#this used to be spoilers but now all these beasties are revealed...

[beastieballgame]

spin that girl sunday

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Lucifer/Satan

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Please allow me to introduce this villain. He’s a man of wealth and taste...

Satan, or Lucifer, or whatever of the hundreds of names across multiple religions, folk tales, urban legends, movies, books, songs, video games, and more that you choose to call him, is without a doubt the biggest bad of them all. He is not just a villain; he is the villain, the bad guy your other bad guys answer to, the lord of Hell. If there’s a bad deed, he’s done it, if there’s a problem, he’s behind it. There’s nothing beneath him, and that’s not just because he’s at the very bottom of Hell. He is the root cause of all the misery in the entire world.

And if we’re talking about Satan, we gotta talk about Lucifer too. They weren’t always supposed to be one and the same, but over centuries of artistic depictions and reimaginings they’ve been conflated into one being, a being that is a lot more layered and interesting than just a simple adversary for the good to overcome when handled properly.

Motivation/Goals: Look, it’s Satan. His main goal is to be as evil as possible, do bad things, cause mischief and mayhem. Rarely does anything good come from Satan being around. If he is one and the same as Lucifer, expect there to be some sort of plot about him rebelling against God, as according to modern interpretations Lucifer fought against God in battle and was then cast out, falling from grace like lightning. When the Lucifer persona is front and center, raging against the heavens tends to be a big part of his schemes, but when the big red devil persona is out and about, expect temptations to sin, birthing the Antichrist, or tempting people to sell their souls.

Performance: Satan has been portrayed by far too many people over the years to even consider keeping count of, though some notable performances of the character or at least characters who are clearly meant to be Satan include the nuanced anti-villain take of the character Viggo Mortensen portrayed in The Prophecy; the sympathetic homosexual man portrayed by Trey Parker in South Park and its film; the hard-rocking badass Dave Grohl portrayed in Tencaious D’s movie; Robin Hughes as a sneaky, double-crossing bastard in “The Howling Man” episode of The Twilight Zone; the big red devil from Legend known as Darkness, played by Tim Curry; the shapeshifting angel named Satan from The Adventures of Mark Train who will make you crap your pants; and while not portrayed by anyone due to being entirely voiceless, Chernabog from Disney’s Fantasia is definitely noteworthy in regards to cinematic depictions of the devil.

Final Thoughts & Score: Satan is a villain whose sheer scope dwarfs almost every other villain in history. It’s not even remotely close, either; Satan pops up in stories all around the world, is the greater-scope villain of most varieties of three major religions, and his very name is shorthand for “really, really evil.” Every other villain I have ever discussed and reviewed wishes they could be a byword for being bad to the bone. Even Dracula, one of the single most important villains in fiction, looks puny in comparison to Satans villainous accomplishments.

Satan in old religious texts tended to be an utterly horrifying force of nature, until Medieval times began portray him as a dopey demon trying to tempt the faithful (and failing). Folklore and media have gone back and forth, portraying both in equal measure – you have the desperate, fiddle-playing devil from “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and the unseen, unfathomable Satan who may or may not exist in the Marvel comics universe who other demons live in fear of the return of. Satan is just a very interesting and malleable antagonist, one who is defined just enough that he can make a massive, formidable force while still being enough of a blank slate that you can project any sort of personality traits onto him to build an intriguing foe.

One of the most famous examples of this in action is the common depiction of Satan as the king of hell. This doesn’t really have much basis in religion; he’s as much a prisoner as anyone else, though considering how impressive a prisoner he is, he’d be like the big guy at the top of the pecking order in any jail for sure. But still, the idea of Satan as the ruler of hell was clearly conceived by someone and proved such an intriguing concept that so many decided to run with it.

I think that’s what truly makes Satan such an interesting villain, in that he’s almost a community-built antagonist. People over the ages have added so much lore, personality, and power to him that is only vaguely alluded to in old religions to the point where they have all become commonplace in depictions of the big guy, and there really isn’t any other villain to have quite this magnitude on culture as a whole. It shouldn’t be any shock that Satan is an 11/10; rating him any lower would be a heinous crime only he is capable of.

But see, the true sign of how amazing he is is the sheer number of ways one can interpret him. You have versions that are just vague embodiments of all that is bad and unholy, such as Chernabog from Fantasia, you have more nuanced portrayals like the one Viggo Mortensen played in The Prophecy, you have outright sympathetic ones like the one from South Park… Satan is just a villain who can be reshaped and reworked as a creator sees fit and molded into something that fits the narrative they want. I guess what I’m trying to say is that not only is Lucifer/Satan one of the greatest villains of all, he’s also one of the single greatest characters of all time.  

Now, there are far too many depictions of Satan for me to have seen them all, but I have seen quite a lot. Here’s how Old Scratch has fared over the millennia in media of various forms, though keep in mind this is by no means a comprehensive or exhaustive lsit:

“The Devil Went Down to Georgia” Devil: 

I think this is one of my favorite devils in any fiction ever, simply because of what a good sport he is. Like, there is really no denying that Johnny’s stupid little fiddle ditty about chickens or whatever sucks major ass, and yet Satan (who had moments before summoned up demonic hordes to rip out some Doom-esque metal for the contest) gave him the win and the golden fiddle. What a gracious guy! He’s a 9/10 for sure, though I still wish we knew how his rematch ended…

Chernabog: 

Chernabog technically doesn’t do anything evil, and he never says a word, and yet everything about him is framed as inherently sinister. It’s really no wonder Chernabog has become one of the most famous and beloved parts of Fantasia alongside Yen Sid and Sorcerer Mickey; he’s infinitely memorable, and really, how can he not be? He’s the devil in a Disney film, not played for laughs and instead made as nightmarishly terrifying as an ancient demon god should be. Everything about him oozes style, and every movement and gesture begets a personality that goes beyond words. Chernabog doesn’t need to speak to tell you that he is evil incarnate; you just know, on sight, that he is up to no good.

Quite frankly, the implications of Chernabog’s existence in the Disney canon are rather terrifying. Is he the one Maleficent called upon for power? Is he the one all the villains answer to? Do you think Frollo saw him after God smote him? And what exactly did he gain by attacking Sora at the end of Kingdom Hearts? All I know for sure is that Chernabog is a 10/10.

Lucifer (The Prophecy): 

Viggo Mortensen has limited screentime, but in that time he manages to be incredibly creepy, misanthropic… and yet, also, on the side of good. Of course, he’s doing it entirely for self-serving reasons (he wants humanity around so he can make them suffer), but credit where credit is due. The man manages to steal a scene from under Christopher Walken, I think that’s worth a 10/10.

Satan (South Park): 

Portraying Satan as a sympathetic gay man was a pretty bold choice, and while he certainly does fall into some stereotypes, he’s not really painted as bad or morally wrong for being gay, and ends up more often than not being a good (if sometimes misguided) guy who just wants to live his life. Plus he gets a pretty sweet villain song, though technically it’s more of an “I want” song than anything. Ah well, a solid 8/10 for him is good.

Satan (Tenacious D):

It’s Dave Grohl as Satan competing in a rock-off against JB and KG. Literally everything about this is perfect, even if he’s only in the one scene. 10/10 for sure.

Robot Devil:

Futurama’s take on the devil is pretty hilarious and hammy, but then Futurama was always pretty on point. He’s a solid 8/10, because much like South Park’s devil he gets a fun little villain song with a guest apearance by the Beastie Boys, not to mention his numerous scams like when he stole Fry’s hands. He’s just a fun, hilarious asshole.

The Howling Man: 

The Twilight Zone has many iconic episodes, and this one is absolutely one of them. While the devil is the big twist, that scene of him transforming as he walks between the pillars is absolutely iconic, and was even used by real-life villain Kevin Spacey in the big reveal of The Usual Suspects. This one is a 9/10 for sure, especially given the ending that implies this will all happen again (as per usual with the show).

The Darkness:

While he’s more devil-adjacent than anything and is more likely to be the son of Satan rather than the actual man himself, it’s hard not to give a shout-out to the big, buff demon played by Tim Curry in some of the most fantastic prosthetics and makeup you will ever see. He gets a 9/10 for the design alone, the facty he’s Tim Curry is icing on the cake.

[just-the-mage]

Review-Love Death + Robots (Pt 1. Episodes 1-4)

So here we are again.  You, dear readers, and I, a mostly defunct tumblr page.  I was thinking...I’ve written a few reviews on here before, and I’ve rather enjoyed myself to be honest.  So until RP starts up again for me, I’m going to grab some popcorn and start reviewing some of the media I’ve been indulging in during this exceptionally fun pandemic we’ve all been saddled with (and are becoming increasingly more and more used to as time goes on).  Here we go! 

Spoilers incoming! I don’t like to discuss a show without going through it entirely-no stone unturned.  You have been warned! 

Love Death + Robots is a compilation series-each episode is self-contained content, based on what I have experienced thus far.  The content varies wildly from cute and sweet to surreal, to horrific.  For right now I’m going to stick with the first four episodes since they are fresh in my mind.  

Episode 1: Three Robots

Three robots shows a short adventure shared by, you guessed it-Three robots exploring the crumbling remains of human society.  It comes across as three tourists making their way through an area that they are completely unfamiliar with, attempting to define and understand elements of the environment as humans once did.  Their analysis and attempts to understand not only human culture, but also basic human biology, were entertaining to say the least.  Each robot has flair, character, and a their own take on humans and humanity.  Over the course of the episode, the fall of mankind is referenced a few times, being initially explained as a mass extinction due to environmental disasters (global warming is probably a factor-one of the buildings has an entire ship sticking out of it).  However, the twist ending throws that whole theory into question once the cat that has been accompanying the robots for the last leg of their journey reveals itself as capable of speech.  And, interestingly enough...being in possession of opposable thumbs.  It was certainly unexpected, and a bit odd-the cat (and its many, many brethren) manage to finish out the episode by convincing the robots that if the robots do not pet them, the cats may explode.  I will say that the ending, though it was rather silly and fitting with the tone, felt like an out of place twist intended mostly to give a bit of closure to a story that had no real need to have an ending.  It felt a little out-of-left field, at least to me.

This first episode, I think, is one that I could recommend to a much more general audience than almost all of the other content of the show.  It’s whimsical and cute, despite inhabiting such a grim setting (and grim it is-post apocalyptic is not taken lightly here.  There are plenty of corpses, some skeletal and some not quite so much.  At least one of them appears to have died by suicide).  I found it to be a nice addition and a good introduction to ease people into the tone of the show.  Definitely give this one a watch, even if the ending sort of comes from nowhere. 

Episode 2: Beyond the Aquila Rift

This episode was definitely a change of pace from the first.  It begins as a high science fiction story starring a hunky, middle aged man and his two crewmates, making some sort of cargo run (?) through a wormhole of some kind, but promptly finding themselves in a completely different place from what they expected.  Hunky space captain wakes up first, finding that he is greeted by an old friend (read: lover) of his, who explains that there was a navigation error that led them off course-way off course.  They’re in a completely different area than they expected.  The ship’s navigator wakes as well, swearing that there couldn’t have been an error in her calculations, but seems ill and is placed back in her future tech cryopod to rest.  Space captain man then bangs it out with his ex-lover (Greta) in a scene that was almost definitely written by a man, and she reveals to him that she lied, and that him and his crew are actually hundreds of light-years further off course than they had thought they were, basically dashing any hopes that he could have of returning to his old life.  The two then wake the navigator again, who immediately starts ranting that ‘Greta’ isn’t who she says she is.  At this point, enough clues have been given that the captain catches up with the audience (it was all a simulation the whole time), and he confronts Greta, demanding that she reveal herself as she truly is.  She does, after some prodding-and the captain finds himself in an infested husk of a ship, aged and haggard, obviously dying of starvation.  Greta reveals herself as a lovely spider-beast, and the captain wakes up from his pod again-back in his comfortable illusion once more.  

I love the premise of this one.  Crazy aliens and shit like this is a huge draw for me-sci-fi horror is probably my favorite subgenre of horror when it’s done well.  I would count this episode as doing it pretty well.  They don’t go into much techno-babble, which I think is a pitfall for some sci-fi stories.  The writers are well aware that we aren’t spending too long in this world, so we don’t need to know much about the rules under which it operates outside of ‘computer mistake your ship fly here.’  The twist ending didn’t end up being too much of a twist-in my opinion there were too many clues given throughout the episode to make it that much of a surprise that things weren’t as they seemed.  The odds of this man meeting his ex-lover in the infinitesimal reaches of space just by chance were a bit too impossible to make it believable-and the navigator was far too convinced that her work couldn’t be incorrect.  In the end, it was an expected twist, but still pretty jarring.  Execution is pretty good overall though-and the sex scene is pretty decent as well, even if its strictly a dude-fantasy thing.  Also, call me a sucker for cool looking beasties, but I adore the design on spider-Greta.  That’s a lady right there for you.  

Episode 3: Ice Age

The only live action episode I’ve seen so far-this one gives an *entirely* different tone than the majority of the other episodes in the series.  Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead happen upon a lost civilization that exists entirely within their refrigerator.  They watch in awe as it develops incredibly quickly-hundreds of years passing within the civilization in roughly an hour or so of real time.  What starts in the morning as a town in the viking ages eventually develops into a modern society, almost destroys itself with nukes, and then rebuilds from the ashes into a fully futuristic society that quickly ascends beyond physical form, appearing to disperse itself into the cosmos, no longer bound by such petty rules as the laws of physics.  A disappointed Topher asks if they’ll return-to which he receives a sad ‘no’ from his partner.  It seems all is lost, and the couple go to bed for the night-only to find that the cycle has restarted overnight, and they probably won’t be able to keep any frozen chicken in the freezer for quite some time.

This one is probably one of my favorites of the series so far.  It’s fairly well acted, but the real beauty of the episode is getting to watch the mini-civilization develop itself in a glorious time lapse-the work that must’ve gone into it must have been monumental, to be honest.  The final product certainly felt that way, in any case.  What I also found fascinating was a specific scene in which the protagonists were abandoned in place of some of the tiny denizens of the lost civilization-which made me realize exactly how slow the ‘normal sized people’s’ actions must have looked to the diminutive people of this rapidly developing society.  Reminiscent of the earth’s motion in relation to our own perception-and reinforcing the concept that to an individual, perception is everything. 

Episode 4:  Sonnie’s Edge 

This episode opens with three people transporting mysterious cargo into a heavily guarded complex, quickly encountering and interacting with a ‘bigwig’ of sorts with a beautiful woman on his arm.  Through context clues the audience is easily able to discover that the three (pictured above) are here for a fight-and that their cargo is their fighter, a living creature of obviously immense proportion.  The bigwig asks the team to throw the fight, and they refuse, even after he offers a large amount of money.  (It’s worth mentioning that during this scene, ‘Sonnie’, the leader and controller of the beast fighter, shares an EXTREMELY homosexual gaze with the bigwig’s beautiful lady friend.  Don’t think I didn’t notice the setup, because I definitely noticed the payoff, even though it was rudely interrupted).  Sonnie and her teammates enter the ring, setting up as it appears that she will be piloting her fighter in some way.  Her opponent is also introduced, though he is hardly important in the story-imagine a cake of beef with a big sticker on him that says ‘mysogyny’ in bold print.  What follows is one of the most brutal fight scenes I’ve seen in animation (this is just my personal opinion though).  These creatures fucking tear each other to shreds, with Sonnie’s beast only just barely emerging as the victor, tearing the opposing fighter’s head clean from its body.  The bigwig is obviously angry, as is Sonnie’s opponent, and Sonnie and her team retires to a hotel room of sorts, with the exception of Sonnie-who slips away into the room that houses her fighter, promptly encountering the beauty from earlier! (Payoff time)..and it gets gay.  Fast.  I love me some wlw content, and there’s some nice tension here, right up until the beauty stabs Sonnie through the head.  Rude.  The bigwig reveals himself, which was a bit of a surprise-the part of me that hadn’t seen much of this show yet was hoping for a fluffy little happy ending.  It wasn’t to be though..after the beauty crushes Sonnie’s skull, the two promptly realize that ‘Sonnie’ wasn’t Sonnie at all-just some biotech.  The *real* Sonnie...was the fighter, the whole time.  Who promptly makes short work of both the beauty and the bigwig, (implied), in what I can only describe as the most satisfying moment in the series that I’ve seen thus far.  

This was easily my favorite episode of the show, and has continued to be, and I assume will continue to be my favorite through the rest of the series.  It’s not just because of the lesbian rep (my people!), or the misogynists getting fucking destroyed, but the strength of the reveal, the choreography of the fight scene, and the *power* of the protagonist.  I love her.  I love her sooo much.  We are seamlessly introduced into the world, shown a woman who has been beaten, scarred, faced sexual abuse, and she remade herself into a being of pure power.  She fought back, and *look how she fights back*.  I cannot describe just how much of a cheer-worthy moment it was to watch the smug smile be summarily wiped from the face of the bigwig.  I *love* seeing a villain who has full confidence in their victory suddenly realize that they don’t have the upper hand anymore...and that they are, in fact, absolutely screwed.  This was one of those wonderful, wonderful moments, and I can think of nobody more deserving than this villain of being torn to shreds.  This was an A+ episode for sure-100% recommend this one for anyone who can handle a bit of gore.  

Thank you so much for reading!  This is only part 1...more to come!        

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2020

#121 - Last Memoria, by Rachel Emma Shaw

“Hot Single Books Looking for Readers” Book Club August Selection

Rating: 1/5 stars

[I'm pretty casual about spoilers in reviews, but this one went into enough detail that I felt it necessary to hide it on Goodreads for spoilers. It's only fair I should warn readers here, too. The TL;DR version is "poorly edited for both presentation and story, inconsistent about everything, misogynist ending, I don't recommend it."]

The entire book is plagued by inconsistency at all levels.

The most obvious being technical presentation, as it's riddled with errors. There are several instances of words being incorrectly used in place of their homonyms: "taught" when it should be "taut," "vile" when it's obviously meant to be "vial," and so forth. In addition, a word specific to the story--Sarilla's unwanted nickname--switches between "beastie" and "beasty" frequently, sometimes even on the same page. Stack those errors on top of repeated incorrect hyphenation (both present when it shouldn't be in things like "dirt-track" and missing when it should be present, like "Sarilla shaped hole") and a general tendency toward word repetition and excessive stage direction, it's reasonable to guess this was edited poorly or not at all.

The story is also inconsistent in characterization. Is Sarilla the scared fugitive who must avoid going into town where she might be recognized, or the brave sister who needs to save her brother? Is she the meek wimp who can't stop her brother from acting stupidly and getting himself caught, or the sass-talking pain in the backside who's constantly needling her captors even when it endangers her? The level of danger itself is inconsistent; she'll be terrified of someone noticing her on one page, then she'll act recklessly in the open when anyone could see her, because the plot needs her to, so it's fine.

Thematically, there's some inconsistency built on top of the apparent running gag of this novel: "everybody lies." Those two words are used to hide from the reader everything from character backstory and motivations to fundamental ways in which the world operates. World-building was introduced long after it was needed. I didn't know what the "graves" in the forest were that everyone was so terrified about, and when they turned out to be abandoned tunnels one could fall into, no one bothered to explain how they'd come to be called "graves." I knew the name of Sarilla's uncle/antagonist from the beginning, but not that he was King until nearly halfway through the book--that seemed like something that shouldn't have been a mystery. I didn't know there was another country peopled by memoria until even later--when Sarilla finally gets a "quest," just in time for the narrative to switch from her POV to Falon's.

The story suffered from a pronounced lack of direction, resulting from most of the important characters spending most of their time without any real agency.

I was floundering through Sarilla's half of the book trying to figure out what her goal was. At first, it seemed simple--stay safe long enough to get to the rest of her family. Okay. But why? The story never told me what was going to happen when they were reunited. (No, wait, it did, another character explained it in the final chapters that aren't even from her POV.) She abandons her brother because he's going to get them caught. She changes her mind and searches for him. He's caught by the army. She follows so she can get him back, but she gets captured by her former lover and his companions in the process. They kidnap her...why? It's not clear for a while. When it turns out it's so Falon can regain his stolen memories, they all turn around and go back for her brother, who has them. Except then he's dead, and so is the rest of her family. At 40%. I was literally staring at the text and thinking, "So the book's over then? Sarilla can't reunite with her family, which I thought was her arc, and Falon can't get his memories back, because the brother is dead."

I should not be having a standoff with a book about whether or not the story is over at 40%.

And it's not, because hey! everybody lies! Sarilla actually as Falon's memories, so he still has a goal. But she doesn't! Because I have no idea what she wants now! At the halfway mark, Falon takes her before the King and he says "So how about you help me destroy all the memoria in this other country that hasn't been talked about at all before?"

She accepts. I'm not clear on why at the time, though eventually it's explained that her deep self-hatred makes her want to destroy the monsters she came from. But also it's the King's idea to eventually double-cross them. Sarilla never seems to make her own decisions.

But the narrative switches POV to Falon, and for a while it looks like things are getting better, plot-wise. There's a clear goal: Sarilla's going to destroy stuff and Falon's sticking around to get her memories back from her.

Only then Falon loses his agency by getting taken over by blackvine, which turns out to be a physical form of infectious memory/psychic connection to the race of memoria under threat. Once it's a part of him, it's serious emotional whiplash between hating Sarilla and loving her--the memoria want her because she might have their ancient repository of racial memory. Or not. But probably. But she says she doesn't.

Any interest I still had, I lost here, though I made myself finish the book as it's for a book club. The constant "everybody lies" story-washing gives the narrative permission to make every character so unreliable there's no ground to stand on for a reader to accurately interpret the text. The ending reveals so many layers of betrayal that no one is who we thought they were--except I barely thought these characters were anyone specific already, because for most of Sarilla's half, she's fighting against being overwhelmed by floating memories that constantly distract her from reality. For Falon's half, he spends a great deal of it possessed by a foreign collective consciousness. No one can go five pages without a radical shift in self-perception or opinions expressed or behaviors modified.

At the bitter end, Falon believes that Sarilla wasn't born a monster because of her power (despite saying so at various points at least half a dozen times) but that the King "made" her that way. Then, when he gets his memories back and finds out his part in shaping her actions, he believes that he made her a monster. In both cases, again, the agency for the only female character in the book, the titular character, is usurped by the influence of male characters who take credit/blame for making her who she is. Ultimately, that's a pretty misogynist conclusion that I don't care for.

The entire novel is an inconsistent, sucking quicksand pit of a story. I cannot recommend it to anyone and won't be reading the next book.

[leakinghate]

The Depths to which We Sink

Disclaimer: This theory and analysis contradicts some points made in my previous metas, but what’s the fun of speculation if we limit ourselves to having it all gel together?

Nothing in animation is wasted: every action and expression seen on screen is something someone had to draw and something someone had to pay for. Everything is deliberate, from changes in expression to major plot events, and things which do not contribute to the overarching vision of the show will rarely, if ever, be included. Voltron Legendary Defender in particular moves so fast that they don’t have the space to include anything extraneous even when they want to. The showrunners have said in interviews that they’ve had to cut several of their comedy ideas for lack of space.

The exception to this that has always stood out to me as not fitting into the meta narrative is s2e2 'The Depths'. It's mostly plot irrelevant on the whole, with it being notable only for introducing the Blue Lion’s sonic canon. Sure it has some nice character moments for Lance, and the animation is beautiful, but it’s basically filler. It’s almost completely forgotten by the story, only brought up again once, when Lance references the mermaids in s3e2, ‘Red Paladin’.

In preparation for the fast approaching season 7 on August 10th I was attempting to re-watch the entire show up to the end of s6. Most re-watches I do I skip less plot relevant episodes like ‘The Depths’, but I wanted to go through the whole show this time.

But as I was watching this particular episode, post season six. I was struck by an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu. So what do you do when you think you’ve stumbled upon some heretofore unnoticed foreshadowing? Why, bring it to the Lotura Discord of course! We put our heads together and came up with some fascinating observations, as well as some intriguing possibilities for where the plot might be headed in the future.

On re-watching it again, post season six, 'The Depths’ contains an uncanny amount of foreshadowing to the entire colony plot.

Two of our protagonists unexpectedly stumble upon a completely isolated and hidden settlement after traveling through a strange space anomaly. They are initially greeted by a single member of a race they previously believed did not exist (anymore).

The mermaid civilization is beneath a thick layer of ice, and the Altean colony is inside a dome.

Information received from an erstwhile ally reveals an apparently sinister truth about the actions and motivations of someone in power who had previously acted as a friend. To wit: the authority figure has deceived their loyal subjects for the purpose of killing them.

The ally that provides this information readily admits that they do not know all the facts and that their conclusion is only a theory based on the facts that they do have.

Dialogue from The Depths:

Lance: But what’s the point? Why mind-control the mermaids? Blumfump: To kill them! Lance: Really? Blumfump: Well, we don’t know that for sure, but hundreds of mermaids have disappeared and never come back.

Dialogue from The Colony:

Romelle: My brother was dead. I knew the truth, or at least part of it, but I also knew that no one would believe me without proof. When Keith and Krolia arrived they were my last chance at finding it. I told them what had happened to my brother, and as it turned out, so many Alteans that had been taken before him. As they explained their mission to me, we knew there must have been a connection between the missing Alteans and the pure strain of quintessence.

One of our protagonists is compromised by an antagonist’s mind control and is used to attack and subdue his fellows. The shadows on Hunk’s face when he is under mind control even look like Shiro’s scar.

The physical appearances of several characters are also intriguing. The one character we see fall victim to the Baku, Florona, is the only red-headed mermaid in the episode. A shade of red very similar to Bandor’s hair color.

Plaxum, the most prominent of the ‘cave dwellers’ and the one who eventually directly confronts the queen, has two ponytail-like projections on her head very reminiscent of Romelle’s hairstyle. They also share very similar body language. And Plaxum’s eyes while wearing her jellyfish are the same color as Romelle’s.

In fact, both of these pairs of characters share very similar color schemes; Plaxum and Romelle are teal, pink, and yellow, while Florona and Bandor are red, golden-yellow, and green.

These are all things which have already happened; there is no speculation here, only observation.

Hilariously, this means Bandor has been metaphorically represented by a red fish.

In other words, a Red Herring.

From Wikipedia:

"A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion."

This is exactly what we've been saying since season 6 aired. Specifically referring to Bandor’s line after his ship crashed through the dome. The one thing he manages to tell Romelle is: “Lotor... the other colony... It’s all a lie.” Which tells us exactly nothing, but is the evidence that convinces Romelle she is correct to distrust Lotor, and what sets off the chain of events that ultimately led to the s6 finale. It’s also the strongest evidence we as the audience have that Lotor has done something truly monstrous. The scene with Bandor irrefutably connects Lotor to the emaciated Alteans, even if we don’t know precisely what that connection is. It’s easy to assume the worst both in and out of universe.

In cinema characters with red hair are often made to be the red herrings. A red herring may be intentionally used by the writer to plant a false clue that leads readers or audiences towards a false conclusion. Bandor led Romelle to a false conclusion.

Both in and out of the show. Romelle concluded wrong. The paladins concluded wrong. The AUDIENCE concluded wrong.

What’s next? Well, the plot of ‘The Depths’ isn’t a 1-to-1 relation to the Altean Colony storyline, so it’s difficult to say exactly what aspects of the episode’s climactic fight and conclusion will turn out to be relevant. But, we can be fairly certain that the overall narrative is the same.

The apparent villain was actually being manipulated into taking the actions they took by a greater, silent threat. The few rebels our protagonists met were wrong about who was the real enemy. They were right about the issue, but wrong about the ‘why.’ The leader was not at fault because the leader had fallen prey to the creature first and was subsequently rendered powerless to stop it.

Perhaps even, and here we get into more speculation...

The real threat was something that loomed large in the background the whole time, assumed to be providing safety. Fallen from space.

The Baku is referred to as ‘the giver of life’.

That phrase is disconcertingly ominous, considering the only other time we've heard a similar phrase was in reference to Oriande. The Sages, or ‘Life Givers’, specifically.

And what is quintessence, but ‘life itself’.

JDS has previously compared Lotor to Magus from Chrono Trigger, a game I have no personal experience with, but @blackmoonbabe​ provides the relevant info​ here.

What if there's some kind of cosmic horror that Lotor's been fending off with Altean quintessence? Possibly, the only kind strong enough - apart from the rift sourced variety. Extracting it and storing the people in the hopes of eventually restoring them. Only, now that he's gone. There's nothing stopping whatever this thing is. Who knows. It might even be related to the rift creatures.

We still don't know what the Baku was or where it came from, just that it 'fell from space.' The new trailer for season 7 features a similar looking and very toothy one-eyed beastie.

When Lotor is pleading with Allura he says:

"Allura, you must understand I’ve given everything I have to plumb the depth of King Alfor’s knowledge, to unlock the mysteries of Oriande."

It might be that he found something bad while trying to unlock those mysteries.

All of this really makes you wonder why exactly Alfor kept Oriande's existence a secret.

Post season 1, there was an interview where the showrunners said that they had to kill off Alfor's AI because he knew spoilers. Which, okay, that’s fair.

Except... what exactly have we come to know now that only Alfor’s AI could have told us ahead of time?

Everything we eventually learn about Zarkon we find out through Allura and Coran. And everything surrounding Lotor and Haggar  are things that Alfor’s AI wouldn’t have known about because they happened after Alfor’s death. The only outstanding piece of information that Alfor could have know was the location of and the information about Oriande. But, Allura doesn't even think to look for Oriande until mere moments before she and Lotor unlock the map to it. Certainly, the AI could have provided information of the proper way to get past the trials, but that was resolved easily enough in-episode and it was never truly portrayed as a risk that Allura and Lotor wouldn’t return before the castle ran out of oxygen.

If it was true that Alfor knew spoilers... there is something BIG concerning Altean Alchemy that we don't yet know. Not something little. Something potentially game changing.

Even knowing there was a good chance he was going to his death, and Coran and Allura would be on their own, Alfor never told Coran about Oriande. Coran and Alfor have been shown to have a particularly close, lifelong friendship - strong enough that Coran keeps at least two portraits of Alfor in his room above his bed. Alfor trusted Coran to the extent that he entrusted his beloved daughter, the Black Lion, and the future of the universe into Coran’s hands.

And yet.

Alfor didn’t tell Coran about Oriande. The one place Allura might go to strengthen her alchemic abilities and reach her potential. Alfor was faced with the possibility of letting the knowledge of Oriande and Altean Alchemy die, and he chose to risk it.

There had to be a damn good reason he didn't tell Coran about it. He might have known about something bad. It seems like he wanted Oriande forgotten; for Allura to never go there. Or at least, not until she was ready to make some tough decisions. Decisions he would rather spare her.

I’ve been feeling since around season 3 that VLD’s ultimate conclusion will be to show us that there is no true good and evil, that neither violence or pacifism is always the answer, that the world - the universe - is all shades of grey. Allura is our vehicle for that. It’s through her assumed prejudices that the show is shifting our viewpoints. She began the series believing that the Galra were all evil, the Alteans good. As time has gone on she’s improved impressively on her initial bias against the Galra, but has steadfastly refused to acknowledge her own people as capable of similar actions - her response to the alternate reality Alteans was to declare them not true Alteans instead of accepting that they’d become akin to the Galra Empire from her own reality.

It’s clear that Allura will have to face Honerva eventually, and will be forced to confront what the former greatest Altean Alchemist has become. But it’s too easy to dismiss Honerva’s corruption into Haggar as a side effect of the rift - not the willing actions of someone more concerned with knowledge than morality.

For six seasons we’ve seen Alfor as a paragon of good. His one fatal flaw being perhaps too good, too trusting, that he believed his friend’s words over his own judgement. Ultimately damning the universe to ten thousand years of being ground under the heel of a brutal dictator.

Alfor paid for that mistake with his life, with the destruction of his planet and the near extinction of his people. And so, he remains what all good in VLD is measured against, both in our - the audience’s - minds, and in Allura’s.

But just as our ultimate evil, Zarkon, was revealed to be more than just a monster, so too will our ultimate good be made more complex. In season 3 we were introduced to the younger Zarkon. A loyal friend and comrade. Awkward around an attractive woman, afraid of cats, and a dedicated and concerned ruler of his people. He was humanized, for lack of a better word, but we still see in him the man who he’d eventually become.

What better way to finally break through Allura’s idealized view of Alteans than by tainting Alfor’s image in some way? To finally see our Big Good do something morally grey? We’ve already seen it foreshadowed by the corruption of the AI, and the Alteans in the alternate reality.

The first time we’ve heard someone level legitimate criticisms against Alfor was at the end of season 6. Just after Lotor begins his breakdown he says:

"What about your father? He may have been a master engineer, but Alfor was too weak to defend his home world. I’m the one who had to step up and save our entire race. Who are you to question my tactics in bringing peace and prosperity to the universe?"

No one else criticizes Alfor for his choices. Even when they acknowledge he failed, he's always portrayed as having taken the best choice. But, what if Lotor's right? It certainly looks like he is.

If Lotor hadn’t stepped in and saved those few survivors of Altea’s destruction they would eventually have been discovered by the empire and executed. Zarkon had made it his personal mission to drive the Alteans to extinction. Alfor was weak. He surrendered to his fear of what would happen if Voltron fell into Zarkon’s hands and failed to utilize all his resources to defend Altea, his people, and his allies.

This won’t be the only fault we find out he had, mark my words.

There is something dark and unsavory lurking in the truth of Altean Alchemy.

Considering Lotor readily admits that Alteans perished in the process of his quintessence experiments, it may very well be that whatever required such vast amounts of concentrated quintessence is also something Alfor had to contend with in the past. Canonically, as stated in s3e7 ‘The Legend Begins’, quintessence was only first discovered in the course of studying the rift on Daibazaal. Alfor could not have been utilizing quintessence directly, because he didn't know it existed.

So if, whatever Lotor has been having to do with the colony, Alfor may have been having to do something similar...

He was simply sacrificing people.

It’s a lot easier to hide a handful of people going missing when you have an entire planet’s population to work with.

What if this is a thing that had always been happening, and that's why Alfor never told Coran about Oriande?

The thing is, Lotor can't know that now. Or he would have told Allura. To justify his actions, if it was something that Alfor would have dealt with as well.

Lotor didn't have Voltron. If there is some kind of Cosmic Horror beastie out there he might not have been able to fight it, let alone kill it. So he was building Sincline. Hence the urgency to get it completed even after Zarkon was gone. We know he was out of concentrated quintessence as of s4e5 ‘Begin the Blitz’. He was either going to have to access the rift imminently or harvest more people.

The powers that be keep talking about things not being black and white in this show.

Alteans can do bad things. Honerva became Haggar. Allura herself has made some morally questionable choices. Like what she did to Lotor for example.

Allura will need to realize that. The truth will rise from the depths and confront her in a way she can no longer ignore.

Alfor failed. It was up to Lotor to save the Altean people. He did what he felt he had to do, and in many respects, it will turn out he was right.

Lotura Discord™ Meta! The only brand of Voltron Meta you can trust to cover all the bases. No reach is too far! We’ll make it. *

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*satisfaction NOT guaranteed. No refunds or exchanges. Theories only applicable until explicitly disproved by canon. Available everywhere Lotura Discord™ members post.

[yesgamesonline-blog]

Free Download Gear 5 PC

GEAR 5

Gears 5, I've been looking forward to another entry in this franchise for a wee while now and have since burned through the campaign and I’m preparing second playthroughs alongside continued play of the Versus, Escape and Horde modes.

Is it the second coming of Gears?

Not quite, but it provides some really incremental improvements on a lot of features from games past, as well as some new ideas that help refresh it for the future. So let's get into it. Some minor spoilers here for the opening hours of gameplay, but no plot spoilers here, you're safe with me. Gears 5 has all of the core gameplay components that we've come to expect of the franchise: the cover shooting mechanics are just as satisfying and well-constructed as they've ever been, with it once again having that weight of movement and impact that seldom few games have ever been able to replicate.

 There are some minor changes, partially the control scheme gets a wee tweak to accommodate the new mechanics for handling Jack (your AI bot companion) as well as a tweak to melee combat, but overall the core of the game's mechanics hasn't really changed. There are some fun changes involving enemy AI characters and design, which I'll come back to in a minute. However, the rote linear design of Gears levels is the big element that gets shaken up. The first act of Gears 5 feels distinctly like its predecessors: playing as JD while fighting through war-torn environments facing off against enemies of various shapes and sizes. But after that first 2 or 3 three hours, the game opens up and becomes a semi open-world experience: with acts built around hub worlds that you can explore to find upgrades (yeah there's a skill tree now) as well as collectibles. It helps the world of Sera feel more realized than in previous games and amazingly the transition from focused linear levels to big open-world hubs works incredibly well.

 GEAR 5 PC

For some I imagine the navigating around these spaces might prove tedious, but I found it a lot of fun. What is even more interesting is that after the first act, you playas Kate for the rest of the game which is helpful, given she's the far more interesting character of the two. Dare I say it; it's the writing that's kept me involved throughout the campaign. Gears 5 picks up not long after the conclusion of Gears of War 4. It's continuing the story of new main characters JD - the son of series mainstay Marcus Fenix - plus Kait and Del. Without a doubt the major change that Gears of War 4 brought was the inclusion of this a new generation of characters that helped bring a fresh perspective on things, as young adults who have been raised in a world ravaged by conflict, first by the pendulum wars and then the war of attrition against the Locust Horde. For me they were a breath of fresh of air, given we're rather used to Marcus's gruff moaning and Baird's sarcasm. Sure, it better fits more contemporary culture as well given their desire to tell jokes and mess with each other, but it also opens up more opportunities in the storytelling given their views on the authoritarian and rather fascistic Coalition of Governments (of COG) as well as their connections to existing characters or storylines. 

Gears have often suffered from its inability to deliver any emotional weight and that in-part is caused the characters seem unable to grow or develop from their gruff archetypes and their position within the established politics. In the original trilogy we had Marcus' complex relationships both with the COG government as well as his father and the underlying tensions of how the COG have caused just as much harm as they have good throughout the Locust war. But given Marcus and his crew are walking slabs of monster-killing meat you seldom get a chance to let them grow or develop, be it Cole's fall from fame, Dom and the loss of his family and Baird who... is just a dick really. But interestingly the same themes of working with or against the authoritarian a regime of the COG, as well as facing our legacies are the come themes of Gears of War 4 and 5, but the characters still have tremendous room to grow and adapt. JD desire first to rebel against his father and now seeking his approval is an interesting avenue but the game makes a smart move in transitioning over to Kate. As we shift to Kait, with Del helping out, the game seeks to address her family, her relationships with the CoG and some big reveals for the franchise.

GEAR 5 GAMEPLAY

Act two is notably a great segment of the game given it not only opens up the world as mentioned, but it's some of the best writing the franchise has had in years. It's always been a problem of the franchise - much like Halo - in that it often fails to communicate a lot of the more interesting aspects of its narrative. But here it allows some of these new characters to grow, to foster new relationships with existing ones and addresses plot points from the original franchise that were never properly explained until now. Moving away from the plot, there new Swarm enemies that crop up throughout, once again creating new and interesting combat situations for you to address, plus some of the annoying beasties from previous entries make their return. It's all building a top that cores combat layer and forcing you to re-evaluate how you use cover, attack the enemy and use your abilities and weapons. I'll avoid getting too much into it for now, given I'm going to be doing a design dive episode later this year analyzing the AI of Gears enemies, but I found them all to be welcome additions. Even if some of them are a real pain when in the heat of combat, but it's kind of the point.

                                CLICK HERE TO FULL DOWNLOAD

[thearabkhaleesi]

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI - EASTER EGGS, TRIVIA, AND THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

Disclaimer: I did not find all of these easter eggs myself. I watched many Youtube videos and read many articles and gathered the best easter eggs and connections to the Star Wars movies and I compiled them into one organized post. Enjoy!

Obvious SPOILER WARNING!

-

Mark Hamill played 2 characters

Of course, Mark Hamill plays Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, however, he also had a secret second role! Mark Hamill asked director Rian Johnson to give him someone to play in the movie’s Canto Bight casino scene. He plays a CGI character (and changes his voice) for a character by the name of Dobbu Scay. It’s unknown at the moment who Dobbu Scay was in the scene, but we do know that the name is an anagram for editor Bob Duscay.  

Leia trained to be a Jedi

It was understood in the script, though not necessarily in the film, that Leia had begun training as a Jedi shortly after the events of Return of the Jedi. Motherhood, and later, discord in the Galactic Senate caused her to cut short her tutoring. This explains how she is able to use the Force to create a bubble of air around her and return to her ship after the bridge of the Raddus is destroyed. An entry in the canonical tie-in Visual Dictionary confirmed this as well.

(below: art by Jason Felix)

Clues that Luke wasn’t actually on Crait:

Luke looks much different than how he looks most of the film, with a shorter, darker haircut and darker clothes

His lightsaber was blue. Luke’s blue lightsaber was the one that he lost in Empire Strikes Back and eventually gets destroyed in The Last Jedi. After Empire Strikes Back, Luke has a green lightsaber.

It is established that there is no way in or out of the base

Luke’s X-Wing is shown to be underwater on Ach-To, indicating there is no way off the island after Rey leaves.

He makes no footprints on Crait. The film zooms in on Kylo’s red footprints during the scene, since the planet of Crait is covered in salt. Luke makes no footprints at all, since he isn’t actually there.

The Jedi texts

In the film, Yoda beats Luke to burning the tree (which contain the ancient Jedi texts), and says that Rey already knows everything that the books could tell her. Later in the film, when Finn gets Rose a blanket on the Millennium Falcon, the books are there in a blink and you’ll miss it moment! This teases that Rey could have stolen the books and Yoda was covering for her.

Ahch To Tree

The tree on Ach To protecting the Jedi texts is known as an Uneti tree. The character Chirrut Imwe from Rogue One carries a stick made out of wood that comes from the same type of tree wood. Also, in the film, Rey is drawn to an ancient tree and the library by a chorus of whispers; those whispers are actually a chant with a connection to “Star Wars Legends” and the Force, saying “some sort of Force mantra”, as sound editor Matt Wood described. 

Luke is The Last Jedi

Once the title was revealed, many people speculated who the last Jedi could be. Throughout the press tour, director Rian Johnson insisted that Luke was always who the title was referring to “in his mind”. In the film, it is confirmed that Luke was the last Jedi, however, after his death, the last Jedi is now Rey.

Rey’s Parentage

It was claimed that Rey’s parentage would be discussed in The Last Jedi, and when Kylo tries to convince Rey to join him, he tells her that her parents are nobody, and that she knows its true. Many fans speculated on who her parents could be since the release of The Force Awakens, and were taken aback by Kylo’s claim. It is unknown whether or not his words are the truth as no official confirmation was made and Kylo could be lying just to get her to join him.

Luke’s compass.

In the Star Wars Battlefront 2 video game, Luke finds a compass. And in The Last Jedi, Luke is shown to have the same compass in his hut, which could have helped him find Ach To.

Luke’s burn

When we see Rey handing Luke the lightsaber at the beginning of the film, it zooms in on a shot of their hands and Luke’s robotic hand is shown to have a burn mark on it. This burn mark is a result of a blaster shot from the fight at the Sarlacc Pit in Return of the Jedi.

“Laser Sword”

In the film, Luke refers to lightsabers as “laser swords”, which is a reference to George Lucas, who called them laser swords before they came up with “lightsabers”.

Colored milk

In A New Hope, we see blue milk at Luke’s home on Tatooine. Then, in Rogue One, as an easter egg, we see blue milk again. And in The Last Jedi, we see Luke milking one of the animals on Ahch To and drinks its milk. While some people say they see it as the classic blue milk, others claim they see it as green (I did too).

Luke’s sunken X-Wing

When Rey looks on the cliff at Ahch To, she notices that there is a sunken X-Wing in the water, which is what got him to the island; this is also a reference to his training on Dagobah.

Luke’s door

When Rey busts in on Luke’s hut, you can tell that the door to Luke’s home is a re-used piece of Luke’s X-Wing. In addition to that, this easter egg goes even even deeper since in Empire Strikes Back, Yoda’s hut on Dagobah was similarly fashioned out of his escape pod from Revenge of the Sith.

Celebrity cameos

Many celebrities had cameos in The Last Jedi.

Joseph Gordon Levitt and Noah Segan: Joseph Gordon Levitt and Noah Segan, were in director Rian Johnson’s first film, Brick. Since then, Rian included them in every film he worked on since (The Brothers Bloom, Looper and now The Last Jedi). Segan appears briefly as a Resistance X-Wing pilot, while Levitt appears as a voice actor, playing the character of Slowen Lo in the casino scene. He’s the one who rats Finn and Rose out to the casino guards.

Justin Theroux and Lily Cole: Justin Theroux (from the Leftovers, Jennifer Anniston’s husband); he played the master codebreaker that Finn and Rose were looking for, the man who was gambling and wearing the lapel pin and white suit. British model Lily Cole played his girlfriend.

Warwick Davis is the character who mistakes BB-8 for a slot machine.

Some reports claim that Princes William and Harry had cut cameos as stormtroopers, whereas other reports say that the Princes are the stormtroopers in the elevator when Finn, Rose, and DJ are on board the ship to disable the tracker.

Tom Hardy and Gary Barlow are the stormtroopers with the weapons to kill Finn and Rose at Phasma's command.

Ellie Goulding is one of the background soliders on the Resistance's main ship, the Raddus.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this”

The phrase “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” is in every Star Wars film to date, but shocked fans as it didn’t seem to be in The Last Jedi! The reason for that was that it wasn’t said in English - it was said by BB-8!

No Lightsaber duels

While lightsabres are used often in the film, there are no lightsabre on lightsabre fights. The only time you see a pair of sabres clash, is in the Luke / Kylo flashback.

The Beastie Boys

JJ Abrams started a trend in The Force Awakens, including Beastie Boys references in the sequel trilogy. In TFA, we saw a new type of creature known as the Abednedo, with the one we see named Ello Asty, a reference to the Beastie Boys album, Hello Nasty. Rian Johnson included a character from the same race named Slowen Lo (voiced by Joseph Gordon Levitt) asa reference to the Beastie Boys song “Slow and Low”. Since Abrams is directing Episode IX, it’s likely we’ll see another Abednedo character with a name inspired by the Beastie Boys. (below: Ello Asty)

Director cameos: Gareth Edwards & Edgar Wright

Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One, has a cameo on The Last Jedi as a Resistance solider during the battle on Crait; he was next to the soldier that tastes the salt. Additionally, director of The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson, had a cameo as a stormtrooper in Rogue One. British director and Rian Johnson’s friend, Edgar Wright also has a cameo in this scene, as does Ant-Man writer, Joe Cornish. 

(pictured below: Gareth Edwards’ cameo, followed by Edgar Wright, his brother Oscar, and Joe Cornish in costume, behind the scenes of their cameo)

Maz Kanata’s “The Rocketeer” Jetpack

In the film, Maz Kanata is seen over a hologram, wearing a rocketpack/jetpack and as she turns, you can see the details more clearly. This pack is designed to mirror the jetpack that is worn in the Disney film The Rocketeer.

Raddus

In Rogue One, a character named Admiral Raddus, who was the head of the Alliance Fleet, sent his fleet to support Rogue One on their mission, which allowed the Rogue One squad to deliver the plans for the Death Star to Raddus’ ship. However, Raddus died when Darth Vader boarded his ship. However, he is not forgotten, as in The Last Jedi, the main Resistance cruiser is called The Raddus.

Foreshadowing in Kylo Ren flashback

In the flashback where we see what caused Ben Solo (aka Kylo Ren) to turn against Luke, a shot shows his lightsaber on his bedside table, with his calligraphy set/pen crossing the handle of the lightsaber; the placement of the calligraphy pen is placed to look like his future, Dark Side lightsaber (see below: credits to starwarsstuff on Twitter).

Snoke’s ring

In The Last Jedi, Snoke is wearing a ring which has a deep meaning. The ring is made of obsidian mined from under Darth Vader’s castle, and it shows the Four Sages of Dwartii (Sistros, Faya, Yanjon, and Braata)

Losing a limb

Throughout the Star Wars saga, in the 2nd movie of each trilogy (Original/Prequel/Sequel), the protagonist loses their hand (Luke/Anakin). However, in the Last Jedi, it is actually the antagonist, Snoke, who this happens to; Snoke loses his arm/hand when killed by Rey and Kylo. The lightsaber cuts through Snoke’s torso and arms. Thus, Snoke encounters the "limb loss" in a less than noticeable way, keeping in the tradition.

Carrie Fisher’s dog - Gary

In the scenes in Canto Bight, we see many different types of creatures in the casino, and one of the aliens (who appeared in an official still of the film) is actually the late Carrie Fisher’s dog, Gary, in costume! (He’s the dog-like creature on the man’s hand behind Rose). Apparently, when watching The Last Jedi, Gary recognized Carrie and his ears jerked up every time she was on screen.

Han’s Golden Dice

In The Last Jedi, Luke gifts Leia with Han’s golden dice from the Millennium Falcon. The diceare considered an Easter Egg in the previous films, only appearing very briefly in A New Hope, since the prop guys forgot to include it in later scenes and films.

Admiral Ackbar

Admiral Akbar, who is best known for saying “It’s a trap!” in Return of the Jedi, appears in The Last Jedi, but unfortunately later dies as a result of a trap.

Darth Sidious

Luke refers to Emperor Palpatine as Darth Sidious, making it the first time we’ve heard anyone refer to him by his Sith title since the prequels.

Rey exploring the Dark Side

The entire scene where Rey explores the Dark Side’s pull is a call back to Luke's experience with the Dark Side in Empire. And her heading into the Dark Side hole to find her parents, only to see her own reflection, is a call back to Luke fighting Vader, only to see his own face reflected back at him inside.

Battle on Crait / Battle on Hoth

The final battle between the Resistance and the First Order on Crait has a lot of similarities to the Battle of Hoth from Empire Strikes Back: the villains use walkers to assault a Rebel/Alliance base on a planet with a white surface, and the heroes use speeders to hold them off while everyone escapes.

Kylo taking Rey to Snoke: Return of the Jedi parallels

This entire scene is a parallel to one from Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader brings Luke before the emperor. It's all there:

Rey willingly goes to Kylo, just like Luke surrendering to Vader on Endor.

Rey is put in handcuffs - just like Luke

Snoke removes Rey's handcuffs. just like the Emperor did to Luke.

While in the elevator going up to Snoke, Rey tells Kylo that there's still good in him, just as Luke said to Vader on Endor.

The red-colored guards (Snoke’s Praetorian Guards and Palpatine’s Royal Guards)

Snoke making Rey look out the window at the Resistance fleet getting attacked, just like the Emperor telling Luke to watch the Rebel fleet get attacked.

Rey's lightsaber on the arm of the chair, like the Emperor did with Luke’s

Rey tried to grab the lightsaber using the Force, just like Luke, but both were unsuccessful.

Rey and Luke being tortured

Kylo betrayed his master, Snoke, to save Rey just like Vader killed the Emperor to save his son.

When Snoke interrogates Rey using the force, the Emperor's theme can be heard playing in the background, with the camera panning to Ren as this happens. This exact same moment happens in Return of the Jedi when the Emperor is shocking Luke with force lightning and the camera pans to Vader, with the same theme playing.

Luke and Obi Wan in battle

During his final scene with Kylo, Luke refenrces Obi Wan and quotes his line “”, and the way he stands and lets Kylo run through him, parallels what Obi-wan did when fighting Vader for the last time.

Luke and the horizon

Moment before Luke’s death, he sees two setting suns, a direct visual callback to the sunset on Tatooine, when his journey first began.

Leia - A New Hope callbacks

A scene in the movie, Leia fires her blaster at Poe to stun him, and she is wearing all white with her head covered, just like when she fired on stormtroopers and was stunned by them stormtroopers in A New Hope. Of course, we also see R2D2 show Luke her message to Obi Wan.

Jurassic Park reference

When the new race creatures on Canto Bight, the Fathiers, stampede through the casino, a shot shows liquid in a glass on a table ripples due to their footsteps. This is a reference to the same way the water ripples when the T-Rex is approaching in Jurassic Park. (Laura Dern, who played Vice Admiral Holdo, starred in Jurassic Park as Dr. Sattler.)

Halved villains

Snake’s death is the second time a member of the Dark Side was cut in half from a lightsaber - the first person was Dark Maul, who was killed by Obi Wan in The Phantom Menace.

Kylo uses Vader’s flight tactics

During the space battle, Kylo Ren spins his fighter exactly the same way Anakin does in Episode 1.

DJ and Lando

Benecio Del Toro’s character (the codebreaker who helps the First Order) is never referred to by name in the film, but marketing material for the film refer to him as DJ. It was later found that the writings on his hat, are Arubesh (a language from the Star Wars universe) for “DON’T JOIN” (DJ), foreshadowing his betrayal. It is easier to see on the Funko Pop doll version of DJ, which was released months before the movie, a clue to his character’s role spotted by fans. Additionally, his character is a parallel to Lando in Empire Strikes Back - both are characters who seemingly help our heroes but are secretly helping the enemies instead.

Leia’s hair

When Han reunites with Leia in The Force Awakens, he says "you've changed your hair". When Leia meets Luke in "The Last Jedi", she says "I've changed my hair".

Luke’s blue and green lightsabers

This is the first Star Wars movie where we see Luke using both his blue lightsaber (which had belonged to his father Anakin, and which is now wielded by Rey) and his green lightsaber.

No Skywalker At the End

This is the first live-action movie in the franchise to break with the tradition to have a member of the Skywalker family in the closing shot. All previous movies included either Anakin, Luke and/or Leia in the final shot. Although Luke and Leia feature in the final scene, the closing shot only shows one of the young slave boys on the casino planet Canto Bight.

Force sensitive child

The final shot of the movie shows a kid on Canto Bight mopping, then with the Resistance ring and staring at the stars with hope. However, many people missed the fact that the child is Force-sensitive; when he reaches out to the mop, instead of grabbing it, it moves to his hand.

BONUS: THE LAST JEDI FORESHADOWING IN ROGUE ONE

In The Last Jedi, when the Resistance escapes the First Order after fleeing their old base on D'Qar, they jump into hyperspace and land in the middle of nowhere, as Finn says. But soon the First Order catches up to them, revealing that they have figured out how to track ships through lightspeed. It is a big deal since no one has been able to track ships through lightspeed until then. However, this plot point was subtly foreshadowed in Rogue One! Towards the end of Rogue One, when Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor are searching for the Death Star plans in the Scarif data banks, she mentions some of the projects in the Imperial archives, including "hyperspace tracking"! This means that the Empire had been working on the technology used in The Last Jedi during the time of the Rebellion, and that the First Order developed and used it against the Resistance. This Easter egg was discovered when Lucasfilm executive Pablo Hidalgo quoted a fan’s tweet that pointed out the connection (x). 

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Angolmois 8 - 10 | BnHA 59 - 60 | Cells at Work! 9 - 10 | Planet With 9 - 10 | Phantom in the Twilight 9 - 10

Angolmois 8

“Hey! Kuchii and the Toibarai are fighting!” – Geesh, this sounds like a schoolyard fight! And yet, it’s because we’re here that I’m just going to sit on the sidelines and yell, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” instead.

Even after the sparring match, Kuchii is still holding his bulrush, LOL.

Uh, dude? Even in 1274, breaking into a fishing house and suddenly molesting a woman (or whatever you call whatever he was doing to the woman) is not cool, y’know?

Teruhi hadn’t appeared for half an episode until now…which just shows how minor she really is in the scheme of things, sadly enough…

How is sulfur used as medicine…?

BnHA 59

“He can do things an orca can do even on land.” – At least there’s something to distinguish him from Asui. Asui’s frogginess makes her best in the water, after all.

I love how Mera emphasised “I can sleep soon!” as being his top priority.

“A hot wind prison of flame and wind…” – That sounds kind of redundant, y’know?

Cells at Work! 9

“You’re not cut out to be a T Cell.”

Hmm…this really says something about the Japanese education system, don’tcha think?

The deception of the cell panels reminds me of Who’s That Pokémon? segments…like the top of a Jigglypuff or something. By the way, a pickling stone is a tsukemono ishi.

Planet With 9

I wonder, why do Benika and Yosuke have each other on first name basis? Is it kind of like “I’m not calling you ‘Hitsujitani’ because that’s what I know your brother as”? Or is it actually because they are close?

It’s a sheep! But it’s also a huge cotton ball! But-oh whatever. I can’t make up my mind on this, can I?

*the sealing begins*…then of course they have to show the Statue of Liberty, the sphinx etc. to show the breadth of the world and the sealing device…*sigh* Visual shorthand…

Oh, I just realised it went from giga -> tera. Hahaha, it increased in size so it...oh. Sorry. Dumb joke.

Phantom 9

“What a pain in rear!” (sic) – For some reason, I find that typo so funny, I’m leaving it as it is!

For some reason, Haysin using an iPad to communicate with his behind-the-scenes boy is kinda novel. And funny.

Choose a 3rd option – jump out the window, even when you’re still on the mend. What a glorious show…*smirking, but trying to hide it*

I just realised Ton’s red hair is the same as Luke’s red stripe. Not that Luke’s gotten more than just the stripe, though…

They’re only dealing with Magic Mirror at this point in the story??? Wuh???

Seriously, what is Wayne, if he’s not a ghost?

Where’d Shinyao’s glasses go???

The one thing more blasphemous than having reincarnation thrown into the mix when it’s already really messy with supernatural beasties and tech (not that I minded either) is…that Chris made Shinyao cry!!! Boi, you gotta pay for that!

Angolmois 9

I think I’ve gotten used to the filter over time…LOL.

Seriously, is Kuchii also good at shooting arrows??? Wuh???

Hehehe…Nagamine’s so hot. I’ve completely fallen for him after watching for a while, although the only real reason for it is his looks. He hasn’t done too much in the show, even though he seems entirely capable (dangit, Jinzaburou).

Still shots are a curse upon action shows, but unfortunately…here we go again…

I still don’t remember any generals’ names aside from Uriyan Edei, the rotund one…that’s a bit of a problem, isn’t it?

Have you noticed their objective always tends to be “land, treasure and women”, often in that order? History’s an annoying thing from a feminist perspective, eh?

This horseriding scene reminds me of the reveal of the Dosanko Shiraishi rode…the one in Golden Kamuy, that is. Not Angolmois’s Shiraishi, haha.

I only just realised Shiraishi said “head on a stick” because he’s holding a naginata, LOL. But it’s one of those naginatas made for men…

BnHA 60

There isn’t much suspense around Deku getting his licence, but Bakugo was actually a bit of a nebulous one. It’s a shame Mineta passed though…

What sort of Quirk would Yusa Kaito have, though???

I find it interesting that the word used for “you” in the ep title is the rough “temee”, as opposed to another alternative.

Why does this hero exam remind me so much of driving exams??? “Responsibility towards society” and all that…

“…proof that I’ve matured and it makes me so happy.” – That’s why I’m saying it reminds me of a driving test! Graah!

Tartarus.

Iida and his huge snot bubble, LOL.

For some reason, Deku’s shirt says shi-tsu (sheets) rather than shatsu (shirt). During a tense confontation, no less…

To have the status quo of your world changed so suddenly…and then have to hide the ripples it makes, and then have to hide the origin of it, is hard. That’s part of One Wish They Never Wanted, and I’m seeing it here, loud and clear. Of course, that story’s a lot happier than this one (BnHA), so the fates of those involved won’t be the same in the end…

Cells at Work! 10

Wow, we’re so close to the end…

All those shots of the heart come from the circulation episode…geez, talk about recycling…

Platelets! 10/10!

When that guy in the hazmat suit showed up, I imagined Spanish guitars. Like Tuxedo Mask in the 90s Sailor Moon…

So many platelets! 100/10!

Even more platelets! 1000/10!

If the monocyte doesn’t finish this huge Staphylococcus Aureus off…then this show wouldn’t be Cells at Work, y’know? As much as I’d like the show to surprise me, it’s better to know the cells are working as they should be rather than having something abnormal for the sake of surprise (even though I’d prefer the latter on most occasions).

Recycling at its best…or maybe worst? Hard to tell with this show.

Planet With 10

This horn(?) track – the one as Souya and co give final stares to the Excellency and Shiraishi - sounds really nice.

I just noticed Ginko and Shiraishi are very formal when they quote Sensei and the Excellency’s words. Makes sense considering their titles…

Did you notice it looks as if the spaceships are crying?

Oh my gosh…I guess I knew it had to happen..but there goes anyone who shipped Shiraishi with Souya.

Azurabarakura seems to be the word for “dragon” in one of their languages…

Phantom 10

Was that door even slammed in Luke’s face??? It was so poorly animated…

Stop talking about saving Shinyao and just save her already!!!

As much as I get these guys care for Ton, this possessiveness seems a lil’ yandere-ish. It’s mixed signals from a feminist perspective. Also, they did all this stuff a few episodes ago, we don’t need it again.

Why is Shinyao in a black dress anyway? Probably because of Sailor Moon’s Black Lady, right?

So, as Karandi guessed, it’s Shinyao vs. Ton…

Vlad sleeping while waiting for the kettle…for some reason, that’s real amusing to see. Probably because it’s a still.

Even though there are clearly lip flaps at times, they didn’t even put voices on a few scenes…That’s disappointing, show. Real disappointing.

Seriously? Shouldn’t someone call the cops for vandalism?

Lord of Gluttony? Is that Wayne’s alter ego? Why does the Lord act so much like Black from Kekkai Sensen anyway…?

“I’m the genius engineer…” But seriously, his name really is Backup??? Wuh???

Oh my gosh, chibi Wayne’s actions are so adorbs!

The next episode’s name roughly means “The Final Battle is in the Dark”. It’s not a complete sentence, so I can see why the subbers chose what they did, but still…

Angolmois 10

Oh dear, this ain’t gonna end well for Shiraishi…

I wonder if the Princess has a spiritual role on the island as well as her ceremonial one…?

My gosh, Teruhi does a better scary face than Chizuru (ReLIFE), I swear!

Was that dude Hokusai around during 1274…? Talking of waves reminded me of him.

I feel like Nagamine has his own agenda at this point in time…hmm, sketchy. Why do I always fall for the evil ones these days? (SPOILERS!) First zaShunina(Kado), then Chrom and Narek (DamexPri) and now Nagamine…(Spoilers over.)

Oh great. Is this MORE Mongols??? Find out…after the ED.

I just realised, but Kuchii has the scar on his chin from his fight with Shiraishi in the ED.

…Oh dear. I guessed it without even watching ahead. This show’s probably become too predictable. Oh well, I still have Nagamine to hang around for.

[iheartsupergirl]

Supergirl 3x14 Rewatch, Recap, and Review

Schott Through the Heart: The One Where Kara Does the Robot, Fights Some Flying Monkeys, and Helps Her Friend Save His Mom.

Spoilers Ahead:

           The episode begins with Kara giving a stirring speech to J’onn, Myr’nn, James, Alex, and Winn, who are all lined up like they’re about to go to war.  It turns out though, that this is just how Kara gets everyone fired up for karaoke night at the alien dive bar. Kara performs a hilariously spastic version of the Beastie Boys’ ‘Intergalactic,’ which includes her doing the robot.  James sings well when it’s his turn, Alex gets drunk and emotional, J’onn is stiff and awkward, and Myr’nn fully commits. While Myr’nn is singing, James and Mon-El catch up at the bar. They chat about Imra and James’ love life, and toast to working on their own happiness. Nice to see these two together again. J’onn gives his dad a big, sweet hug when he comes off stage. Myr’nn remarks truthfully that karaoke requires either great courage or a complete lack of shame. That is indeed why I have never tried it, Mr. Space Grandpa. Alex expresses her frustration that she still hasn’t seen J’onn’s and Myr’nn’s new apartment and guilts J’onn into a dinner invitation.  

          James gives Lena a call and gets her voicemail (“Lena Luthor’s personal phone! If you have this number you must be important.” Ha!) I give the show points for remembering that they’re together. I figured they would drop the James and Lena thing first chance they got. Mon-El catches up with Kara at the bar and asks if they could talk, but Kara first wants to watch Winn “melt our faces off.” Winn is about is perform ‘Take on Me’ on stage when he sees on the TV that his father, Winslow Schott Sr., aka Toyman, has been found dead in prison.  Disturbed, Winn literally drops the mic and leaves the stage.  James follows Winn outside to comfort him. Winn says he’s fine and tries to get James to leave, but to his credit James refuses to leave his friend. It’s nice the show is remembering these two are buddies.

          We are now at Toyman’s funeral. Big, fluffy snowflakes are slowly falling from the sky. Winn is wearing gray instead of black as an act of defiance to his father, and the minister is doing the best he can with what he has.  His message, basically: “so . . . ugh, this guy was a murderer, anyone want to say anything? Okay, great, let’s get him in the ground.” Winn throws dirt on his father’s casket because that’s what people do at funerals on TV. But then! Hey! Highly-regarded character actress Laurie Metcalf is here! And it turns out she’s Winn’s mom! It’s painfully clear that she’s been out of the picture for a long time and Winn is not happy to see her.  While the award-winning actress of stage and screen tries to explain herself to Winn, Kara hears some unsettling jack-in-the-box music from the casket. Kara then takes the extra nanosecond to quick change into her Supergirl costume, which is hilarious, since all she does is push Winn and his mom out of the way as the casket explodes.  I feel like she could have done that as Kara and no one would have been suspicious.  “Bastard always wanted to go out with a bang!” says Winn’s mom. Good one, TV and Film’s Laurie Metcalf!

          Back at the DEO, Alex is examining Oscar nominee Laurie Metcalf to make sure she wasn’t injured in the explosion.  Winn is brooding, he’s feeling very broodsome, and is not interested in Kara’s and J’onn’s concerns that either a. Toyman is still alive, or b. he has an accomplice. Winn is adamant that his father was crazy and now he’s dead and that’s that. Alex arrives and lets Winn know that the Emmy award-winning star of Roseanne is fine and wants to speak with him. Winn is not interested.  

          And then, here comes Myr’nn . . . he’s holding a pizza box. He asks J’onn if he can borrow “ten of your Earth dollars” to tip the pizza man who was nearly killed by DEO security. Myr’nn explains that he bought a ‘tomato pie’ for their dinner with Alex and Kara. J’onn is confused because they already bought all the fixings for a home-cooked dinner. It’s clear that there’s something off here, and Alex saves the day by assuring Myr’nn that she loves tomato pie and takes him home to cook the roast.  Kara tells J’onn she can hold down the fort while he has dinner with Alex and his father. Mon-El then sidles up to Kara and asks to have that talk they didn’t get to have at the bar.  

          In one of those DEO conference rooms that are only used for heart-to-heart talks, Mon-El begins by saying he owes Kara an apology. He wants to apologize for lying about being a Daxamite prince and other things when they were together. This apology feels like it’s at least 6-12 Earth-38 months too late, but whatever. “I do really appreciate you saying that,” says Kara. Me too, Kara, me too.  Mon-El reveals that Imra and Brainy have been lying to him about something big, something important. He asks Kara if they can talk about it over a drink once the Toyman situation is resolved.  They both then say the word ‘buddy’ a lot and it’s a bit awkward. Poor Kara.  

          Winn is brooding with his favorite fidget spinner in the big DEO control center room, when critically-acclaimed character actress Laurie Metcalf comes in and tells him to sit up straight. He works with Supergirl! He should be proud! Winn tries to get all security clearance with her, but it is clear that the widely-renowned character actress doesn’t really give a crap about DEO protocol. She also has a sarcastic sense of humor, it turns out. Like Winn? I think that’s what they were going for?  They have a talk in the big concrete bunker room at the DEO that Kara trains in sometimes.

          The co-star of the Academy award-winning film Ladybird tries to explain that she was away for so long because Toyman threatened to kill Winn if she ever came near him. Winn is not buying it and tells an emotional story about the night his father was arrested and how he had to wait in the police station alone. Jeremy Jordan has not been given much to do this season, and it’s clear he’s relishing having more emotional material to play.  Winn is in the middle of telling off his mom when a swarm of robotic toy monkeys attack the DEO.  

          The monkeys go to the trouble of spelling out ‘surrender Mary’ in the sky before they come crashing through the glass windows of the DEO. Two thoughts: 1. maybe the underground HQ was a good idea?, and 2. how did they know where Winn’s mom was?  A big battle ensues and it mostly falls to Supergirl and James to defeat the monkeys.  Kara does a lot of damage with her heat vision and a metal pole she swings around like a staff. It’s all pretty badass and it makes me wish Kara had a big Kryptonian spear she got to use in battle sometimes.  

          At J’onn’s apartment, Alex gets a phone update from the DEO, but assures J’onn that it’s just a “minor kerfuffle” that Kara has under control. Over glasses of wine, Alex, J’onn, and Myr’nn have a conversation about race in America.  J’onn says that he was forced to look like Hank Henshaw at first, but now he chooses to look this way.  He says that he would not want to change his face to be seen and respected. It’s a nice, well-acted little scene. Alex finishes her wine, but Mry’nn can’t think of the word for what she’s drinking. J’onn laughs it off, but it’s clear again to Alex that something is not right.  

          Back at the DEO, Winn is cleaning up flying monkey parts and fuming about his mom still being there. James tries to be a good friend and does his best ‘hey bro, she’s here now, and the past is past and all that.’ James tells a story about how he blamed his mom for a lot after his father died. James’ situation is really very different from Winn’s, but James gets points for trying to be a good friend. Kara and award-winnin . . okay, okay, I’ll stop. Kara and Mary have a nice talk about Winn and how much he’s accomplished. Kara gives Winn credit for all the good work he does at the DEO. It’s a nice moment, particularly given how little Winn has appeared this season.

          Meanwhile, J’onn has apparently been making a chocolate pie from scratch in his kitchen, because Alex and Myr’nn are still hanging out. They have a nice talk about family before it becomes apparent that Myr’nn does not remember the names of his own granddaughters.  Myr’nn admits that he is suffering from the early stages of the Martian equivalent of dementia.  Myr’nn does not want to burdern J’onn with the truth, and becomes angry when Alex expresses a reluctance to lie to J’onn about it. He kicks her out of the apartment. J’onn, who has been wearing headphones this whole time I guess, doesn’t really hear any of this but wonders what happened.  

          Winn is trying to reverse engineer one of the flying monkeys to discover where it came from, but he keeps getting electrocuted. Mary offers to help. “It’s a top-secret government facility in here,” protests Winn, as if his mom hasn’t been wandering around freely all day. “Oh, no one cares! Are you paid enough to care?” Mary asks a passing DEO employee. Seriously, are they doing meta jokes about how terrible DEO security is now?  Mary says that she was once Winn’s father’s apprentice and proves her engineering chops by taking a screwdriver, unscrewing two screws, and pulling off a metal plate. Wow, Mary, you must have gone to Caltech! Seriously, Winn couldn’t figure that out?  

          Winn begins to take his mom to task again about his terrible childhood, but it turns out there’s a lot he doesn’t know. His childhood memory of a car accident ruining a trip to Disneyland was in fact his father running Mary off the road as she tried to escape with Winn to a domestic abuse shelter. Mary reveals that his father was abusive and controlling during their entire relationship.  Mary apologizes for not being there for Winn, and Winn begins to understand where his mom is coming from. It’s a nicely-played scene.  

          J’onn asks Alex what went wrong at the dinner party. Alex assures him she had a lovely time, but that he really needs to talk to his father about what happened.  While tinkering with the robot monkey, Mary finds a metal plate with a corporate logo on it. Mary abruptly tells Winn and James that she needs some air and walks out. We then see Mary walk into an unlocked room full of weapons, pick up an apparently already-loaded handgun, and just walk out. The DEO, ladies and gentlemen! Seriously, does the DEO have ANY security!?

          Mary tracks down a woman at a creepy factory. Hey, it’s Brooke Smith! From Silence of the Lambs and lots of other stuff. Mary points her stolen gun at her and demands she leave her son alone. “That’s a dangerous toy,” says Brooke Smith before she captures Mary in a giant novelty claw machine claw. Hey, it’s the line from the episode trailer! Everybody drink!

          At the DEO, Brooke Smith hacks into the mainframe or whatever and delivers a video message showing Mary trapped in the big novelty claw of doom. She demands that Winn come to the Wiggins Game Company factory to trade his life for hers.  Supergirl offers to go it alone, but James, Mon-El, and Winn insist on coming too. James doesn’t bother changing into his Guardian armor because, I don’t know, screw it, I guess?  

          Back at the toy factory, Mary gets in a good Silence of the Lambs reference before Brooke Smith reveals her character’s motivation, such as it is. She met Toyman while working maintenance at the prison and he taught her his evil engineering skills. He also instructed her to carry out his last wishes, which apparently involves killing Winn, and then killing Mary, but not before killing Winn in front of Mary. Or something.  

          Team Supergirl arrives to save the day but has to deal with a series of crazier and crazier killer toys. Supergirl and Mon-El fight off some exploding fighter jets while James and Winn get chased by toy trucks armed with flame throwers.  Toywoman? Toyperson? Toy Lady? gets on the intercom and does some quality supervillain monologuing. Supergirl thinks she has the drop on her, but some superfast robot arms capture her by trapping her in life-size action hero packaging. It must be made of something incredibly strong, because Supergirl’s heat vision has no effect and she can’t seem to break free. Suddenly trapped and helpless, she starts to suffocate. Before Mon-El can save her, he’s attacked by a giant robot T-Rex.  

          James did bring his Guardian shield and uses it to destroy one of the flame thrower trucks. They spot Mary, and James tells Winn to go save her while he holds off the toys.  Meanwhile, Mon-El sort-of saves Kara when the T-Rex breaks Kara’s toy prison while trying to kill Mon-El. Mon-El asks Kara is she’s okay, and she gives a great ‘honestly, I’ve been better, but I’m okay’ thumbs up.  Mon-El makes very creative use of a piece of cloth and defeats the T-Rex. I’ve been reliably informed here on the ol’ Tumblr.com that this apparently is a whole thing. Mon-El is good with capes.

          Winn frees his mom from the big claw and they are confronted by a gun-toting Brooke Smith. Winn accuses her of lacking his father’s style and panache. “More is more,” says Winn as his reverse engineered flying monkey crashes through the window and disarms Toywoman. She tries to kill Winn with his dad’s killer yo-yo, but Winn is able to use it to stab her in the leg and Mary knocks her out with the big claw.  

          The day having been saved, everyone heads back to the alien dive bar. Mon-El performs a truly terrible rendition of ‘Carry On My Wayward Son.’ Winn and Mary make their peace with one another and Winn tells her that he does want her in his life. Kara is wearing a really cute sweater with these cool frilly things on the shoulders. She also tells Mon-El that she can’t get between him and Imra.  That’s some solid emotional maturity, Kara! Mon-El does want her to know that the Legion did not arrive by accident. Brainy and Imra set the whole thing up so they could find the third Worldkiller, Pestilence. In a thousand years, Pestilence evolves into Blight, the planet-killing menace the Legion talked about earlier in the season.  Mon-El promises to teach Kara some of his cool cape tricks.  

          J’onn and Myr’nn have a heart-to-heart over plates of ghost pepper mac and cheese, and Myr’nn tells J’onn the truth. At the bar, Winn and Mary sing ‘Take on Me’ and J’onn shares an emotional hug with Alex. James finally hears back from Lena, who has Sam in some supervillain-y underground bunker medical facility. Dun Dun Duuuun!  

The Great: Honestly, this episode was worth it for the karaoke stuff alone. Some of the most hilarious moments in the history of the show.

The Good: This episode was mostly good. It delivered some really fun, over-the-top superhero action. I loved Supergirl fighting the flying monkeys and Mon-El fighting the T-Rex.  I’m not sure it made much sense, but I liked the action figure deathtrap for its sheer comic book wackiness. The real strength of the episode was the emotional storylines between Winn and Mary, J’onn and Myr’nn, and Kara and Mon-El. Generally, I thought all the emotional beats worked well. I do think they tied up Winn’s and Mary’s storyline a little too neatly at the end of the episode, but that’s TV for you.  

The Bad: Upon re-watching it, my only real problems with this episode are with Mary and the villain. I don’t really buy Mary stealing a gun and going off to face the bad guy alone. I also don’t buy that no one would consider Mary a suspect. Mary getting taken hostage just felt more like plot convenience than anything. The last third of the episode feels slightly rushed and I wish the villain had been fleshed out a bit more. The credits inform me she’s Jacqueline Nimball, but I don’t think that’s ever stated in the episode. I feel like villains should have names, at the very least, and she never really got one. Her motivation remains a little foggy as well. She was in love with Toyman and therefore she’s kind of nuts, is basically what the episode tells us. Does she have any goals of her own?

Oddities: The DEO has always had terrible security, but this episode was full of lowlights. Are the writers doing it on purpose as a joke at this point?

I don’t really get why Kara couldn’t escape from the action-figure packaging. If something is made from some super-powerful material, drop a line in there that lets us know. Was it made from Nth metal somehow? Did it filter out yellow sun radiation and leave Supergirl powerless? Let the villain explain it so it’s clear.

Overall: A very solid episode that I liked slightly less upon re-watching it. Some really fun action and funny moments, but the actual villain was a bit of an afterthought.

Grade: B

Quotes:

“Yes, the house’s temperature is quite comfortable.”

“Lena Luthor’s personal phone. If you have this number you must be important.”

“Heat vision, freeze breath, and so many points of articulation. I think I’ll keep you.”

“Don’t Luke Skywalker me!”

[aion-rsa]

Cruella: How It Deals with the Villain’s 101 Dalmatians Obsession

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This article contains Cruella spoilers. Read our spoiler-free review here.

It’s rare to have a movie as focus-tested and committee-approved as Disney’s Cruella surprise you. But in my case, it did. Filled with vamping swagger and fabulous charm, this reimagining legitimately does something fresh with its premise, and broke down my curmudgeonly skepticism toward a Cruella de Vil origin story in the process. Dodging the boring impulse to just remake 101 Dalmatians (which Disney already did once in 1996), this is an eccentric blend of heist movie twists, 1970s decadence, and even shades of All About Eve. Genuinely, it’s a narrative where an upstart ingénue tries to replace a legend, with Emma Stone transforming herself into Emma Thompson.

Yet where the movie does ultimately struggle, like so many villain origin stories before it, is ironically in its concessions to its source material. Once again we have a prequel that appears strangely obligated to rationalize or explain all of a fiend’s villainy, which means giving an allegedly deeper rationale for Cruella de Vil’s desire to skin 99 Dalmatian puppies and turn them into a fur coat. While Cruella stops just short before those events unfold, it still makes a half-hearted attempt to justify the unjustifiable—or at least reference it. In many ways, it is Cruella’s status as a prequel that becomes its lone major stumble.

This is most apparent in the film’s belabored prologue where we meet the girl who would become Cruella, Estella (Tipper Seirfert-Cleveland), at a young age. Estella is a bit of a wild child when her mother Catherine (Emily Beecham) takes her to the annual ball hosted by the cold as ice, but otherwise divinely dressed, Baroness (Thompson).

It is there the movie arbitrarily suggests Cruella de Vil’s eventual obsession with Dalmatians is because that breed of dog was used as a literal murder weapon in the death of her mother. That’s right, in Cruella, we learn that Dalmatians killed Cruella’s mama when they jumped on Catherine (at the Baroness’ behest) and pushed her over a cliff.

One suspects that studio notes or test screening responses reacted strongly against the revelation. The canine face of one of Disney’s most beloved films, not to mention firehouses everywhere, are at best turned into ambiguous vicious beasties here. That’s at least one thought which crossed my mind when Emma Stone’s voiceover narration immediately insisted she held herself entirely responsible—that is until Cruella and the audience later learn that it was the Baroness who orchestrated this seeming accident.

“There were no words,” Cruella’s voiceover says following Catherine’s fall to a watery grave. “It was my fault. I had killed my mother.” She even later jokes it’s the same old sad story: “genius girl gets her mother killed and ends up alone.”

Nonetheless, it seems to me the movie doth protest too much. Images are more powerful than words, especially for a younger audience. And for an entire generation now reared on superhero movies where there’s always a mother, father, uncle, or goldfish in need of being avenged, Cruella suggests a different kind of inciting incident than what its voiceover would have you believe. And that image involves black-spotted poochies bearing very sharp teeth.

Even though the dialogue never has Stone’s character explicitly blame or criticize the dogs, Cruella makes sure to underline her fixation with the creatures. After Estella adopts the Cruella persona, one of her first acts of vengeance—other than crashing the Baroness’ party in a sumptuous red dress worthy of Scarlett O’Hara—is to kidnap the Baroness’ Dalmatians. There is some lip-service paid by the script that says she needs the doggies to retrieve a necklace that one of them swallowed. But once again, you wonder if this is a studio note about wishing to downplay the fact that their (anti)heroine is a dog-napper at the halfway mark and is about to only get more wicked.

In fact, we hear Stone’s Cruella openly imagine out loud if the Dalmatians would make a good coat at one point. And while she doesn’t (yet) act on this thought, she then wears a faux-Dalmatian cape at her punk rock rager across the street from the Baroness’ ruined fashion show, successfully causing her enemy to think this Cruella creature has skinned her dogs and is now draped in their leathered hides.

It’s actually pretty dark for a kid’s movie, and at least in the confines of the majority of the film where Stone is playing Cruella, it’s a clever inversion of audience expectation. This Cruella hasn’t killed any dogs, but her evolving obsession with Dalmatians being triggered by their association with the woman she is trying to destroy is pretty satisfying. After all, when we meet the classically evil incarnate version of Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians, we never learn why she is so anxiously awaiting the birth of Pongo and Perdita’s exact litter of puppies. In Cruella, we discover she gifted Pongo and Perdita to both their owners—Roger and Anita—and, as Stone ominously says in her last line of dialogue in the movie. “I have some ideas [about what to do next].”

Yet revealing the Dalmatians killed her mother is a bit forced and a little gauche, even for someone like Cruella de Vil. It’s also a byproduct of filmmakers often feeling the nonexistent pressure to explain every aspect of an intellectual property’s canon in a prequel… or perhaps just the IP-holders insisting every familiar aspect be wrung dry. It’s what led Disney’s Solo: A Star Wars Story to invent an unwanted and unfortunately glib explanation for Han Solo’s funky last name (an imperial customs official saw him traveling alone!). And it’s why the filmmakers behind X-Men Origins: Wolverine thought audiences really cared about how Wolverine got his leather jacket. (Spoiler: we didn’t.)

This is not to nitpick Cruella, which really is a playful delight whenever it’s about a war between the two Emmas. It’s just interesting that the best Disney live-action retread is at its weakest when it’s actually bending over backward to tie into the property it’s redoing. As it turns out, maybe we just wanted a Stone vs. Thompson riff on The Devil Wears Prada where they’re both devils.

Cruella is now playing in theaters and on Disney+ via Premier Access.

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[marcuserrico]

'Kong: Skull Island': Here's Your Exclusive First Look at the Film's Psychovultures

(Photo: Warner Bros./Legendary)

When you have a movie called Kong: Skull Island, you expect lots of monsters. And the upcoming Warner Bros. film, which reimagines King Kong into the same universe as Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla reboot from 2014, doesn’t disappoint, as the giant gorilla faces off with all sorts of beasties.

While several of these featured creatures have popped up in trailers and on the film’s poster, there is one that has not been revealed until now. Meet the psychovultures.

(Photo: Loot Crate/Warner Bros./Legendary)

The omnivorous winged nasties, which grow up to 9 feet long and use echolocation to hunt their prey, are among the dangerous denizens of the titular Skull Island encountered by the film’s cast, which includes Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly, and John Goodman.

Related: ‘Kong’ Star Jason Mitchell Talks About His ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Reunion With Corey Hawkins

Goodman plays Bill Randa, the head of a monster-chasing group called Monarch that initiates the trip to the forbidden isle. In the run-up to the film, Loot Crate, which specializes in themed mystery boxes for genre films, TV shows, and video games, has been unveiling excerpts from Randa’s journal tracking his fantastic discoveries. The latest entry, which will hit the Loot Crate site later today and which you can preview below, introduces the psychovulture to the Skull Island bestiary.

(Photo: Loot Crate/Warner Bros./Legendary)

Loot Crate is also launching a deluxe “Primal” box loaded with items themed around Skull Island, Godzilla, and Predator.

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, Kong: Skull Island opens Friday, March 10.

Watch: John Goodman Gives Samuel L. Jackson the Monstrous Lowdown in Exclusive ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Clip:

Read more:

Four Ways Wolverine Could Return After ‘Logan’ (Spoilers!)

All About That ‘Gay Moment’ in ‘Beauty and the Beast’: We Answer Your Burning Questions

The Super-Spoilery ‘Logan’ Interview: Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart on the Fate of Wolverine and Professor X 

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – December 4, 2018

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also reread books I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

  Archive

October 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

    June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J from President's Corner https://ift.tt/2So2KXq via IFTTT

[cieltee22]

Lil Campaign Thus-far

Some notes for myself, but if y’all wanna read it, you can too. :D For this campaign, we are using the Tomb of Annihilation book, so some spoiler warning if this is a campaign you and your party want to play.

Started off in a city, invited to Sylvia Silvane’s house. She gives them the quest and with some poor haggling on my players’ part, she also gives them ten gold each. Sylvia sends them off to Port Nyanzaru and they get set up there. I should quickly mention that they started this out with a ranger and a cleric, I believe. They acquired the aid of a halfling and human guide duo, who are actually treasure hunters and make their way out of the city. Despite getting a little off course, they still end up getting to Camp Righteous, which was empty save for a dead dude that was blocking the door to the entrance.

My players go through the place, didn’t really do any looting but it was pretty late at night so I don’t fault them too much for that. They decided to go through the shrine, which goes well until they get to the booby-trapped stairs. Needless to say, the ranger had some poor rolls and so did the halfling who was carried by the cleric. After many failed ventures up the stairs, they reach the top and collected an alchemy jug, which I thought they had broken on the way down but then they reminded me they had put it in their backpack instead of carrying it in their hands. 

Because they didn’t inquire about much loot, you know, investigation checks and stuff, they just leave with the jug. And upon leaving, they started to head off to Camp Vengence, where they ended up running into 2 entities on their way. The first was an alligator, which the ranger tamed and the cleric named Peaches. Before we get to the next entity, I should say that at this point in time, my players had to switch out their characters to the demigod bard named Muraco and the skeleton warlock named Mattias, as they both were not prepared for the campaign and brought the sheets for these characters instead. So, unless there is another character change, everything is the bard and warlock from here out.

Okay, as these two characters and their guides (who are rather useless, I kept forgetting they existed), make their way across a river via swimming, Peaches suddenly vanishes. Looking about them, the bard and warlock find themselves facing a night hag who is holding an alligator skull. Outraged, they start attacking the night hag, which ends up beating up the bard a bit because skeletons don’t take slashing or piercing damage (ughhh). It takes a bit, and about 3/4 of the way into the battle, I remembered the guides and had them step in to help. The hag was defeated and the skelly got an amulet of the planes. 

They continue across the river, running into a dead explorer that they loot- the bard got some gold and a pipe and the skelly got an efreeti bottle before the body drifts downstream. Upon reaching Camp Vengence, they convinced the captain there to let them in- the bard was very convincing- and he talks to them. Because we are all tired, they settled for sleeping through the night and continuing conversing with the captain in the morning. Mattias made it known to me that they were constantly wearing a mask and saying stuff like ‘Yes, I’m totally human and not a skelly man.’ Which is hilarious because he was an elf in life before and the mask is just a pair of wire glasses and a horse brush that acted as a mustache.

The captain sends them on a little mission, where they were supposed to get back to Port Nyanzaru. But Mattias was like ‘wait, let’s use this amulet.’ So they did, and it overshot, sending them to Fort Belaurian. The people at the fort were very confused, but a deal was made where the people Muraco and Mattias were leading end up being escorted to the port and messages that were to be delivered were delivered... in exchanged that they kill some ghouls. They also talked to the priest at the fort, which gave Mat a scroll that declared that he was a good undead being and not dangerous at all- he saw through the silly mask. Given the chance to go shopping in the bazaar at the fort, they meet some interesting circumstances.

Mat sold his efreeti bottle for 90k, becoming the sugar daddy of the group. Because he now had a lot of money, he bought a few items for him and Muraco- who, by the way, sold his pipe and had just a lil’ bit of money compared to Mat. In total, they ended up getting a few trinkets including a dwarven belt that allows one to grow a beard and a bag of holding. Before they left this particular stand, Mat convinced the trader to also give them the Cainath Mandolin he had, which Muraco was drooling over and despairing about due to not having enough money to buy it himself. He became a happy bard.

On the way to the big building at the fort, Mat stopped by a small animal trader- Muraco went off on his own. Looking at the animals there, Mat spotted a baby green faerie dragon and there was no way he was going to leave without it. Because the trader was a dwarf lady and at this moment Mat was wearing the dwarven belt, she was very okay with not only selling the baby dragon to him, but also provided 10 days worth of food for her. Originally the dragon was named Gildred, but Mat renamed her Voss and she is fucking adorable, albeit useless at the moment. He also gains a friend, yay.

So, the party takes lunch with the leader of the fort, who gives them their official mission with the ghouls. Too easy. They get some money and also get a new guide, as the halfling and human duo decided to go back to the port- ‘We just feel that this is not as treasure-huntery as we were expecting.’ Their new guide is a druid and his vegepygmy. This guide leads them all the way to the Heart of Ubtao, where they all catch Valindra Shadowmantle off guard, as she was just about to telepoof into the earth mote. So, she gives them permission to go on in and explore a bit whilst she does some stuff.

In the Heart, they find some potions and scrolls- and also a yuan-ti broodwatcher, a beastie that Valindra had summoned to guard the place. After a small skirmish, they eventually convince the yuan-ti to be friendly. He allows them to part ways with the potions and one of the scrolls, along with notes about a map to Omu. Then he ushers them out of the Heart and all of them telepoof back down to the jungle, where Valindra is waiting.

She reveals the name of yuan-ti, which is Hical, and strikes a deal with the party- they leave the druid and pygmy behind and Hical will be their new guide, as she also wants their end goal to happen and yeah, pretty much they trade out guides and now have a yuan-ti with them. They start their journey towards Omu, where they do encounter some entities along the way. There were two wild vegepygmies, which were easily killed; a swarm of insects which left Hical feeling a bit rough; and then an assassin vine which after beating on the party, was killed by Hical who by then recovered from the insects.

And that is pretty much the campaign thus far, as we haven’t had another session in a while due to me and the warlock having work on our typical campaign days. That night hag, by the way, got Mat and Muraco to level 3. Quite the leap in XP.

[takenews-blog1]

Star Wars: The Final Jedi’s superstar cameos you could have missed (replace)

New Post has been published on https://takenews.net/star-wars-the-final-jedis-superstar-cameos-you-could-have-missed-replace/

Star Wars: The Final Jedi’s superstar cameos you could have missed (replace)

Identical to The Power Awakens earlier than it, Star Wars: The Final Jedi is stuffed with blink-and-you’ll-miss-them superstar cameos. In case you’re too busy gushing about how wonderful the movie is through the finish credit to catch the names, right here’s the record of celebs to maintain an eye fixed or ear out for throughout any of your Final Jedi viewings.

[Warning: If you’re on complete spoiler-watch for The Last Jedi, you may want to bookmark this story to refer back to after you’ve seen the film.]

First issues first: Whereas director Rian Johnson included a number of acquainted names within the movie throughout manufacturing, not all of them made it into the completed undertaking.

Probably the most notable of those are Prince William and Prince Harry, whom John Boyega (Finn) outed as hidden members of the solid in November. The brothers have been set to play Stormtroopers, so followers of the royal household might not have been capable of catch them regardless. However earlier this week, Boyega confirmed that neither royal truly seems within the theatrical lower.

“I did personally apologize to them yesterday and stated, ‘Sorry you have been lower out of the movie,’” Boyega revealed on a British morning present, in accordance with Newsweek. “Will was like, ‘I assume I simply must work extra on the [acting] talent.’”

Tom Hardy of Inception fame and British pop star Gary Barlow joined William and Harry for costumed cameos. It’s doubtless that Hardy and Barlow have been lower from the movie too, because the foursome filmed their appearances collectively. However Comicbook means that Hardy and Barlow are nonetheless current through the scene during which Finn and Rose go undercover in an effort to break into Snoke’s ship.

And now, onto the fortunate people we will truly discover in The Final Jedi.

Replace: Alas, in accordance with SlashFIlm, Hardy exchanged some traces of dialog with Finn, however these scenes have been positively lower — guess we’ll have to attend for the Blu-ray.

Gary regained public prominence final 12 months after his proprietor, Carrie Fisher, handed away. Fisher and her pet have been an merchandise, with Gary garnering his personal immense recognition that he ended up along with his personal Twitter account. In early December, Gary tweeted out his particular The Final Jedi look. When Finn and Rose are within the Canto Vibrant on line casino, one of many playing aliens will be seen within the background holding the recognizable pup.

Sure! The Final Jedi director @rianjohnson has made it official. I’m within the new #StarWars film! Search for me! pic.twitter.com/DdN5IfXewp

Rian Johnson’s shut pal gave us the heads up again in October that he would seem in The Final Jedi in some trend. He tweeted that he was one in all two actors who Johnson had labored with in every of his directorial initiatives, from Johnson’s debut image Brick to 2012’s Looper, his final movie earlier than becoming a member of the Star Wars household.

I consider it’s solely me and one different actor who has appeared in all 4 @rianjohnson films. Proud and honored. Btw, title the opposite man… https://t.co/usxDtRfuWT

The credit counsel that JGL performs a personality named Slowen-Lo. (That’s a reference to a Beastie Boys music, “Sluggish And Low”; The Power Awakens additionally featured a Beastie Boys goof with the bit character Ello Asty.) Slowen-Lo is an alien whose voice will be heard when Finn and Rose are within the on line casino on Canto Vibrant. Huge followers of the actor must hear carefully to determine which of the quite a few creatures is him.

The opposite Johnson mainstay within the movie, by the best way, is Noah Segan. He took half within the gigantic house battle that opens up The Final Jedi; he’s behind the controls of one of many X-Wings.

Warwick Davis is remembered by Star Wars followers for his function as Wicket the Ewok in Return of the Jedi. Since that movie, nonetheless, he’s made small appearances in different Star Wars movies. These embody a handful of roles in The Phantom Menace and a tiny half in The Power Awakens. The custom continues in The Final Jedi, the place he performs yet one more Canto Vibrant common; he confirmed his personal function again in October 2016. (Subsequent up for Davis: a flip in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story.)

Justin Theroux may be very simple on the eyes, so it’s fortunate for us that he truly will get slightly little bit of display screen time. Identified most not too long ago for The Leftovers (and as Jennifer Aniston’s husband), Theroux makes a short look within the on line casino as a hacker that Finn and Rose enlist for assist. He’s sporting a crimson broach and a white tuxedo, in addition to an uncharacteristic mustache. In any other case, it’s positively Justin — albeit we solely get to spend just a few seconds with him. (The British mannequin Lily Cole additionally seems alongside him.)

The singer teased her personal Star Wars cameo simply earlier than the movie’s launch. She will be seen as a member of the insurgent forces, in accordance with a pair of tweets. You may guess that Ellie Goulding superfans are scouring the movie frantically to identify her, so we’ll replace with extra particular particulars after we discover them.

Has anyone seen Star Wars but and seen somebody who resembles me in it awkward if I obtained lower. Haha

Edgar Wright additionally revealed his personal shock The Final Jedi look slightly early. The Star Wars superfan, whose Child Driver was one of many 12 months’s most entertaining, trendy motion movies, additionally performs a insurgent soldier. His brother Oscar Wright joined him for the scene.

This appears like an applicable second to allow you to all know that me and my huge brother Oscar are blink-and-you’ll-miss-us-rebels in ‘The Final Jedi’. Oh, and the movie is actually nice. Go @riancjohnson! pic.twitter.com/8e3CaziJyu

Johnson owed Edwards, the director of 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a favor. Johnson obtained to play a bit half in Rogue One, and this 12 months, Edwards obtained to expertise the identical thrill of being in entrance of the digicam in The Final Jedi. He’s a member of the resistance, and he will be seen hiding out in a trench throughout a late-film battle on the salty planet Crait. Mainly, look to the left of the one who realizes the planet is roofed in salt.

The Chewing Gum star has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it second within the bridge of the resistance ship.

Yh, peek-a-boo, iss me !

Our personal Ross Miller has seen the movie twice now, and he swears one of many first folks to die within the movie is none aside from late night time host James Corden, as a resistance pilot that will get blown up in a close-up shot. And he’s not the one one who thinks it’s Corden.

Need extra information and takes on The Final Jedi? Take a look at the remainder of our Star Wars protection.

Replace: It’s not him.

Appears like they’re complicated Mr. Corden with the pilot performed by Jamie Christopher.

⚡️ “Does James Corden have a cameo in ‘The Final Jedi’?” by @PopCrush

Does James Corden have a cameo in 'The Last Jedi'?

[swipestream]

The Mist: Surprisingly, Pretty Good. Okay, I’m Lying.

Fear. Bad. Storytelling.

It’ll probably shock none of you that the recently-launched and recently-cancelled The Mist TV show sucked. What may shock you is how thoroughly ghastly the suckage was. It permeated the whole show, and came in three varieties: entirely superficial suckage, suckage in central concepts, and suckage in execution.

(Spoilers below. Like you even care.)

Let’s start with the superficial suckage. The first episode of Spike TV’s Maine monster show throws out an array of virtue signals, enough to rival the light from several dozen Las Vegas casinos. There’s the small town teacher who loses her job for teaching Sex Ed against the wishes of the small-minded small-towners she lives among, the small-town Sheriff who covers for his Captain of the Football Team jock son after he’s credibly accused of drugging and assaulting the daughter of the fired teacher, the bisexual guy with heavy makeup who’s targeted for a beating by a bigot, the innocent Middle Eastern man who’s accused of terrorism by a racist jerkhole, and many more I don’t have time to go into. It’s like someone had a control board wired up to every single virtue signal IN EXISTENCE and his boss said “Hit ’em all.”

The thing is, all the many virtue signals are misdirects. Normally they’d indicate a plaster saint, a character who’s just more noble, virtuous, and gosh darn better at everything than everyone else. And yet, if you stay with the show—and Heaven bless your stupid blinkered stubbornness if you do—you find out there are two (count ’em, two) innocent people in the entire town, everyone else being some variety of scumbag, murderer, or psycho—even the people you’d think would end up as saints (or are the apparent main character).

The aging Leftwing Earth-worshipping Baby Boomer former hippie chick whose husband is casually abruptly brutally murdered by some random dude in the pilot? Absolute psycho. The bold, brave feminist Sex-Ed-teaching former teacher? You better believe it. The Goth bisexual assault victim? TOTAL PSYCHO. Everybody, the whole town, both sexes, all races, all sexual orientations, every single person in the entire village is a scumbag, murderer, or psycho. Sometimes all three.

It’s enough to make one cynical about small town America.

Which leads us to problems in the conception of the show. Contrary to what people say, all story ideas are not created equal. Some are good, some great, and some just plain awful. Great ideas tend to stand out no matter how terrible the rest of the material is, shining like solitary diamonds in a bucket full of dung. Bad ideas, in contrast, tend to propagate throughout a work of fiction, tainting everything else with their awfulness, like vomit in a wading pool. The Mist was built atop a pile of awful ideas.

The original Stephen King short story and the 2007 movie (a decent work fatally marred by one of the most nihilistic endings I’d ever seen until now) featured the titular mist descending upon a bucolic New England village, bringing with it a panoply of bizarre and unearthly monsters who proceed to terrorize the town. There’s no indication of what caused the irruption of the monstrous beasties—other than some half-hearted gestures towards a mysterious military project named Arrowhead—and no sign that they’re intelligent or coordinated. They just are. The scenes of the humans having to deal with basketball-sized almost-spiders, forearm-sized not-quite-mosquitoes, and creatures so massive they tear up the freeway just by floating past… well, they’re the only reason to read the story. (Heaven knows the stock characters straight from Stephen King Central Casting aren’t anything to write home about.) The 2017 show, however, threw all of this out.

Instead of an invasion of Lovecraftian creatures from elsewhere in space-time, THIS Mist features a fear-generator. The clouds floating about town intuit your deepest fear and, in thirty seconds to a minute (one of the characters timed it), it materializes out of the mist to attack and probably kill you. This makes for monsters that are COMPLETELY LAME. Leeches. Dogs. Somebody’s overbearing mum. Random hostile homicidal people. A literal dead baby. (Not a joke.) A figure made out of black smoke. A moth that kills a guy by crawling inside his mouth, giving him a moth back tattoo, and sprouting giant moth wings from his back. And the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (who appear but briefly, in silhouette, kill somebody, then disappear.) LAME MONSTERS IN A MONSTER SHOW RUIN THE MONSTER SHOW.

Moreover, the mist-born monsters are barely featured in the 10-episode series. The first trailer for the show made it seem like Spike’s answer to The Walking Dead: a bunch of survivors, walled up in various places about the town, fighting off an invasion of monsters. The Walking Dead, for all its flaws, was at least a zombie show that featured ACTUAL ZOMBIES. They appeared—sometimes out of thing air—ate people and were chopped or shot, then went away until the plot needed them again. They MATTERED.

The monsters of The Mist—again, the focal point of both the short story and the movie—barely make an appearance. All the above creatures count for, at most, 30 minutes of the 10-hour series. Oh sure, characters run through the mist, stare out at the mist, and refuse to venture outside into the mist, but the actual monsters in the mist are almost never seen. People killed in the mist pretty much always die offscreen. A MONSTER SHOW WITHOUT MONSTERS IS A LAME MONSTER SHOW.

The mist itself is also a problem. It’s simply too thick, too obscuring, too easy to get lost in, and too lethal. As the central obstacle / challenge / opponent of a continuing series, it sucks. It makes interesting shots impossible—you can’t see up into the mist to catch a glimpse of a skyscraper-sized thing striding past, tearing great gaping holes in the ground, collapsing buildings with a casually placed limb, you can’t see people running for their lives from some malefic threat, nor can you see the slow but steady advance of some new threat marching towards the last bastion of human life in the beleaguered town. Last, but not least, people can’t respond to the mist.

In the story and movie, people made plans. They utilized the tools available to them and made weapons to fight the monsters with. The utter lethality of the mist in this show means people can’t effectively scavenge for food and weapons, nor can they easily navigate the thick and obscuring clouds, nor can they fight back. All these things are the building blocks of an interesting series. Writers NEED them to tell decent stories. Yet the show makes all of them impossible.

Not that the writers of this show could tell a decent story anyway. The Mist is, as per the usual trend recently, less a series than a serial. One show leads directly into the next, and what plot there is gets spread out over all ten shows. Basically, it’s a ten hour movie. Now, ten hour movies can be done (I guess. In theory.), but not by the writers of this show. (Or Jessica Jones. Or Luke Cage.) Instead we get apparent plot movement that meanders back and forth for too damn long, eventually going nowhere. It’s long, tedious, and MEANINGLESS. In the end, a lot of things happen, but you just don’t care.

Somebody needed to send these jerks to TV screenwriting school. Teach them about a 4-act TV drama structure, mini-climaxes before commercial breaks, and A-, B-, and C-plots. When, and ONLY when, they master these basics (after having done it for a while), then we’ll give them a shot at semi-serial storytelling. LEARN YOUR CRAFT FIRST, MORONS.

Now all of the above is absolutely awful. But it isn’t the awfullest thing about the show. That, they saved for the series finale.

Our hero, the main character, has been trying to reunite with his wife (ex-teacher Sex Ed lady) and his daughter (little miss “got assaulted and then unknowingly made out with her half-brother”. No, really. Because there just wasn’t enough awful in the show.) Daddy dearest shows up at the mall to rescue them and—because of some wholly contrived and altogether stupid reasons—the people in the mall (about 50 or so panicking small town people who’ve been neighbors with them for decades) throw the lot of them out. Into the parking lot where he has a car warmed up and waiting to drive away. So he drives away… then rams the vehicle into the front doors of the mall, letting the mist in and ensuring all 50 of their neighbors meet grisly ends in the mist.

People scream. Blood flows. Lots of people die.

Your hero, ladies and gentlemen!

It’s an ugly and pointless ending, even more nihilistic than that of the 2007 movie, and reveals our main character to be a total and utter murdering psycho. Because THAT’S the kind of hero audiences root for.

The Mist is absolutely awful, beginning to end. If I was thrown out into the mist, my greatest fear would materialize as a small, featureless room where they force me to watch this series over and over and over again.

Jasyn Jones, better known as Daddy Warpig, is a host on the Geek Gab podcast, a regular on the Superversive SF livestreams, and blogs at Daddy Warpig’s House of Geekery. Check him out on Twitter.

The Mist: Surprisingly, Pretty Good. Okay, I’m Lying. published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – October 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

  Archive

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

    June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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