate Despicable Three and everything it stands for. That being said, I love hearing Trey Parker’s voice come out of a children’s cartoon.

71. The Circle

“Knowing is good, but knowing everything is better.”

I love how much I hate The Circle. If you’re looking for a basic description of what this YA fiction masterpiece in preaching is all about, then imagine Black Mirror, but remove all of the subtlety and nuance about a world run by tech and replace it with a caveman grunting “technology bad.” There you have it, a screenplay worthy of Tom Hanks and Emma Watson’s time and talent. Just kidding. Why would they ever agree to this? Maybe they too hate the dangers of social media so much that they can look past all the good it can do. The worst part about it all though is that the film constantly insults the intelligence of its audience by claiming that there is no healthy middle ground to take between being completely obsessed with technology and living off the grid entirely. Which reminds me? Why are you reading this online? Go make weird deer antler ornaments or something you tech junkie.

That’s all for today, but join me tomorrow as I cover three bombastic blockbusters, two unsettlingly bad thrillers, and one movie about a baby that’s also a boss...no hints.

#the emoji movie #Unforgettable #Phoenix Forgotten #The Bye Bye Man #amityville the awakening #Wish Upon #rings #The Mummy #Rock Dog #Fist Fight #Split #Sandy Wexler #Despicable Me 3 #The Circle

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nyangibun · 7 years ago

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I am maybe an ignorant person but ... I don't understand the Jonsa thing so ... I fou have time can you explain this to me .. ? And even if i'm a Jonerys shipper for years i would really like to know the Jonsa chemistery :)

Oh wow…

The thing is I think shipping is kind of subjective to a degree. It doesn’t matter if it’s canon or not because there’ll always be a group who think it shouldn’t be canon and so on and so forth. I don’t know how to explain Jonsa to someone who doesn’t see it (not that I’m blaming you for not seeing it! Some people just don’t and that’s totally okay!) but I will try my best, Anonny.

For me personally, it began in Season 6. I had no prior inclination for Jonsa or even an inkling of the possibility of them. Frankly, I was the most casual of Game of Thrones viewers. It took me nearly a year to actually finish watching Season 5 (but that’s mostly because my ex told me about the Sansa x Ramsay storyline and I hated it so much I refused to watch it). For me, GoT was and has always been a political fantasy drama with lots of boobs and blood. Shipping wasn’t on the cards for me at all (aside from my love for Gendrya). But then Season 6 happened and we finally, finally got a Stark reunion. Only this Stark reunion felt weird.

First of all, Jon and Sansa had so very little interactions (ie. none) prior to this. They were the two most seemingly random Starks to meet. And yet when they hugged, Sansa nuzzled his face. At first, I thought ‘okay, well they lost everyone and this is the first person from their old life they’ve seen’ and even in retrospect I don’t see it as particularly a romantic action on their parts. But it is a weird thing to have the actors do. Even if they were always meant to be platonic, nuzzling is weird for anyone not involved romantically or sexually. I would never ever nuzzle any of my family members or my friends, but then I’m not the best comparison. I don’t like physical affection from anyone I’m not dating so lmao. Still, I was willing to overlook that because it’s Game of Thrones. Maybe they’re just trying to amp up the intensity of the scene. But then you get continued lingering looks from Jon, strange awestruck half-smiles and dim romantic atmosphere. The most bizarre shot for me though was the tent scene. Jon and Sansa had to stop in the middle of their arguing to stare at each other, chests heaving with candlelight in the background. This is Romantic Trope 101. If you had siblings arguing with each other, there’d be more angry yelling, insulting and storming off. You don’t pause to stare at each other as you struggle to catch your breath.

This all contributed to my questioning over what I was seeing. I didn’t immediately think ‘oh yeah this is my ship’. I just thought ‘okay this is weird, right?’ and continued to think that for the rest of Season 6. Honestly, the idea of them as a ship didn’t really cement itself in my head until the very last episode where Jon kissed her forehead, lingered just a bit too long, stared at her lips, walked away and the immediate next shot is the reveal of R+L=J. It was like light bulbs flashing in my head, like ‘oh shit they’re cousins and cousins totally get together and is accepted as a viable marriage prospect!!’ I mean I suspected Jon wasn’t really Ned’s son, but the confirmation right after a Jonsa scene felt so so important. Not even through shipper goggles. It was what made me realise the strange tension between them wasn’t solely in my head and that this probably had a purpose for setting something up.

That’s the Jonsa thing for me. That’s literally how I began to ship them. I don’t know if this answers your question about their chemistry, but these were the moments that highlighted their chemistry to me personally.

The reason why I’ve stayed with this ship for as long as I have, I can list you the reasons below:

To paraphrase from a Tom Cruise film, they complete each other. I know, I know. How utterly cliched of me, but for lack of a better phrase, it’s true. I don’t even mean it in a their souls match and blahblahblah, but I mean that in personalities. Jon is the emotionally-driven, honourable, brave and intelligent military tactician, whose life has been consumed by war and physically fighting for survival. Sansa is the emotionally-guarded, brave, shrewd and pragmatic politician. Her life in contrast has been consumed by the political game and she’s had to mentally fight for survival. Jon knows the North and the dangers beyond; Sansa knows the South and the dangers there. They’re two sides of the same coin and they need each other to survive. Yes, I’d love it if it was romantically, but even taking that away, they still need each other. Together, they make a formidable team. They are Tyrion and Dani but better because there is no power imbalance. They’re equals. Yes, Jon doesn’t quite listen to Sansa sometimes, but him leaving her the North is a testament to his trust and respect for her. This is one of the reasons why I love and adore their interactions so much. You can still see how different they are as individuals but just as clearly, you can see how well they mesh together, and you sit there rooting for them both.

They offer each other something no one else does. S7 Sansa is the most open and honest and confident I’ve ever seen her and that’s all because she trusts Jon. He might disagree, he might argue, but she feels so safe in his presence that she feels comfortable enough to finally speak her mind and demonstrate how intelligent she really is. And for the first time, she can let herself love and hope again. You see that in the soft and affectionate way she regards Jon in any matter, and that is true even in the scowls and exasperation because those emotions are still born out of her love and thus her concern for him. She wants only the best for him and for their home. Ultimately what it comes down to is Jon makes her happy, safe, hopeful and strong. His faith in her is slowly restoring her own faith in herself. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for Sansa. Even if Jonsa isn’t canon, if Sansa continues to get this, I’ll be okay. But I do feel Jonsa as a romantic pairing would be the perfect way to conclude Sansa’s story. She’s been basically sold into two loveless marriages and believes no one will ever marry her for love even though all she ever wanted was a fairy-tail romance. If her story concludes with the valiant knight (Jon) and her falling in love and marrying, it would be the perfect end, and one that isn’t too fairy-tale considering their angst and conflict over being half-siblings-turned-cousins.

As for Jon, I personally believe Sansa’s return gave his second life meaning again. He had been so ready and determined to escape to the south and give up entirely. We don’t know whether he would’ve gone through with it and maybe he wouldn’t, but this was the lowest Jon’s ever been. He was so lost, so disillusioned, and insecure and broken, but then came Sansa and suddenly he had purpose again. Maybe it was simply family obligations, but you can’t say she didn’t inspire him to fight for his home. I don’t think Jon would’ve done it without Sansa. She also challenges him in a way no one else has since Ygritte and Jon needs that. He’s not the perfect hero; he doesn’t know everything. He’s been in the North too long to understand the political game the way Sansa does. She offers him insight into a world he had no prior knowledge in. She also offers him camaraderie, a partner with equal stakes in this war, and a friend who he can come to, someone who loves and respects him and believes in him so wholeheartedly. Yes, he has loyal knights and friends, but no one quite understands his insecurity as a Stark and a rule the way Sansa does. Their interaction in 7x01 showed us this relationship/friendship between them (the way Sansa immediately knew Jon was doubting himself and sought to reassure him earnestly even when he was being rather rude to her because the thing is she knew he needed it more than she needed his validation).

Another reason why I love this ship so much is Jon’s ferocity when it comes to Sansa. You could absolutely read this as platonic and I’m sure many do, but you can’t deny there’s definitely something visceral and primal in the way Jon strives to protect her. I’ve seen Jon kill and get aggressive, but I’ve never seen him lose control so violently than when he was beating the crap out of Ramsay. It was probably a combination of seeing Ramsay kill Rickon in front of him, but definitely also for Sansa. Then you have 7x02 where Jon chokes Littlefinger, who had been needling him and provoking him all throughout that scene, but it was the comment about loving Sansa in a sexual/romantic manner that really got him angry. The fact is there was no immediate thought to that action; it was absolutely a reactionary thing and again a primal one at that. Jon doesn’t even say anything for awhile and I think for a few seconds he really was considering killing Littlefinger. But then it’s like he comes to himself. Angry murderous kitten Jon is my favourite kind of Jon lol.

There are also a lot of Ned x Catelyn parallels that makes it hard to ignore, as well as 7x02′s parallel to Jaime x Brienne’s awkward wave goodbye. These are 2 of the most established ships in the fandom. Paralleling Jonsa with them feels intentional and important.

But honestly, there really are so many reasons why I love this ship and why I believe in them so wholeheartedly. Maybe it is just Kit and Sophie having unbelievable chemistry, but I like to believe otherwise. I hope this sheds some light for you, Anonny.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #actuallyjonsa #jon snow #sansa stark #game of thrones #asks #anonymous #jonsa meta #long post #got s7 #spoilers #why i ship jonsa

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todayinlarries · 5 years ago

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As always, Dogliampaynedoesntinstagram, is one of the more considered and therefore more frustrating (to me) people in fandom.

1) The framing for this is very interesting, because it talks about Nick asking Harry about Camille, which if you’ve forgotten makes it seem like he asked a pointed question about them dating. However, I went back and checked and this was actually the interview where they did the heart monitor thing—him asking about her was actually just showing her photo for that game (they had already been linked briefly iirc but if I’m wrong it doesn’t matter here). I’m sure if asked Ralph would say that’s what she’s talking about blah blah, but it’s a different framing entirely! It does, for example, also fit with two friends who enjoy taking the piss out of each other.

2) As a guy who believes in data and fact checking, I wonder where the idea that how fake relationships start and end is where you know the difference. I understand that obviously there are fake (or perhaps more accurately imo built up) relationships that exist, but what allows one to determine which ones were really fake and which ones weren’t? Obviously Ralph is talking about her sense of things here, but she does it in such a way that it’s presented as indisputable, that obviously these are the marks of a fake relationship.

3) The idea that a model makes it fake, as if no famous men every date models for real is.......k.

4) I think one thing fandom understandably puts too much weight or value on is the reported timeline of when things occur. On the one hand, that’s the only record we have. On the other hand, that’s not to say it’s an accurate one! Harry and Camille broke up a year after they started dating—that may be 100% true or that may be when they decided to be public about their break up. Larries think that’s too neat a timeline, and obviously that’s inherently kind of dumb, but moreover that isn’t to say that it’s true. It’s reasonable to have some skepticism about reported timelines—it’s just as likely that Harry and her started dating sooner and that wasn’t reported. I get that the Larry standpoint is “tabloids are fake but they’re accurate to the storyline that someone wants to tell” because that’s somehow both a cynical and extremely naive view of tabloids and because if someone is faking a story, why are they doing it badly?

5) Obviously if there are beards there are many ways too bears, but for my two cents here are actually the most common ways:

Relationship by assumption. This is actually what Colton Haynes did a lot—he would go out with female friends to events and look close (because they were friends) and then the tabloids would write that they were dating. He and the actress would both insist that they were only friends, which because of how we consume media, looks like a quaint denial rather than the truth. He never actually fake dated anyone (to my knowledge) he simply allowed media bias to work for him. Arguably this is something Harry has done, or at least have happened to him (I think the media perception of his exes is perhaps different from the actual list) but Camille doesn’t fit because they did confirm it.

A real relationship. You know how a lot of beards work? They actually date the gay man, who knows he’s gay, and they are blissfully unaware of this fact. It’s complicated, especially these days, but that’s an experience that many, many gay men have had and many celebrity gay men discuss doing. Arguably this is where stuff like Tom Cruise’s gay rumors would fall.

A relationship that seems to real you can’t tell it’s fake. I mean. This is more complicated, obviously, and I can’t say I think these are common. But if there are celebrities faking relationships they are probably doing it in such a way that it’s indistinguishable from an actual relationship and may have more nuance to what it is, see above.

The build up. This is what I think is probably as common as the first one. It’s less for hiding sexuality and more publicity and is essentially “oh you two hooked up or people think you’re hooking up, let’s spin that”. I would also include overemphasizing the friendships from my first group as part of this, but in this case it’s explicitly people who have fucked. America is very sex negative! We’d rather believe in two people dating than just hooking up. I think a lot of relationships that seem unbelievable are, not because they’ve never fucked, but because that’s the core and the actual relationship part is put on.

#anyways also this isn’t the golden age of hollywood #or even the 90s #and the 1D guys aren’t Tom Cruise #(who obviously genuinely married and made life hard for several women!)#they do not need to go to elaborate lengths with relationahips #they don’t even need to go to lengths at all!#no one questions Niall’s straightness and he’s pretty closed off about dating #you can’t tell me that wouldn’t work for the others #and be a better use of their budget

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cbk1000 · 7 years ago

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Fun Scientology story (since we were just yesterday talking about Tom Cruise): the neighbors who lived across from my family when I was a kid were actually Scientologists. Nice older couple, but definitely a little strange in that harmless eccentric way (the wife was actually my piano teacher). The husband had heart issues (I think he was an ex-smoker), and had to have bypass surgery. My dad, who is an asshole (he’s definitely where I got it from) asked why he was having surgery since their religion didn’t believe in it; he thought they could heal themselves? (Asked with the most sarcastic innocence you’ve ever heard, probably.) They explained to him that you had to be a higher level to heal yourself, so that’s why he was going to the hospital to have surgery. This, I’m sure, is Tom Cruise’s problem; even after all his years of dedication, he just hasn’t graduated to a high enough level.

They actually wanted to take me to church with them, and my dad politely declined. When I asked why I couldn’t go (because he was normally open to me going to whichever church I liked; I’d already been to Catholic and Mormon services), he said it wasn’t a religion, it was a cult, and I was completely stumped, because I was then still young enough to not understand what a cult was.

Now I looked back on it like oooooohhh...thanks for helping me dodge that one, dad.

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kiddiemom-blog · 6 years ago

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Weird Star Parenting Tips

Take Placenta Pills

Nikki Reed recently posted on Instagram that she was down to the last of her placenta pills. She's not the first celeb to publicly celebrate the supplements —Kim Kardashian touted hers too. "Ps sending love to all you mamas out there doing whatever feels right for you!" Reed wrote. "This was recommended to me by my doula but that does not mean it’s for everyone :). Just do you." Hopefully "do you" means that you *don't* plan on following Reed and Kardashian's lead. In June, the CDC issued a warning after a mother who had eaten her placenta passed a serious blood infection on to the infant she was breastfeeding, and more recently, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology published a study revealing that there's likely no benefit to be gained from consuming one's placenta.

Don't Use a Microwave

Kourtney Kardashian said on her app and website that she never uses microwaves. “When I had Mason, I did a lot of health-related research and decided to get rid of my microwave when I read that toxins from plastic containers can be transferred to food when reheated (this applies to BPA-free plastic containers too),” she wrote. But scientists say there's no need to forego the convenience of your microwave oven, so long as you're following the manufacturer's instructions.

Keep "No Secrets" From Your Kids

While, in theory, this sounds like it could make sense, it's also important to remember that several of the Jolie-Pitt kids are under 12 — way too young to be overburdened with adult worries. That's why parenting "white lies" exist, duh.

RELATED: 10 Former Celebrity Couples Who Are Proudly Co-Parenting

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The former Hollywood couple known as Brangelina adopted an anything-goes attitude when it came to their kids' questions about life. "We have a policy in our family, no secrets," Pitt, 49, told . "I mean, there's an age of understanding, so you've got to present it in a way that is age-appropriate, but we know our children very well [...] We want everything to be on the table and any questions they have, for them to ask."

While, in theory, this sounds like it could make sense, it's also important to remember that several of the Jolie-Pitt kids are under 12 —way too young to be overburdened with adult worries. That's why parenting "white lies" exist, duh.

Eat Your Wife's Placenta

." He later downplayed what he said and joked about it as if he'd never planned on doing it, but given that he's someone who also ascribes to Scientology's "silent birth" weirdness, I'm not so sure he was kidding. Terrifyingly, he's not the only dad who's thought this was a good plan either.' title="Eat Your Wife's Placenta" src="https://hips.hearstapps.com/rbk.h-cdn.co/assets/17/15/tom-cruise.jpg?crop=1.0xw:1xh;center,top&resize=480:*">

Before baby Suri was born in 2006, proud soon-to-be dad Tom Cruise told GQ, "I'm gonna eat the placenta. I thought that would be good. Very nutritious." He later downplayed the comments and joked about it as if he'd never planned on doing it, but given that he's someone who also ascribes to Scientology's "silent birth" weirdness, I'm not so sure he was kidding. Terrifyingly, he's not the only dad who's thought this was a good plan either.

"Hot Sauce" Your Child's Tongue to Discipline Them

Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel publicly confirmed that she's used this method of punishment on her kids.

"It does sting and the memory stays with them so that the next time they may actually have some self-control and stop before they lie or bite or something like that [...] It's a logical consequence," Whelchel said on Good Morning America. Suffice it to say, this antiquated disciplinary method is borderline child abuse and more likely to make your kid afraid of you than anything else.

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"Hot saucing" is exactly what it sounds like — forcibly dousing your kid's tongue with spiciness in an attempt to punish them for something. Former Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel publicly confirmed that she's used this method of punishment on her kids.

Let Your Kids Run the Show

," Remini said. "We're definite pushovers and at the end of the day you have to follow your heart."

Their first attempts at weaning the little girl went poorly when Remini, yet again, gave in. "Sofia was crying again for a bottle of milk and then I started crying I think because I felt so bad," she said. "It just doesn't feel right for me to have a screaming baby and to say no to a bottle." So, basically, the exact opposite of how you're supposed to deal with toddler tantrums.

RELATED: These 24 Celeb Moms Are Basically Their Kid's Twin

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Leah Remini once famously asked Rachael Ray for help in breaking her "pushover mom" habit. At age 4, the former Scientologist's daughter Sofia was still drinking up to 6 bottles a night and wearing diapers. "I'm very consistent; I give in," Remini said. "We're definite pushovers and at the end of the day you have to follow your heart."

Spend Entire Days Naked Around Your Kid

While teaching kids that sex is good and natural is smart (and plenty of parents do walk around naked in front of their kids), there are probably better ways to do it than spending entire "Naked Sundays" doing everything in the buff.

' title="Spend Entire Days Naked Around Your Kid" src="https://hips.hearstapps.com/rbk.h-cdn.co/assets/17/15/christina-aguilera.jpg?crop=1.0xw:1xh;center,top&resize=480:*">

For Christina Aguilera, being naked quite often around her child — not just casually changing clothes in front of her then 2-year-old son — was about teaching him that his mom wasn't embarrassed of being a sexual creature. "I think it's important that he sees mommy not be ashamed for her sexuality," the singer once said. "I mean, he's two. We're art collectors, there are a lot of female nudes around the house. Max will be growing up in a house where it's just the norm... It's only weird when you shame it...."

Encourage Them to Experiment With Drugs

While most parents are pretty gung-ho about the no-drugs-in-my-house rule, Pamela Anderson was a little more lax when it came to her own teenage sons with ex-husband Tommy Lee. In a post on her website, she talked about wanting them to try out illicit substances — safely. "We want them to practice safe sex, drink, and experiment with drugs in moderation, find true love," the former Baywatch star wrote. I mean, the true love thing is nice, at least....

Take a Bath Together

Harper's Bazaar in 2012. Which isn't too shocking or weird... except when you realize that Paltrow's kids Apple and Moses were, respectively, about 7 and 5 at the time of the interview.

Bonus Paltrow parenting weirdness: "Apple was cross as I only let them watch TV in French or Spanish. When I'm in France, I go to Boulevard Beaumarchais and buy all their cartoons."

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Obviously, all moms have bathed with their toddlers or infants — it's the fastest and simplest way to bathe a kid who might not be thrilled about getting scrubbed clean. Gwyneth Paltrow can be counted among that number. "We all get into the tub together," the actress told Harper's Bazaar in 2012. Which isn't too shocking or weird... except when you realize that Paltrow's kids Apple and Moses were, respectively, about 7 and 5 at the time of the interview.

Bonus Paltrow parenting weirdness: "Apple was cross as I only let them watch TV in French or Spanish. When I'm in France, I go to Boulevard Beaumarchais and buy all their cartoons."

Hold Your Infant Over the Toilet to Potty Train Them

claimed that her son Benjamin was potty-trained when he was just 6 months old — and the way she did it is a little eyebrow-raising.

Using "elimination communication" (or carrying the baby around totally naked and learning to recognize and immediately react to signs that the infant's gotta go), Bündchen would race her baby over to the toilet and just kind of... hold him there 'til he went. "Give it about five minutes, and bang," she said, noting that she also had him on a strict schedule in order to anticipate bowel movements. Ain't nobody got time for that, lady.

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Potty-training is rough, and there's no one-size-fits-all method to get it done. When a kid is ready depends on the individual child and lot of other factors. But retired supermodel Gisele Bündchen claimed that her son Benjamin was potty-trained when he was just 6 months old — and the way she did it is a little eyebrow-raising.

Be Overly Strict

RELATED: 23 Celebrities Who Embraced Adoption

' title="Be Overly Strict" src="https://hips.hearstapps.com/rbk.h-cdn.co/assets/17/15/madonna.jpg?crop=1.0xw:1xh;center,top&resize=480:*">

Madonna has a notoriously rocky relationship with several of her children, and her admittedly strict parenting style could be partially to blame. "Insiders" have said that Rocco and Lourdes find their mom to be "too controlling," with Madonna "micromanaging" Rocco's life while he was on tour with her in 2015. Supposedly, they were also made to follow the strict macrobiotic diet she's known for, with sweets of any kind totally outlawed. TV, newspapers, and magazines were also a hard no, according to a list of "rules" apparently sent via email from her assistant to her ex Guy Ritchie.

No Nannies or Babysitters

Big Bang Theory star has said. "So we're making it work that way, because that's what we feel is best for our children, and everything else fits in around that. To us, nothing is more important than being with our children at any given point of the day."

This would all be well and good, except for the fact that, in the same interview, Bialik admitted that she didn't sleep as much as she should and had no social life outside of her kids. Logically, being only a mom (and, in Bialik's case, an actress) and having literally nothing outside of that sounds like a one-way ticket to misery town.

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Mayim Bialik is known for her hardcore adherence to attachment parenting, which involves a lot of 24/7 momming — and, apparently, never using nannies or babysitters. "[It's] not because we think we're better than anyone else, but it's just a personal decision that we want to be the caregivers for our kids," the Big Bang Theory star has said. "So we're making it work that way, because that's what we feel is best for our children, and everything else fits in around that. To us, nothing is more important than being with our children at any given point of the day."

Mouth-Feed Your Child

Clueless actress wrote. "This video was taken about a month or 2 ago when he was a bit wobbly. Now he is grabbing my mouth to get the food!" According to PopSugar, Silverstone's parenting book The Kind Mama also included gems about babies not needing diapers of any kind and putting your kid in a crib rather than co-sleeping being "tantamount to child neglect." Um. No. ' title="Mouth-Feed Your Child" src="https://hips.hearstapps.com/rbk.h-cdn.co/assets/17/15/alicia-silverstone.jpg?crop=1.0xw:1xh;center,top&resize=480:*">

Notably "crunchy" mom Alicia Silverstone once shared a video of herself feeding her then 11-month-old son Bear — by chewing up food for him and then having him eat it out of her mouth. Like a bird.

"I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup from my mouth to his. It's his favorite…and mine. He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I'm eating," the Clueless actress wrote. "This video was taken about a month or 2 ago when he was a bit wobbly. Now he is grabbing my mouth to get the food!" According to PopSugar, Silverstone's parenting book The Kind Mama also included gems about babies not needing diapers of any kind and putting your kid in a crib rather than co-sleeping being "tantamount to child neglect." Um. No.

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dethdealer12345-blog · 7 years ago

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Children of Men (2006) Review

Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 sci-dystopian action thriller is a movie that should have been good.

Starring Clive Owen, Michael Caine, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, with action scenes done in one take, set in a futuristic, almost Mad-Max type world. Unfortunately the film is bogged down by terrible dialogue, an over the top preachy political message, terrible action, a comically bad ending, and Juliane Moore.

Hailed as a masterpiece by many for reasons I cannot understand.

In short the movie was a boring mess.

To explain why, however, will require basically spoiling the entire movie.

Thus I will give my final score now before continuing on with everything I found wrong.

2/5

Spoiler Filled Review

I must give praise to the one take action scenes even if they are terribly directed, boring, or just plain silly, I at least applaud the film for attempting such a thing.

Spoiler filled review

The film opens with a quick run down of the plot as Clive Owen buys coffee from some shop.

And no joke, the movie's premise sounds like a joke.

"In a world, were no children have been born in 18 years. Only one man can save us."

That man is Clive Owen, some guy who lost his own child when every woman became sterile.

Grabbing his coffee, he glances over to the TV were the news reports that the youngest person alive has just died. An 18 year old young man, who the world treated as a celebrity. Clive Owen pays it no mind while those around him start to break down and cry.

Stepping out of the building, he starts to walk down the sidewalk when the building explodes behind him. Thus we get our first action scene, as well as see what will quickly become the problem with most of them.

The camera is focused on Clive Owen who is walking, and basically doing nothing while action, explosions, and other violence happen behind him, or around him, or beside him, or in front of him. Which is fine and all, if the actor the camera focuses on is doing something, instead he just kind of walks or jogs along. Even Tom Cruise, in the terrible War of the World remake, ran at least. Not Clive Owen, anything that would require effort is clearly too much work.

Thus while the film's action scenes are all one take, not one is memorable or good, and so instead of seeing Tony Jaa fighting his way up a hotel, or Chow Yun Fat and Company shoot their way through a hospital, we get Clive Owen, just kind of there, while stuff happens in the background.

The movie than moves on to its political message as Clive Owen passes by signs, billboards,

commercials, and even straight up cages. All of which are full of immigrants, or are telling the populace that immigrants should not be in the country. Yes, everyone, in a world were everything is falling apart. Where the clock is literally counting down to the end of humanity. Where there are commercials selling suicide. Where wars, terrorism, fanatics, and the like have destroyed every other nation aside from England, because England is just that great. How the US, Russia, China, Germany, Australia, Japan, and the like have fallen apart but not England is never mentioned but it is assumed to be because the world is going to hell.

Which is fine. Which can work. However what the movie than cannot do is try to make me care about the immigrants. England is only standing because it has closed off its borders, like how Japan rebuilt itself after the Sengoku Era. It has legitimate historical context, which is ruined because its clear the film is taking a stance against such policies, not just in the movie but in reality itself.

And reality notwithstanding as I do not care what position you take politically, in the movie itself the premise that we should care for the immigrants is ludicrous. The movie tells us the world is going to ruin Mad Max style, it than tells us that England is the only country still running, it than tells us that England is the only country to seal its borders, therefore as far as the movie has explained the only reason England is not a shit hole is because it has closed its borders. And the movie expects you to believe that is a bad thing.

Its silly to say the least, terrible if you think about it, and preachy if being honest. But preachy in a way that you cant help but disagree.

Still, that is the message and the movie will try its damnedest to get you to agree with it. Though that is not the only message, as the film again and again enforces the image that the government is bad.

That borders should not exist. And that the police are evil.

It sounds like something an extreme anarchist would write.

Down with the government. Let the people do whatever they want.

And again despite your political leanings, in the setting of the film, it makes no sense.

The movie has barely been on ten minutes at this point but already the plot is hemorrhaging. The film is in desperate need of help, and thus in steps Michael Caine, with a fart joke.

And again I am not making this up, he actually makes a fart joke. He turns to Clive Owens and says pull my finger.

Pull My Finger.

Do I even need to say anything else.

Michael Caine explains about a secret organization called the Human Project, which is a group of scientists trying to save the world. Clive Owens believes them to be a myth, but it is heavily implied that they are real. Clive Owens then leaves.

Only to be kidnapped by his ex-wife Julianne Moore. And while others might see her as good, I cannot. The woman cannot act. She is almost as bad as Kevin Costner and oddly enough her best role has been in the second Kingsmen film were she hams it up and is essentially playing a joke character. And even there she is the worst part of the film.

Playing herself, she tells Clive Owens that she is hiring him to create transit papers for some young immigrant woman. Clive agrees because he needs the money and goes to a friend of his. A friend who is incredibly rich, incredibly powerful and can get Clive whatever he needs. That man is played by Danny Huston, for some reason. Not that he is bad or anything, just that he is severely underused and basically makes an extended cameo.

He has also rescued the statue of David, as well as many other works of art, because again, the world is in ruin. And again we are supposed to see him as a bad guy, as he looks out a window over a factory that looks like a certain Pink Floyd album while a large balloon of a pig floats in the air. Yes the movie is that on the nose with its symbolism.

This man is a pig. A greedy business man who you should not like. Or at least that is what the visuals and movie want you to think.

In reality he is a man who has saved priceless works of art and is singlehandly doing and getting everything our hero needs.

How is this man a bad guy again?

We are never told as he never returns.

With papers in hand, Clive Owen returns to Julianne Moore and tells her that he himself has to be with the woman or the papers wont work. He then tells her he needs to be paid more or he wont go.

Julian agrees and Clive heads out.

Thus we end up with Clive, Julianne, Girl, some middle aged woman, and Chiwetel in a car heading towards the coast were a boat awaits the girl. Along the way Clive Owen and Julianne Moore play with balls in their mouths in a moment that is supposed to be cute or enduring and is instead annoying. Luckily a one shot action scene begins, as a gang of bikers attack the car, shooting Julianne Moore in the throat and shooting at the car. The group gets away as the cops arrive to scare off the gang. Only for a cop car to pull over the remaining group. Chiwetel kills the two cops and the group dump them in the woods along with Julianne, who is now dead.

With the worst actress out of the film, the girl steps up to take her role.

Who is this girl, why is she important.

Why she is nobody, but she is an immigrant, and most important of all, she is pregnant.

How do we know she is pregnant, easy she shows us in the most pretentious way possible.

Clive Owens finds her in a barn with some cows where he tells her is done, and that she can find another way out of the country, as she is not special. She tells him she is as she starts to undress, at which point Clive Owens and myself are confused as it looks like she is trying to seduce him. Instead she takes off her dress to show her baby bump, using an arm to cover her breasts as she poses for the camera. And once again you are immediately taken out of the film.

Why did she take her clothes off?

Why is she standing near cows?

Why is she in a barn?

Why if she wants to take her clothes off, is she then covering herself up. Does she not know how to just lift her dress, or step to the side and let him see the large bump that is her pregnant belly?

No, that would be sensible, that would be what a normal human would do. But that is not what the director wants. Want the director wants in an image of her standing naked, surrounded by livestock, holding her pregnant belly and exposed breasts because its artsy. Because that is the image he wanted, logic, common sense, and basic human interaction be damned. He wants his shot and he is going to get it, no matter how stupid everyone has to be for it to happen.

Clive than goes to the others and tells them he knows she is pregnant and that she needs to be taken to a hospital. They of course refuse because government is bad. And again you are supposed to agree with them. And again it makes no sense.

In the context of the world. Her feeling. The groups feeling. Even the babies life. None of it matters. If she is the only person in the entire world to become pregnant. If she is the only hope humanity has to still be around in the next one hundred years, than she needs to go to the government. Even if they chop her and her baby up, turn them into paste and use them for any experiment required, I would be fine with that. Because as Spock is famed for saying. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

And if the girl and her baby having a terrible or even no life is what is required to save all of humanity. Than someone give me the gun because I will shoot her and her baby in the face myself.

Because again. I cannot stress this enough.

HUMANS AS A SPECIES ARE GOING EXTINCT!

Clive leaves, and soon overhears that Chiwetel and the others were the ones to kill Julianne Moore so that they could take over and keep the baby for themselves so as to start a revolution. And despite learning of that, Clive Owens still does not wish to tell the world of the pregnant woman. Instead he decides to run her through a literal war zone. But we will get to that.

In the meantime, Clive gets girl and middle aged woman and rushes them to a car so as to escape. The only problem is that the car will not start. Thus another one take action scene begins, wherein Clive Owens must push start the car by shoving it down a hill, while the bad guys rush to stop him.

And the scene is somehow stupider than it sounds.

As not only do the bad guys not stop them, but one also catches up to them gun in hand, threatening to shoot, only to call back and ask what to do before being taken out. Meanwhile the bad guys get in their own cars and give chase, since their car is working they easily catch up, just as Clive and gang get theres started. The bad guys than stop their car and climb out to continue the chase on foot. Yes I said that correctly. The bad guys, who were in a working car. Give chase to the heroes who are now in a working car. On foot.

Yeah, that's what I call a great action scene right there. It was even done in one take. Therefore it is good. Right?

Of course not.

The scene plays out like something from a comedy.

Driving off, Clive takes the group to Michael Caine, who tells them they are safe and that he has a cop friend who can help them. The bad guys arrive soon afterwards, and Michael Caine tells Clive and the others to leave while he buys them time.

The group reluctantly agrees, leaving out the back and making their way to a small hill overlooking Caine and Chiwetel.

Chiwetel has Caine at gun point and demands to know where Clive and the others are.

So what does Caine do?

Does he make up a lie.

Does he crumble and sell out his friends.

Or Does he say nothing and die with dignity.

The answer is of course none of the above. As instead Michael Caine tells Chiwetel to pull his finger.

Chiwetel rightfully shoots him in the shoulder. To which Caine tells Chiwetel to pull his finger.

Chiwetel then shoots and kills Caine.

Thus Michael Caine dies, his final words an attempt at a fart joke.

Why do people like this movie again?

The movie continues after that, with Clive Owens calling Caine's cop friend over. The cop friend pretend arrests them, and drives them through a checkpoint full of caged immigrants. Again the film is not subtle about its message. And again I wholeheartedly disagree with it. Especially when the, mostly Muslim immigrants start marching through the streets shouting 'Allah Akbar' while armed with whatever guns they have. But again that is for later.

For now, Clive and girl ride a bus where they lose middle aged woman, who pretends to be insane so as to stop the cops from searching the pregnant woman. How that works is beyond me as surely the cops will search the woman anyway. And they almost do, until Clive Owens points out that she has pissed herself. The cop, not wanting to touch her because she is now icky, leaves and the problem resolves itself. The middle aged woman is still taken away however, and at that point you have to ask why even though the answer should be obvious.

It is so Clive and the girl are stuck by themselves.

Cop then takes the two to a building to wait while he goes to do some things to help her on her way, and during the night the girl gives birth. Clive helps her, and at that point I was expecting the baby to die. Leaving Clive Owen to take the only baby in the world to safety. Instead the film does not have the balls to kill the poor defenseless, Immigrant woman, and she survives. And it is at that point that the movie stops trying to be a serious, dark, depressing drama and starts to spiral into comedy.

The cop arrives with some girl, a replacement for middle aged woman, and demands to know what the girl is holding. Seeing her baby, he pulls out his gun and forces everyone down the building so he can take them to the government and get a reward. And again. We are supposed to see this as a bad thing. Because government bad.

New girl soon attacks the cop, and together with Clive Owen they three escape. The cop chases after them, somehow unable to hit any of them and another one take action scene begins. Clive actually does something in this one, as he shuts a door, grabs a heavy thing, and hits the cop on the head with it. And it looks as clunky as it sounds.

Clive then runs through some streets as shooting between the immigrants and the military starts up. When suddenly, the bad guys led by Chiwetel appear.

Chiwetel's group take the girl and the baby, before shooting someone who is with Clive Owens, but who is not Clive Owens and is also not new girl. Why the bad guys do not just shoot Clive Owens is again obvious as the film needs him alive still. Thus person three is killed.

The military and immigrants than arrive, and a shootout occurs.

A shootout in the background, and off in the distance. Clive his barely in any danger, and just kind of stays low and lightly jogs away.

Chasing after Chiwetel, he comes to a building under assault by the military. A group of immigrants run out with flags up only to be mowed down, because again, government bad.

Clive makes his way into the building as the military continues to shoot. Tanks, machine guns, and bazookas are fired at the building, but luckily only the first few stories so that when Clive makes his way to the higher ones, he will not be shot at.

Clive quickly finds the girl, only for Chiwetel to be near, machine gun in hand. He says some pointless things about how he was trying to do good, while bullets are shot around him. Clive takes the girl with him, as Chiwetel shoots at them, only for one of the tanks to finally shoot at him. Not until he is off screen and back in the distance of course.

Making his way down the building, Clive, girl, and baby are mobbed by all in the building as the baby cries. The army then arrives, and upon hearing the baby cry, stop shooting, lower their weapons, and let Clive, the girl, and her baby through.

That is right.

Everyone learns of the baby. Of the only baby in the entire world. They learn of the one thing that literally everyone has been trying to get.

And they just let it go.

They let them all go.

Yes, because that is how you resolve a dangerous situation.

You have everyone just stop caring and let your heroes walk out with no problems.

Tension, a sense of danger, thrills, all gone in an instant.

Even funnier is how everyone just starts shooting at each other again as soon as the three are clear.

Why would any of that happen.

Why.

Easy, the heroes were in a situation and the writer could not think of way to get them out, so he just lets them leave. Its even worse then Deus Ex Machina, at least in that something stupid happens. In this movie they just leave.

They just leave.

Clive then takes the girl and her baby to a boat, the other girl who has been with them the whole time stays behind, as her job is done. Whatever job that was. I of course did not mention her being around because she does nothing.

Once in the boat, the girl tells Clive what she is going to name her child as she notices a bunch of blood on the boat. And once again in the distance their is action. But again only in the distance and this time hidden by thick fog. As for the blood, Clive tells her that it is his, and that he had been shot sometime during the last thirty or so minutes of film.

How he is still alive despite the pool of blood he has leaked in the boat, and the supposed pools he has lost along the way are never brought up. Instead Clive just dies, tilting his head gently to the side as he attempts to hold his breathe.

Seconds later, a boat breaks through the fog, the word Tomorrow on its side.

The movie ends with the sound of children laughing and playing as the title flashes across the screen in the most pompous and stuck up way possible.

Where do I even begin?

What do I even say?

The movie is a terrible mess of bad jokes, bad writing, bad action, idiotic moral messages, and boring drawn out scenes of nothing.

The movie was terrible.

#Movie Review #Children of Men #Clive Owen

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takenews-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Celebrity Athlete Friendships You Will Discover Stunning

New Post has been published on https://takenews.net/celebrity-athlete-friendships-you-will-discover-stunning/

Celebrity Athlete Friendships You Will Discover Stunning

It’s nice to have folks round you who will assist you to preserve a stage head. You’ll be able to’t at all times be round household when you’re a high superstar or skilled athlete so those self same athletes and celebrities regularly find yourself befriending one another. A few of these stars you’d have by no means guessed have been associates whereas others appear much more possible. Click on by means of and be taught concerning the fascinating friendships amongst some athletes and celebrities. You wouldn’t have guessed that one tennis star is buds with a sure vogue mogul.

Noel Vasquez/GC Photographs

We’ve seen these two in a Nike industrial previously nevertheless it wasn’t confirmed in the event that they have been really associates. Effectively, whereas Kobe Bryant was nonetheless enjoying, he would practice with Kanye West and West would deliver Bryant over to his recording periods. And naturally, West was in attendance at Bryant’s final recreation.

In the event you observe boxing in any respect then it is best to know that previously, Floyd “Cash” Mayweather would at all times deliver out Justin Bieber as he walked out to the ring earlier than considered one of his victories. The 2 have been labeled as “BFFs” for the longest of time. Someplace in 2017, they could have gotten right into a small feud however they’re nonetheless good.

Mayweather spoke concerning the state of affairs and stated, “Justin Bieber is at some extent, he’s in a spot proper now, that he’s targeted on church, he’s targeted on his new workforce, he’s targeted on the Lord, and the one factor I can do is give him the utmost respect. To every his personal. I’m not right here to be damaging and speak unhealthy about anybody.”

This one is sort of shocking. Minnesota Timberwolves guard, Jimmy Butler, and Hollywood stud Mark Wahlberg are as shut as anybody. The 2 first met at Wahlberg’s set in Chicago again in 2013 when he was filming Transformers. Quickly after that, they ended up enjoying basketball collectively and a connection was made.

“Youngsters have nice (BS) detectors and are very intuitive,” Wahlberg stated. “They simply know who good individuals are and who unhealthy individuals are. All my children completely love Jimmy. He’s actually shut with all of them.”

An important story certainly however what about these subsequent two?

When these two met, it was like love at first sight however friendship type. The previous Future’s Baby singer met Serena Williams at a live performance in 2016 and he or she was smitten from the beginning. “It was all of her power and the way nice she was – and is,” Kelly Rowland stated. Excessive power folks are inclined to have that affect on folks so that is no shock. “She is the very best athlete of our time – sure, however as a result of she’s feminine, the very best feminine athlete of our time,” stated Rowland. “I’m so pleased with her and excited for her!”

Sure, girls and gents, Usain Bolt and Kevin Hart are certainly associates. The pair’s relationship was most certainly kindled when the general public first bought to see the 2 collectively on the 2013 NBA superstar All-Star recreation. The showman that’s Bolt bought a kick out of Hart’s antics because the two each like to point out out when on an enormous stage.

In 2017, they grew to become ambassadors for PokerStars, competing in opposition to one another on social media in varied actions. These two are literally a superb match as associates however nobody noticed it coming. Bolt has even stated Hart motivated him to coach more durable whereas he was prepping for the Olympic video games.

For many who observe Drake’s profession, you understand how he’s principally associates with each star athlete however his relationship with LeBron James isn’t just for present. It dates again to 2009 when Drake launched a music “Perpetually” for James’ featured movie Extra Than a Sport. These two are at all times shouting one another out on social media and have extra footage collectively than you and your ex. However what’s odd about this friendship is Drake’s ties with the Toronto Raptors. He’s the International Ambassador for the franchise so every time the Raptors play in opposition to James, it’s at all times awkward ready to see who Drake will cheer for.

These subsequent two is one thing utterly sudden.

Would you take a look at this? Style goddess and tennis sage Anna Wintour and Roger Federer have seemingly been associates since 2005 however is it a friendship that’s overtly publicized? A mutual buddy organized for them to fulfill realizing Wintour was a fan and the remaining is historical past.

“In fact, all I wish to ever focus on with Roger is tennis: his tennis, different gamers, the following Slam,” Wintour stated. “However he desires to speak extra about vogue. The reality is that Roger largely wins that battle—he’s used to profitable—and I’ve spent almost as a lot time with him at runway exhibits as I’ve sitting in his field at Arthur Ashe Stadium.”

If you find yourself Sean Carter (Jay-Z) it solely is smart that you’ve got associates in excessive locations with large cash. It’s solely proper. One in every of Jay-Z’s big-time associates is none apart from Robert Kraft. That may come as a shock, rap mogul is such good associates with the CEO of Kraft Group and the proprietor of the New England Patriots however Jay-Z has reworked himself over time as greater than only a one who makes syllables rhyme in a divine vogue. Once you rise to the highest, not solely does your surroundings change however so do your mates.

From one rapper to a different, let’s see who seems subsequent.

50 Cent was the Justin Bieber to Mayweather earlier than Bieber got here within the image. These two have been hand in hand in previous, flaunting their riches on social media collectively and 50 would at all times be ringside for a combat or within the fitness center throughout sparring periods. It bought to the purpose the place they grew to become too shut and heads collided.

50 was speculated to be Mayweather’s promoter however that died down shortly as a result of Mayweather although 50 would outshine him. Then when Mayweather went to jail, there was a misunderstanding over how a lot cash 50 was due. The friendship appeared to die down after the 2 cracked jokes on one another (50 telling all his followers that Mayweather can’t learn) however that’s all behind them now they usually’re good associates once more.

Earlier than Pete Carroll was a Tremendous Bowl profitable coach within the NFL, he was an incredible coach at USC. And if you already know a factor a two about USC soccer then you already know that Will Ferrell is considered one of their greatest followers. So after spending eight seasons at USC, Carroll and Ferrell grew to become buddies.

As odd as this friendship is, Carroll has made his rounds and has come a good distance from his teaching days with the New York Jets. Ferrell grew to like the coach simply as Carroll has grown in his skilled profession so it makes good sense.

This may come as a shock as a result of what does Kim Kardashian do? We learn about Serena Williams however how did such a legendary athlete develop into so shut with this Kardashian? The tabloids relished over this friendship calling the friendship the “Battle of the Booties” for instance (misogyny, anybody?).

These aren’t two folks you’d pair collectively, particularly on account of their contrasting life, nevertheless it works. The duo first met in 2013 out in Los Angeles and it appears to be a superb matching as a result of since then, Williams nonetheless has damaged information.

The pairing up subsequent are two you’d have thought hated one another.

On the left, you might have Evander Holyfield, a former heavyweight champion and on the fitting, you might have Mike Tyson, one other former heavyweight champion. Two boxers being associates doesn’t appear that misplaced however when you consider that Tyson bit Holyfield’s ear off throughout considered one of their bouts then you possibly can perceive why it is a bit bewildering.

Forgive and overlook is the saying however on this state of affairs, what’s worse, forgetting or forgiving? They made a Footlocker industrial collectively mocking the incident as properly so it appears Holyfield has put this behind him.

Developing quickly, see who Tom Cruise kicks it with.

We witnessed earlier that Kobe Bryant is definitely able to befriending others (Kanye West). Because of the chilly and demanding demeanor he carried on the courtroom, many thought Bryant was this imply jerk however folks didn’t perceive how laser-focused he was competing. That is in all probability why he likes soccer star Lionel Messi a lot.

“I believe Messi will need to have been 18 on the time, 17 possibly,” stated Bryant. “Ronaldinho referred to as him over and stated, ‘Kobe, I would like you to fulfill the participant who’s going to be the best participant who ever lived.’” The 2 bought to know one another extra on the 2008 Olympics and since have been good associates.

For platinum recording artist J. Cole, many don’t know a lot about him outdoors of what he tells by means of his music. In reality, even his greatest followers didn’t know he was having a child till the kid was already a number of months previous! So for him to be so open along with his friendship with fellow Carolina native and Dallas Maverick, Dennis Smith Jr., that speaks volumes.

The 2 are each from Fayetteville North Carolina, a small city. Smith bought the prospect to fulfill Cole on the skating rink in Fayetteville and the following day they performed ball collectively. Since that day of Cole trying to beat Smith, Cole became an enormous brother determine for the 2017-2018 rookie.

You’ll be able to inform the energy of a friendship by what they endure collectively. Whereas not all friendships are supposed to survive lies and deceit, denial is a good medication for these sort of issues. When Lance Armstrong got here out and advised all of the issues he had been doing, Matthew McConaughey didn’t wish to throw away all the standard time they spent collectively.

“He advised a lie, he’s not a liar,” he stated. “When it got here out, I took it personally however then I spotted it ain’t private to him. I used to be going, ‘that son of a [expletive]!’ however then I assumed, ‘properly, what was he speculated to do? Name me to the aspect and go ‘hey I did this’?” Sure, he may have advised you.

Developing subsequent, Drake makes one other look.

Drake clearly is aware of a ton of well-known of us because of his standing however his relationship with faculty basketball coach John Calipari raises some questions. Simply how did these two get so shut that Drake is allowed to take part within the layup line earlier than a recreation?

Zach McCann of ESPN wrote: “Drake was born and raised by his mom in Canada, however he spent his summers in Memphis along with his father,” McCann wrote. “And as his fame grew all through the 2000s, he bought to know John Calipari, who coached Memphis basketball from 2000 to 2009.” So there’s the reason for this seemingly odd friendship.

Dennis Rodman had the popularity for doing wild issues whereas he was enjoying within the NBA. He would come to every recreation with a brand new hair coloration and even made it rainbow-hued one time nevertheless it didn’t matter as a result of he bought the job finished. Nonetheless, many marvel the place Rodman’s head was at and extra so when it was revealed that he’s shut with Kim Jong-Un.

The 2 grew their friendship from their equal appreciation for the sport of basketball. We’ll reiterate, that is the oddest pairing of two folks the world has seen in fairly a while.

Marrying somebody doesn’t robotically put you in good graces with the remainder of their household. That comes with time, belief and chemistry. The nice factor for Tony Romo is that his spouse’s brother is a reasonably neat man. Romo and Candice Crawford bought married in 2011 and Chace Crawford and Romo have been tight ever since, primarily as a result of they each have a factor for soccer.

Individuals journal reported that the 2 have been associates properly earlier than the marriage. The trio all partied collectively at Tremendous Bowl actions. Nobody was actually involved that Romo wasn’t within the Tremendous Bowl in order that’s all that issues.

Now, see who Tom Cruise spends a few of his time with.

“I’ve bought my spouse. I’ve bought my 4 children. I’ve bought dad and mom, grandparents nonetheless, and three actually good associates. It’s all you want. I’d moderately have three actually good associates than 20 good associates,” David Beckham stated. Having stated that, you already know Beckham doesn’t have many associates, nevertheless, Tom Cruise is considered one of them. The 2 have been associates for years, Beckham even named his son after the actor.

They have been actually tight when Cruise was with Katie Holmes however as soon as that stopped, their friendship type of did too (as a result of Spice and Holmes are such good associates as properly). However, these two nonetheless get pleasure from time collectively after the divorce.

Bear in mind web sensation TerRio? He was enormous again when Vine was nonetheless round and through his rise to recognition, he made associates with many well-known folks. Why? As a result of he was humorous and he can dance. The 2 took to Instagram and Vine when the connection first occurred they usually confirmed simply how a lot they care about one another. DeSean Jackson even took the younger man to some Tremendous Bowl actions to point out his appreciation. Jackson likes to bop on and off the sphere so it is smart that these two would develop into a dynamic duo!

#Jimmy Butle #Justin Bieber #Kelly Rowland #Kevin Hart #Kobe Bryant #LeBron James #Mayweather #Transformers #Usain Bolt

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travisandersondatingblog · 7 years ago

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Important Dating Advice for Women After Divorce

Life has taken an interesting turn, hasn’t it? One minute you’re married…the next you’re Googling dating advice for women after divorce.

Whatever happened that led you down this path, it’s okay. Whatever pain you’ve been through, you’re now doing well enough emotionally to think about opening up the door again to love.

But even if you’ve healed from your heartbreak and are ready to dip your toes in the dating pool once again, you may be completely and utterly terrified. The landscape looks completely different from what it did when you were last single…and that may have been decades ago.

Dating advice for women after divorce is different than when you were in your 20s.

Let me reassure you: no matter how much insecurity and doubt you have about dating again, you will quickly gain your confidence and get back on the horse once you get the valuable dating advice for women that I’m about to impart.

And who knows? You might even find more benefits to dating now than you did last time around! You might find dating more fun than when you were in your 20s, simply because the pressure to find a husband is off.

But before we dive in, let me explain why this article will be different from other articles boasting dating advice for women: the advice I’m going to give you is specifically targeting you, sweet lady. You don’t need advice on bar hookups, womanscaping, or how to get a guy to propose.

Those topics might be relevant to a never-married 22-year-old, but you’re at a different place in your life.

So this article is written with you and your specific dating questions and concerns in mind. I know you feel vulnerable and unsure of this rocky terrain, but I’ll make it my personal mission to help you navigate it.

Then vs. Now: How Dating Advice for Women Has Changed Since Your 20s

Dating in your 20s seems a million years ago!

So much has changed in the past 10, 20, or 30 years since you were last single. The dating world has changed too, thanks to technology like dating apps and texting. You don’t need the same advice that your 20-year-old self would have wanted…or even your daughter or niece today would want.

Chemistry vs. Reliability

In your 20s, common dating advice would tell women to focus on chemistry, that spark. While certainly, we all seek those fireworks with a member of the opposite sex, sizzle isn’t everything in a relationship. Now that you’ve experienced a bit of life, you know that having a partner you can rely on for the long haul, who will be honest and open with you, is as important — if not moreso — than that chemistry.

There’s also less focus on the physical now that you’ve grown into yourself and understand that there is a man out there who will love your upturned nose and your voluptuous thighs. In your 20s, you had less life experience, so maybe you relied on your youthful good looks to help you find a man. But now that you understand truly that beauty is fleeting, but smarts, personality, and confidence will last forever, it changes how you approach dating.

And it goes both ways; you might be attracted to a bald man with love handles. He may worry that he no longer looks like a young Tom Cruise, but all you see when you look at him is his gentleness and intelligence.

What else do you need?

Bad Boys and Husbands? No More!

In your 20s, you were warned to stay away from bad boys (though you wanted them oh, so much). After being divorced, you may have personal experience in what being in a relationship with a bad boy can do to you…and you’re ready to stay away. So that dating advice for women may not have changed much, but fortunately, as men have grown up, there are (hopefully) fewer bad boys than there were in your 20s.

And back then, the focus for many single women was to find a husband.

Been there. Done that! Over it.

While 70% of divorced people get remarried at some point, that still leaves 30% who don’t, either because they don’t find someone or they don’t want to get married. Many women are reluctant to rush back into marriage after the pain of divorce.

That’s a good thing when it comes to dating, actually. Not having the single-track focus on getting married again gives you the freedom to move slowly as you navigate the dating world, and takes pressure off of a new relationship. Whether you decide to move in together or simply live apart in harmony for decades, do what is best for you.

And of course, you probably didn’t have to navigate the world of dating when you have kids when you were in your 20s. Now they’re a big part of your decision-making when it comes to letting a man into your world. Put them first and foremost in your decision making when it comes to dating.

While dating advice for women may have changed over the decades, it’s your instinct you should rely the most on.

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What Happened to the Good Old-Fashioned Phone Call?

Technology in dating has changed.

The tools of dating have also changed in the past years. Today’s single 20-year-old is adept at using dating apps and texting to meet the man of her dreams. But you? You remember the days of picking up the (corded) phone to check that there was a dial tone when the boy you liked hadn’t called. You’re more accustomed to phone calls than text messages, so you’ll need to ramp up in that department.

Yes, things have changed. You’re not the same person you were when you were young, naive, and hadn’t yet gone through the rollercoaster of a long-term marriage. But you’re older and wiser now, and that will play to your advantage as you start dating again.

The best part about dating in your 40s and beyond? You make up the rules. No longer do you have to feel beholden to the social laws of the jungle that you adhered to when you were younger. Date a much younger man. Date a much older man. Don’t date at all. It’s your call. Whatever makes you happy.

Allow me to offer you real, actionable dating advice for women who are exactly where you are in your life: Reinvented. Renewed. Ready.

Online Dating Advice for Women

Dating apps have changed the name of the game.

You’ve heard all about Tinder, and you want nothing to do with it. And yet you’re frustrated because you don’t have an opportunity to meet a man outside of work and the gym. And you don’t want to go there.

Realize that each dating app (and there are dozens!) caters to a different audience. And yes, Tinder probably isn’t for you…unless you’re looking for a hookup. Match.com and eHarmony tend to attract men and women who are more interested in a long-term relationship, and Coffee Meets Bagel, Bumble, and OKCupid cover the spectrum in between.

What’s the worst that can happen if you give online dating a try?

If nothing else, it gives you the opportunity to practice talking to men and flirting with them. If your interactions with the opposite sex have been arguing with your ex or telling your son to tie his shoes, you might benefit from a little practice in that department.

Start Slow

When it comes to my online dating advice for women after divorce, I say go slow.

While there are many dating apps out there, pick just one to get familiar with how they work. And they’re all different. On Bumble, for example, ladies make the first move, sending a message to a man who reciprocates interest. Other sites let either party initiate the first conversation.

Fill out your profile in detail. While not every man will read what you’ve written, having a detailed profile can at least weed out the ones who do and ensure that only men who fit what you’re looking for actually respond. Some sites like OKCupid have a ton of questions you can answer, all designed to algorithmically help pair you with likely matches.

Choose Your Profile Photos Carefully

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and it’s worth even more on dating apps. Some men will only swipe through your photos before reading your profile (yes, it’s shallow, but you’ll end up doing the same too), so you want to put your best face forward. And take a note from men who do profile pics badly: if you want the impression you make to be that you’re crazy, narcissistic, or just don’t know how to take a good photo, then, by all means, proceed haphazardly.

Otherwise, spend some time flipping through your phone to find those selfies that really make you shine. Or ask a girlfriend to take a few in good, natural light. Aim for a mix of photos, like one of you doing something interesting (hiking), an attractive up-close shot, and maybe one of you with friends.

Avoid photos with your kids in them. Because: creepy.

You don’t want a weirdo looking at them online.

Don’t Invest Too Much in a Conversation

Him: Hey lady. I was drawn to your photo and had to reach out. How are you?

You: Purrrrrr.

It can be an ego-boost when a man sends you a message. And certainly, it can result in a date in a few days or weeks. But realize that most people on dating sites are talking to multiple people at the same time. It’s a numbers game.

The more men you talk to, especially early on, the better you understand what you do and don’t like. One guy might dive into asking you out for coffee before he’s even had a conversation with you.

Nope.

Another might bring up 18 points from your written profile, showing how well he’s paid attention.

Creepy.

Still, another might check in with you every morning, wish you a good day…and then disappear.

Whaaa?

That’s why I encourage you to look at these conversations as a game. These men need to level up to get your real attention. Find one who’s consistent, who delivers witty banter and engages your brain. That’s the one you want to actually meet.

When You Finally Do Meet…

So you’ve found a guy that lights all your senses, at least via text, and he’s asked you out. That’s great! Congratulations.

But again, I say, take it lightly. A guy can look great on paper — or…digital, as it were — but then fall flat in person. Why? Men give it their all when trying to woo a woman via text. Some might assume that if you’ve agreed to meet them, they’ve got it in the bag, and stop putting out so much effort.

Or else there might be no chemistry. That’s not your fault. It’s just how it is.

Let a friend know where and when you’re meeting this guy. (Hey, you can never be too careful.) Agree to meet in a public place. Coffee shops are great first dates because you can meet during the day, there’s no alcohol involved, and there’s little investment if he’s paying and it doesn’t work out (you don’t feel obligated to stick around like you might after a $50 steak dinner.)

If things go well, you can kiss him on the first date…or not. That’s totally your preference.

If you aren’t feeling it, give him a gentle hug, thank him for the date, then skedaddle. You don’t need to lie and make plans for a future date if you don’t want to see him again. If he puts pressure on you, say something like I had a really great time, but for me, the chemistry just isn’t there.

Who can argue with that?

Get Back on the Horse

You will go on many dates if you invest time in online dating. One bad date doesn’t mean you should give up. Get back on the app and keep looking for Mr. Right. If you get frustrated after a series of bad dates (hey, you’re far from alone), then take a break and spend some time by yourself. Look into other ways to meet men, like mixers and meetups. And be patient! Finding a great guy — no matter the channel — takes time. You’ll find him, I promise. Just follow this online dating advice for women, as well as what your gut…and maybe your friends…tell you.

Dating Advice for Women with Kids

When dating with kids, prioritize your children.

So what happens when you have kids and are dabbling in the world of dating?

It’s a whole different ballgame, but one you absolutely can master. Start by really identifying what you want out of dating. Are you looking for a long-term relationship? If so, consider how that will affect your children. Are they emotionally in a place where they can handle knowing that Mommy is dating?

Some women elect not to date or at least get into a serious relationship until their children have graduated high school and left the nest. I don’t know how easy or reasonable that is.

I believe that you need to be happy and whole in all areas of your life, including both family and love. My dating advice for women with kids?

Don’t be afraid to look for love. Just be extra cautious, knowing you’re not the only one this will impact.

Carve Out Dating Time

Because you likely don’t have your children with you 100% of the time now that you’re divorced, you need to prioritize the time you do have with your children. Dating should happen when you don’t have them with you, as much as possible. If you have them every other week, schedule your dates for the weeks you don’t have them with you.

Make it clear to your kids, yourself, and the men you date that your children absolutely come first.

Be Honest…But Don’t Overdivulge

This will depend on the age of your children, as well as their personalities, but I believe you should be open with them about dating. That doesn’t mean you should rush home from a date and gush out all the gory details to your 6-year-old! But you should be able to tell them when you start dating in general, that Mommy is making new friends. And when you start seeing someone with long-term potential, tell them. Just be fairly certain that the relationship is heading somewhere.

Never lie to your kids.

They’re smart, and they’ll figure you out. Then you will lose their trust, and coming after a divorce that rocked their household? That’s the last thing you want.

Skip a Beat Before Introducing Your New Man

You’re excited to have love in your life again. I get it. But before you present your new man like a Christmas present to your offspring…

Pause a moment.

What’s the rush? If this guy is as good as he seems, he will be around in a few weeks or months. Realize that introducing a man to your kids will have a ripple effect, depending on how they take it. They may immediately go on the defensive, thinking you from Meet Positives SM Feed 3 http://ift.tt/2BKVz84 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Meet Positives SM Feed 3

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