#while High Jackman has said he had to work out a lot to be ‘fit enough’ to play Wolverine he still looked hydrated

[charmin-ultra-strong]

I miss the era of movies where people were allowed to be shirtless without completely destroying their health

[qcpmedia]

“Birds of Prey”: A Crisis of Infinite Harleys

by Chris Clay

Ok-- let's get this part out of the way first: I love Harley Quinn.

Have done since her debut on Batman The Animated Series. My mother let my dad take me to see Tim Burton’s brilliant 1989 Batman film (I was 5 at the time) because she was under the assumption that Batman was always the high camp she remembered enjoying in the television show from her childhood. Thanks, Adam West! My journey into comics began shortly after learning to read with classical mythology, so I was totally prepared for all manner of tales about monsters, demons, serial killers, human traffickers, etc. Quickly becoming an avid comic reader, 10 year-old me was a DC & Marvel veteran who spent a lot of mental energy filling in the blanks on the softened-for-cartoons versions of Bats, Spidey & the X-Men. 

After years of seeing "versions" of my favorite supers onscreen, I thought this new character, originally the Joker's jester henchwoman, was a breath of fresh air. She seemed like the perfect fit for both the show and the Joker, the first real Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. She was funny but also scary, vulnerable and just overall awesome. Best of all? She didn’t seem nerfed for kids tv. She just seemed oddly... real. And she was contagious. That complex reality bled onto anyone she shared enough screen time with. She helped me to see Poison Ivy as the troubled yet brilliant and sensitive person the show had always hinted she was. Besides Catwoman, no other character tested Batman's rigid sense of right and wrong more beautifully. Even Joker seemed multifaceted when Harley was around. I cheered as loudly as anyone when she ditched that clown, and those Harley/Ivy episodes were some of the best the series had to offer.

OG Harley & subsequent versions over the years tended to show a woman that was preyed upon by a master manipulator who pushed her to the edge of sanity. To the edge, not over it. She was definitely traumatized, but the original portrayals never presented any extreme mental problems. Sure, she was codependent & had a temper. And shitty taste in men. Those traits in moderation are not craaaazy. That's just being human.

Harley continued to evolve over the years, shaped by many creators and performers across multiple mediums. Her look has changed, her status as villain or antihero has vacillated and her relationships have been presented more and more as on her terms rather than something foisted upon her by chance.

The characterization problems started in comics, but David Ayers' disappointing 2016 Suicide Squad film brought this lesser Harl to the masses, along with a version of her *ahem* more revealing New52 costume, seemingly metahuman durability & chalk white skin. I always loved the idea that Harleen had the ability to take her jester clothing & clown makeup off, sit around with an equally dressed-down Ivy and talk about who they really were, what made them tick. This new Harley (like her modern comics counterpart) was always "on", displaying very little of the soulful, mature character many of us comics & animation fans know and love. Despite that, she was definitely the highlight of the film, and there were flashes of brilliance that made me believe Margot Robbie could get to the fundamental truths of the character if given another chance. 

And that brings us rather neatly to Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).

Harley Quinn, last seen in the aforementioned Suicide Squad, has just been dumped by the Joker & is forced to make her own way in Gotham City’s underworld. In short order, she meets Dinah Lance, Renee Montoya, Helena Bertinelli & Cassandra Cain. All of these ladies have, for various reasons, fallen onto the radar of neat-freak gangster Roman Sionis, played with scenery-scarfing delight by Ewan MacGregor. Forced to band together to survive, they eventually learn that despite their considerable individual talents, they're more formidable as a team.

For some reason I still can’t quite articulate, I remember being slightly underwhelmed when the cast was announced. I liked all of the actors... hell, each of them has had at least one role I absolutely loved them in-- but I still felt they were odd choices for their respective roles in this movie (more on that later). The trailer was where I got genuinely worried that Warner might be climbing back into the hole so many creators toiled to pull the DC film properties out of. 

However, as I said in the beginning, I love Harley Quinn. I was definitely going to see this movie. In Margot Robbie, I felt Harley had a champion on par with Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool or Hugh Jackman as Wolverine; an actor who would work tirelessly to get their character right, on the page & onscreen, however many tries it took. Plus she was saying some interesting things about what she thought the the film & the character should represent during the rollout (and I know the movie isn't the trailer), so I was at "cautious optimism" by the time I sat down to watch the film.

I was totally wrong about one thing: the cast is the best thing about the movie, and that’s not some backhanded compliment. K.K. Barrett's production design is great, colorful while not feeling cheap or phony, and Cathy Yan has a great eye for fun directing choices that keep things zipping along... but the cast is the real MVP. They’re actually great.

Jurnee Smollet-Bell is understated & surprisingly physical as tough-as-nails chanteuse Dinah Lance, a classic “woman trying to keep her head down in a bum situation”. She gave modern comic book moll vibes & I Stan. Rosie Perez's Renee Montoya brought a dose of realism to the candy-coated insanity swirling all around her while also giving Harley an entertaining foil for the first 2 acts. She has probably my favorite fight scene in the entire movie.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the person I went into the movie thinking was the most grossly miscast, is hands down my favorite character in the film. She's equal parts ruthless & socially awkward, a take on Huntress that is somehow both anachronistic & perfectly in step with her comic counterpart. Even newcomer Ella Jay Basco brings a unique charm to what could have easily been an irksome reimagining of fan favorite Cass Cain as a sassy teenage pickpocket. MacGregor’s turn as Sionis is less a character than he is a symbol, acting as a stand-in for various brands of broken maleness, but the guy’s clearly having a blast and he has decent enough chemistry with the leads. Chris Messina as Victor Vsasz is an absolute snoozefest, a waste of both character and actor that I’ll give no more space or attention.

Now for the elephant in the room: Margot Robbie's Harley is my least favorite thing about the whole movie.

"But Chris..", I hear you yelling at your computational device, "...you said she was the lone bright spot of SS!"

True, but in a film with clever, unmuddied direction & other actors that actually display some semblance of emotion or charisma for more than one scene a piece, the bar has been raised this go round & Robbie's frantic mugging limbos under said bar by a mile. What’s worse is that she actively takes screen time that could be better spent fleshing out one of the other four characters. Only Huntress (who has probably the least screen time of any of the leads) actually has a backstory, but her origin is a large part of the plot. One could be forgiven for thinking the she wouldn’t have had one at all otherwise. We don’t really know anything about Cassandra Cain, Montoya is literally just Stock Cop, and you could make a whole movie out of how the hell Dinah ended up singing at Sionis’ club. And where the hell is the Joker?! Why is he letting Harley destabilize Gotham’s balance of power or letting Sionis threaten his ex-puddin’ while also claiming to be the the underworld’s top dog? Instead of answering these questions, we get a bunch of throwaway characters attacking the newly-emancipated Quinn and Suicide Squad flashbacks that look even uglier than before when placed side by side with the production design of this film. The fact that most of these characters are so thinly characterized yet still connect is a testament to the performances and chemistry of the central cast.

You get the feeling that a lot of this movie was Robbie as producer, exerting her ideas & energy onto a massive production that needed a lot of moving parts to line up in order to work. It's not easy to have everything riding on you, whether it’s the future of the DCEU, progressive representation of women in film or just your own movie stardom. I understand that and I sympathize. This frantic, flailing movie is the product of some 3 years of rewrites and pitching, shooting on and off for 9 months, plus all the promo stuff. Every interview that I've seen the cast do has basically been Robbie explaining things ad nauseam while Jurnee Smollet-Bell or Mary Elizabeth Winstead kind of quietly nod in agreement, with the exception of the recent season premiere of Hot Ones, where capsaicin finally allowed someone else get a word in edgewise. The real problem with that comes when you see the movie and realize she’s contextualizing so much of the film on other media outlets because the film itself doesn’t really seem to have the time or interest, leaving it’s star to try and explain what we actually see onscreen on the press tour. This leads to a situation akin to Final Fantasy XV, where the player needed heaps of supplemental content to understand what could and should have been included in the story proper. She just seems overworked, similar to when Ben Affleck wanted to perform the Herculean task of writing, directing & starring in the next solo Batman film. Maybe Margot & Harley both need a little break?

The internet is scrambling to diagnose why a well-reviewed movie starring a beloved character played by a popular actress is underperforming at the box office, citing everything from the trailer to the rating to the movie’s title, with many (including BoP creator Gerry Conway) blaming the lackluster box office on sexism, but I think there might be a simpler answer: this version is trying to pull from the entire history of Harley to create a singular characterization from sometimes disparate portrayals. It doesn’t help that Robbie’s Quinn exists in a universe that’s constantly shifting under her feet after every film.

Most comic characters are criticized for being inaccurate to the source material but Harley has arguably the opposite problem; almost a Crisis of Infinite Harleys, where Robbie and Warner Bros. want to stuff the best elements from every version of Harley into every movie she’s in. It’s supposed to be fan service but instead, often feels scattered and tiring. Not to mention the stuff these films just pluck straight out of thin air that don’t work...

The DC Universe version of the character chose to leave the Joker on her own terms and I thought that was a brilliant and socially relevant writing choice, so it was strange to then see the more mainstream (and arguably more popular) version of Harley be dragged out of Joker’s hideout, kicking and screaming. In a film who’s title was purposely made ridiculously long to accentuate the character’s supposed newfound self-sufficiency, For all of the things that do work well, Birds of Prey just doesn’t feel like what’s explicitly promised on the tin.

I still love Harley Quinn, and I still think Margot Robbie’s the right person for the job. No need to Pattinson her or anything... just put less on her plate and give the character and the movies she’s in a clear, singular direction. Pretty please, puddin’?

[seaside-roleplays]

Wishlist

Hiya ♡ Just a terribly bored girl who likes to spend her free time writing out the lives of fictional characters! You can find me using discord more than anything, as I can use it wherever. If you didn’t already see, I’m 21 and a Female. That matters for some people, for example, I won’t write out mature topics with people under 18.

I double, triple, and enjoy F//, M// and M/F. Fandom and original are both fun! I have a list of fandoms further down that I am happy to discuss or rp ♡ As far as fandoms go, I am OC friendly, and will absolutely play your desired love interest ♡

If you find yourself wanting to write together, shoot me a message! It is the fastest way to catch my attention! please include what plot/pairing you are looking to do rather than just ‘hey, are you looking for an rp?’ 

Ideas

- Kingdom Hearts, I finished playing 3 and really want to roleplay with someone. Oc/Canon or Canon/Canon if I ship it. I can play your character's love interest if you can play mine ^^ My first girl can be paired with Saix, or Axel if that is an easier character to play. My second girl has Demyx as her love interest. I would be happy to tell you more about them if doubling up is something you want to do. I have played all of the games //or at least watched all the cut scenes hehe// So I have confidence in playing most characters. Shipping wise feel free to ask and I can tell you. It's faster than me listing them.

-  A Love Live School Idol Festival Themed rp, we make our own unit of school idols and roleplay their adventures, highs and lows, could be a F// or completely platonic! also open to a M/F romance between 2 idols of different units //ex.Starlight Four vs Phantom Five//

- Miraculous , I want to do something with my girl who is a ballerina with a swan Kwammi, who has Marinette/Ladybug as her love interest. Can play Adrien/Cat Noir for you, otherwise I'm not as confident with the other canons. Could also just use Oc's and do our own thing. I just REALLY want to play my favorite black cat superhero. Chances are I will 100% make a pinterest board or something for the roleplay *-* I do have a couple ideas in mind regarding some villans // Jellyfish and Monarch Butterfly??//

-  Something with an animal cafe, where the workers there have animal like traits, a maid/butler has a crush on a human patron or fellow worker. A cute magical slice of life. A slow burn romance, that can play out as the seasons come and go

- Something like "A Simple Favor" . 2 single mothers meet each other through their children wanting a playdate. One being very bubbly and cheery, the type to make beautiful home cooked meals, do arts and crafts and run a blog. The second a chic business woman who lives a life of lavish events and the finest clothes money can buy. These two women over time fall in love, despite their different worlds. Sharing their passions with one another and watching their children grow. A sweet F// really 

-  F// spy or partners in crime kinda plot! need help building this one!

-  A witch curses a princess so that no man will ever fall in love with her! This backfires when the princess thanks her, as she is actually very into women. A cute F// rp

- A Fire Emblem rp with oc's? Basically build our own world? this one would be a lot of work. I do also have one Nohrian Cleric who I would love to use, fairly open minded about who I pair her with, so you don't have to worry about me claiming anyone. Happy to double!

- Something based off the mangas Beasts of Abigaile , the Case Study of Vanitas or Mermaid Boys I am very into these recently and am happy to do oc's or canons. or, build something similar of our own.

-  Magical girl stuff. Sailor Moon, Winx Club, Shugo Chara, Pretty cure, etc. I would love to do something akin to a second gen or using various anime as an inspiration to the rp!

- A Marvel rp, specifically with the Thor universe. I would like to do an rp with Loki x Oc, where I play as Loki, since I miss playing him. I saw Thor Ragnarok and didn't know I needed to see Loki in a suit. Prefer that your character had a faceclaim, and not picking on if they are male or female really, like I said, I just really want to play Loki and have him fall in love, and yes, I have seen infinity war

- Adding to the Marvel fandom, I am also happy to play spiderman/Peter Parker for your oc, or Venom/Eddie Brock for your oc. I'm looking to get some experience playing as them, so I would not be expecting us to double, as I don't have an oc of my own that could fit with them.

- Black Butler, I really got back into this and am dying to do something with oc's or canons //maybe even a good canon x oc?// I want to use my oc who would be a maid, similar to Seb, a demon who also has a thing for ciel, not so much romantically. Happy to play Alois, Sebby, undertaker, ciel, or claude for you. 

-  A cute slice of life rp? a pinch of magic? Maybe a young wizard and witch? one from big city the other from a small town in the country?

-  Peter Pan based rp, I had a few pairings and ideas in mind, the 2 I most crave are Captain Hook//TinkerBell and Captain Hook//Peter Pan. I just want to play a captain hook using Hugh Jackman as Hook's FC. BxB or BxG is fine by me, I'm just looking to have the roles reversed, where Hook is the good guy, taking in the lost boys who peter intends to 'thin out' when they start to grow up, and having them join his crew for refuge. He tries to save as many as he can, but sometimes he shows up too late or things get in his way //peter's trusty pet croc?// I like the idea of having there be a routine of Peter collecting a new 'Wendy' Perhaps as a sacrifice to keep him young and keep neverland's magic? Plot with me?

- Very much wanna do a Red Riding Hood style rp, can be cute and fluffy or dark and eerie! The cuter plot would be an academy that teaches two entirely different crowds, the first being the Red Hoods, a class made up of boys and girls who will go into the world and become protectors to ordinary folk. While the other class is the wolves, those either willing to learn to control their gifts, and those thrown into the academy in fear of them running loose with no supervision. Dark and eerie plot could be more historical fantasy, again, there being a group of Red Hood's, who protect their villages and towns from the werewolves that stalk the borders, ready to pick up one weak and foolish enough to stray from home. A red goes hunting in the woods, as they are the only ones experienced enough to fight back, and finds a trapped wolf, and chooses to help them. The wolf then taking shape into a human thanks the Red Hood and promises they won't forget the kindness. This could also be swapped, where a Red has harmed them self and can't get back to the village, and a wolf assists them. Can be F// M// or F/M. I prefer to play the wolf if I can, but am just as happy to play a Red Hood. ^^ we could do multiple pairings for this as well

- Something inspired by ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ with the seasons and times of day each having a court/kingdom? 

Genres

- Fantasy stuff! Give me your zodiac based rp's, take me to lands where princes and princesses are made to wed, throw all your wizarding and witchy worlds my way. These are what I want! I want to be able to do something that will be imaginative and exciting! Elves, fairies, royalty, fairytales [modern and historical], werewolves, vampires, I love it all!

- Horror, I love me a good scary plot! I've gotten in to playing corpse party again, and would love to see something under the genres of haunted school, a town with a murderer on the loose, dealing with supernatural creatures with morbid tendencies, and ghots with traumatizing pasts and violent deaths. I love me some gore and horror.

- Romance, give me a rp where there is drama, heartbreak, love and friendship. I love love love romance based roleplay's. High school based ones with angtsy teens, day to day living, coffe shop romance, I will take it if it has a compelling plot and a character I can fall for!

- Harvest Moon, I mean, it could be pokemon based, or just straight up village living, I crave that simple life kinda roleplay, it's a game series I do adore, and will always find joy playing

Fandoms!

Marvel~Overwatch~Kingdom Hearts~Love Live~Miraculous~Fire Emblem~Case Study of Vanitas~Mermaid Boys~Sailor moon~Winx Club~Shugo Chara~Precure~Kuroshitsuji~Aikatsu~Corpse party~Final fantasy~Harvest Moon~Rune factory~Persona~Pokemon~Tokyo Ghoul

[avalindin]

California King Bed

Tom Hiddleston fic

Part 1: Issues

 *A/N: This is a mini sequel to Friend request pending...

________

Wednesday

She smiled from ear to ear. She hadn’t been truly happy in so long or as long as she could go back to remember. Her hands wrapped around one another. Her eyes closed, feeling the plane descend and touch down on the sunny lit evening of San Diego.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have successfully landed in San Diego, California. You are now free to use your electronic devices. Please stay remained in your seats until the plane has come to a complete stop. Check around your seat for any trash and personal items. From everyone at American Airlines, we thank you for flying with us.”

Aubery rubbed the raised button sized bit of flesh through her freshly dyed tangerine hair. It was a party favor from a car accident nearly a year passed that took a great amount of memories instead of her life but this, San Diego was always a dream she remembered. She was up and out of her seat with her hand clutching her shoulder strap on her bag. Her boots took her forward one step at a time until she ended at the carousel for her luggage.

The anticipation of waiting made her ignore the many chirps of her phone. Some were from a friend she knew was living in the area. They had plans for dinner and drinks with some memories that maybe she could grasp again. A full minute of non-stop chirps and looks from other passengers made her cave in as she reached for her phone.

I’m sorry.

Please talk to me.

I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry if it was something I said.

“If? That’s a big ass if…”

She rubbed the bump again out of instinct, trying to force herself to forget instead of having her mother’s words burned into her head.

“Aubery, you are not getting any younger.”

She pushed her food across the plate, wishing her mother would finish their little get together. For the many years she tolerated her words, her semi near-death experience was able to give her some clarity. Aubery was hoping it would be given to her own mother in the parking lot but in public would do just fine.

“Is this one of the things I’m supposed to remember? Hang on. I think I need to write this down for later.”

“How about you not be such a smartass? You’ve always been this way since you went off and did that movie, calling yourself Arbidy.”

There were flashes. Dena, she remembered, the smell of leather fabric and a bar bathroom stall.

“I do have offers from people I don’t know. Dena still helps.”

“She won’t be around forever.”

“Thank you, I know that.”

“I thought you were going into nursing like we talked about.”

“Like you talked about. I’m not.”

“I’m not bailing you out like last time.”

“Last time? You fucking kidding me?”

“Can I get you ladies anything else?”

Aubery sighed, knowing by now she would have teared up. Instead, she only smiled.

“We’re done. She’s paying.”

“Aubery Danielle!”

“No, really. We’re done, Maggie. I can’t remember dick and you are having a gay old time, giving me nothing but shitty memories and always putting me down. Lee is gone. He left you, he left me and that’s it. Try and have some dignity to move on instead of blaming everything on everyone else like the bitter old hermit you are.”

“You’re acting this way because of Lucius.”

“Lucius was just like you, caring, manipulative and a total asshole. He put my personal business out in the open just like you did when I was younger. Now, I’m taking a page out of Lee’s book and leaving you behind.”

She got up from her seat and yanked the large packaged envelope from her mother’s purse.

“It’s not that I don’t love our little talks. It’s just that… I don’t.”

She had no idea where the words came from but they felt so right. She turned on her heel and made her way home. In the small space she called her own, she opened the envelope and grinned as an average sized blue box with the Comic Con logo fell heavy into her hand.

Another chirp from her phone got her attention as she looked down to a random number. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember who it belonged to. Every once in a while, she’d get a text, choosing only to ignore it but this time she figured what the hell.

Did you land safely?

“Now that’s just creepy.”

Her thumb pressed the call button just so she could know. The line automatically picked up as she heard laughing background noises on the other end.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Hello? Nicholas’ phone.”

There was a gasp instantly drowned out by the intercom above her. Aubery plugged her ear to listen for her mouth breather.

“Look, man. If you don’t say anything, I’ll never know how perverted you really are. I don’t have this contact saved and not only do you keep sending; I don’t answer.”

There was something that could have been a sigh.

“Okay, whatever. Greetings from the West Coast, bitch.”

She ended the call as the conveyer belt shifted to life. She wasn’t bothered by the phone call. Her eyes zeroed in on the green grandma’s sofa fabric of her suitcase rolling back towards her. Her hand wrapped the handle, making her press forward to the sliding doors, planting her feet for a moment in the shining setting sun of California.

“Tom! You alright?”

Tom inhaled as quickly and calmly as he could with a forced smile to his face. Mark’s hand at his shoulder had pulled him back from his daze.

“Yes, all good.”

“Cool. When does your flight leave?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Mine’s in the morning. We’ll see you there.”

Tom nodded his head, making his way to his room alone. His door slammed behind him, leaving him to open his hand to the still lit screen. A while thirty seconds of hearing her voice after two years the last time he saw her. His heart thundered remembering the purple tie dye dress that slid down her shoulders, the neon pink heels that echoed his head after all that time.

He pushed back the lump in his throat and tried to focus on packing the last of his things. She was in San Diego and the next day he would be too. He shut off his lights and sank to his bed.

Such a big bed and she would have fit perfectly. He closed his eyes praying to find her, to hold her, something he never got to do.

“Okay. I got to do this right.”

Aubery kicked off her flats and turned herself, adjusting for maximum landing. She launched herself back as her whole body hit the king size bed. Her laughter failed to quiet as she peeled off her tights and what was left of her traveling clothes, giving in to her exhaustion thanks to the soft mattress.

“Worth the money,” she sighed.

-

Friday

Her hand wrapped around her long island iced tea and she knew soon it would kick in and reflect her life choices. If anything, it would help her remember. The hidden booth in the corner was perfect for dinner and the drinks that led into the evening. Her friend did what she could but nothing new came to her and she was grateful for the memories she did retain. Long after the check was paid, she was left alone with the drink she was nursing. The waitresses let her be. Aubery knew she couldn’t stay in the booth forever.

There was still so much that she had to do. First, was sleep off her emotions. Her lucky wouldn’t allow her to attend the Con for the full time but there was California waiting for her. There was always the beach. She edged her way out of the booth as it gave her goosebumps, swearing she could feel someone there with their hand on her leg.

“Ma’am?”

“Sorry. I was wondering if I could move this to the bar. I know it’s late but I don’t want to hog the booth.”

“Sure thing.”

The waitress grabbed her drink and led her to the bar to the only empty seat. She cleared the high stool, knocking her bag into the leg of the gentleman next to her. Her inebriated stat made her clear her throat, quick fast and in a hurry.

“Shit, sorry!”

Smooth.

“It’s okay.”

He turned with a flashing grin to her as she returned it.

“Good.”

“Here’s your drink, ma’am. Anything I can get for you, sir?”

He pointed to Aubery’s drink.

“That actually looks good. What’re you having?”

“Long Island Iced Tea, I presume or what’s left of it. I may get another.”

“Then I will take one and one for her too.”

“Coming up, Mr. Ruffalo.”

“Wait, what?���

Aubery’s face reddened more as Mark chuckled.

“That must be strong because I thought you would have said something by now,” he waved off.

“How the hell did I not put that together?”

“Half of your drink.”

“Smart man. It is definitely strong. The east coast could take some notes.”

“Are they really weak over there?”

“Yeah, that’s why our states are red.”

“Ugh, damn American politics.”

“I second that.”

Aubery turned to the new voice behind her. She only had a moment to look at his face before it filled with happiness.

“Arbidy!”

Aubery felt his arms nearly crush her, making Mark laugh. She wiggled away, chuckling nervously.

“I really don’t mean to sound like a bitch but how do you know that name?”

“Au- It’s me, Luke! We worked The Night Manager together. We’re both friends with Dena.”

“Oh, um,” she never enjoyed explaining but it had to be done, “I was in an accident last year. I cracked my head open and don’t really remember much.”

“Shit, I am so sorry!”

“No, it fine. I got this cool bump as a keepsake. Wanna touch it?”

“I’m fine.”

“I do,” said Mark as he reached for her dyed hair.

She faked a sharp wince, making Mark and Luke jump.

“I’m sorry,” she chortled, “but I never got to do that!”

Luke sat in the next available seat and raced through his phone.

“Okay, do you remember this?”

He’d brought up a folder of pictures with Aubery smiling as her neck was wrapped in a pink feather boa.

“Oh, God.”

Tears filled her eyes as she remembered Dena dragging her to a rave scared but leaving with a smile and a sweet-smelling boa she was gifted from the locals.

“That explains why I keep finding pink feathers in my things.”

“Hugh still asks about you.”

“Hugh. Jackman?”

“Laurie.”

“I know House?! Wow…”

Luke wrapped his arm around her shoulder, easing her a little as a few memories began to come back with a vengeance.

Saturday

Tom stepped out of his elevator, wonder if a drink at 2am was the best. He wandered the lobby, looking to the desk, thinking back to the training he did for The Night Manager. Something told him to stop and he did as he looked up to the emptying bar.

“Tom!”

Luke wrapped his hand around Tom’s wrist and led him in the direction of the bar. It would explain why Luke wasn’t in his room. His eyes found Mark and the many empty glassed in front of him and the woman in a light sundress. She pulled the edge of her dress down to cover her shorts. She turned her tangerine hair, knocking the wind from his chest.

“Arbidy.”

It was a single breath that he needed from her again. She was so different. He’d missed her so much. Aubery checked her phone.

2:43am

Nothing good ever happened but she’d make an exception as she sipped more of her brought drink.

“Aubery,” shouted Luke, “You can’t tell me you don’t remember this one!”

Tom lunged forward wrapping his arms around her waist, nearly to his level. He pressed his lips to hers, filling his veins with two years of emotion. Aubery wasn’t sure what was happening. She held onto the bar behind her with her head spinning on a full axis. She shoved Tom away and took a moment to look up. When she did, her blood ran cold.

“Aubery?”

She’d seen his face but it didn’t click until then. It was his hand at the booth that was on her leg. Her heels that clicked toward him. The eyes that burned into her were ones that had taken forever to notice her. A memory filled her head as Tom also remembered. It was too late.

“Asshole.”

“Wait…”

“I waited for 12 hours, you dick.”

“Aubery. You okay?”

“No but it was nice drinking with you guys.”

“Plea…”

Aubery grabbed what was left of her drink and tossed it into Tom’s face. She pushed her way out of her seat and stumbled to the door with Mark following a few seconds behind her. She left them and her phone behind with Luke to break the silence.

“What was that?”

“What part? The drink of the way she looked at me like she didn’t know who I was?”

“Tom. There’s something you need to know.”

Aubery tried to steady her breath as she looked in her bag for her phone.

“Arbidy, wait!”

Tom rushed outside with the phone she’d left behind. Mark was already with her to make sure she was safe.

“Let’s everyone try to calm down.”

Aubery was busy mouthing drink curses to Tom over Mark’s shoulder and he knew he deserved every one of them.

“Can I just explain?”

“No,” huffed Aubery.

“Look. Tom, we have somewhere to be in a few hours. Go get some sleep and I’ll get her a ride.”

“I’m not leaving her. I’ve already made that mistake.”

“I’m not telling you where I’m staying Nicholas Sparks.”

“Fine. New plan. She’ll come with us. We’ll use Luke’s badge to get her in as long as she keeps quiet.”

“Just don’t leave me alone with him.”

Aubery felt it was more for her because even though she was infuriated with Tom, she didn’t trust herself with what she felt for him. She kept her mouth shut and her head down as Mark led her to wherever that were going.

“Here!”

Mark flipped on a light to a conference room with cots spread out from wall to wall.

“Restroom’s there. You need a bucket.”

“No. I can hold my liquor. That I always remember.”

“You can rest here until you wake up. You never know with certain drivers.”

“I appreciate it,” she blushed, giving the badge back.

“Yeah, well, try not to thank me. You will once you talk it out.”

Mark slipped out the door, shoving Tom inside. She rolled her eyes at the sound of the locking door behind Tom. He held out her phone as she snatched it away.

“Can we talk?”

“May as well. Try and tell me the truth. No one else will.”

“Okay, uh…”

“I’ll start. Why’d you leave me in that lobby for 12 hours?”

He started to open his mouth again.

“Seriously, no bullshit. Five words or less.”

“I was scared.”

“Alright.”

“What?”

She ignored him and reached for the nearest blanket.

“I thought you were a good guy, Tom. Like I really liked you from the moment I saw you. It took eight months for you to figure out I was there and even then, I had to torture myself in those damn heels and open my legs for you to get your head out of your ass!”

“You walked into that bar by your choice!”

“Dena told me. I threw myself at you and you run away like a coward.”

“I’m here now, Goddammit!”

“Whatever,” she huffed.

She wrapped herself in the blanket and chose the farthest cot to roll herself onto. He kept some distance between them as he sat next to her cot.

“They all said you had an accident.”

“Just more drama in my life,” she murmured, “the more I try to walk away from it, it always ends up finding me.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

“Made Freud proud and found someone fucked up like my mother. I told him I wanted to take a break, he lost his shit. It was causing trouble on set so I decided to bow out. When he found out, he jumped in front of my car and I crashed. A light pole hit the top of the car and my head.”

She grabbed his hand and led it to the bump.

“Shit.”

“I was in a coma for maybe nine days. There are some things I do remember, some I don’t.”

She let his hand go but it was comforting feeling his hand on hers. Tom laid his head on the cot next to hers.

“You didn’t remember me, maybe it was for the best.”

She couldn’t help but smile.

“I remember how you made me feel. The stall, the booth. I could never stop smiling. I never knew why.”

It was killing him but he stayed put.

“Arbidy?”

“No, Arbidy was… reckless, bold, mostly trouble. I think I’ll go back to Aubery for a while.”

Her eyes drifted shut. She turned to her other side so that she faced the wall.

“Maybe I was too bold for you, Tom. Should’ve taken things slow…”

She was drifting quick and he couldn’t hold himself any longer. He moved onto the cot next to Aubery and wrapped his arm around her waist.

“Aubery.”

He couldn’t believe he had been a coward to her.

“Mmm.”

“I am truly sorry.”

“S’Okay…”

He buried his nose into her hair, wanting to be given a chance he knew he didn’t deserve.

“Aubery?”

“Mmm?”

“Can I keep you? Please?”

He wanted as Aubery fell asleep tucked between the blanket, the wall and himself. He would move eventually to take off their shoes and wash out as much alcohol he could from his shirt but he wanted to moment to last, just is case. He’d let her slip away once before and he never wanted to do it again.

-

Her head didn’t hurt from drinking and she considered herself lucky. Her side did ache and she knew to flip to her other side. The cot under her was heavy as she felt something roll into her. She already knew who it was.

“You could have picked another cot.”

“All taken, I’m afraid.”

She opened a single eye over Tom’s shoulder, seeing mountains of sleeping heaps on the other cots. She closed her eye and lowered her voice to not disturb anyone.

“Nice. What happened to the floor?”

“Terribly uncomfortable but you can always sleep on me if you wish. I would have done no more than cuddling. I swear.”

“Yeah, you wish.”

The AC made her chilly as she snuggled closer to Tom. She didn’t feel as mad anymore and he was so warm.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?”

“It means you are a source of heat.”

“Here. Take my jacket.”

It helped as the leather jacket was wrapped around her shoulder but she wanted more. She tucked her head down into his chest, smelling nothing but him. Tom smiled, pulling her just a bit closer. When she didn’t fight him, he shifted so that she was laying on top of him.

“I remember how much you loved the leather. Is this better?”

She turned her head up as his hand drifted to her stomach. She could feel him hesitating. It was cute. She took his hand and formed it to the front of her chest as his fingers curled on their own.

“Yeah but I would have done more.”

Her knee shifted up, brushing near the inside of his thigh. It hurt, it hurt so much and he was surrounded on all sides to try and make a move. Shame that his body wouldn’t listen to his head. His hand reached up and brushed back the orange strands that fell from her ponytail.

All she wanted to do was sleep and she knew what he was doing. The bastard was trying to be bold.

Aubery opened her eyes as his burned into hers.

“Tell me what to do,” he whispered.

“No, I shouldn’t have to. Just don’t get us caught.”

A smile stretched across his face. He leaned forward and kissed her without making a noise. Though it would be a challenge and some fun, he wanted her too badly. She pushed herself from the wall and pressed herself against Tom. He shifted his hips slowly into her thigh, careful to not make the cot creak underneath him.

The AC above them kicked on and was able to hide their sighs and soft laughter.

“You may not like it but I miss you being bold.”

He didn’t wait for her to say anything smartass as he slipped his hand past her dress and down her shorts. Her button came undone by itself, giving his hand more room to meet the in between of her legs. Aubery was quick to bury her face into Tom’s neck and indulge herself by grinding her hips on his finger.

Tom felt it safe to bite his lower lip so he wouldn’t gasp from Aubery’s open and welcome legs to him. He traced her with his longest finger to her folds and dipped his finger into her. His own memories came flooding back from the time they were together. He forced himself to stop and pulled his hand away. Aubery pulled her face away in time to see Tom suck on the finger he’d teased her with. His eyes had sunken shut, needing very much to have her again, even if it meant pulling to the bathroom with 10 other sleep people in their way.

He turned her to her back, making the cot creak only once. He pulled the front ties of her dress apart and buried his face into her chest. His finger rubbed her roughly through the shorts. Her fingers curled into his hair to pull him off her breast. He let go, giving her warm skin a single lick.

“No. Not here,” she whispered, “If you want me, then I deserve a real bed.”

“Consider it done.”

He opened his eyes, smiling mischievously as Aubery reached for his belt.

“My turn. Come here.”

Tom almost gave them away as Aubery closed her front teeth around his ear lobe and her hand around his cock at the same time. There was some strength to her grip, enough that he didn’t want her to let go. His heart raced, fighting his deeper urges to push his pants lower. The hairs on the back of his neck stood as he heard the cots creak slowly behind him. So unprofessional to how he looked under his and Aubery’s blanket but he knew it was worth it.

Aubery let him go and traced her nails slowly up his stomach. She enjoyed torturing him, so much closer to him than they were in the bathroom stall. She closed his pants and lazily rubbed him through his jeans. Her grips gave made him calm as his thumb brushed across her bare chest.

“You need to sleep.”

“Will you be here when I wake?”

“What’ll happen then?”

“I want you to wait for me.”

Aubery stopped her hand.

“I am serious. I’ll only be a few hours but I don’t want to lose you again.”

She pulled her hand to her chest.

“Was I ever yours to begin with?”

“You will be now.”

Tom wrapped his hands around Aubery, encasing her with his body warm so she knew that he was going nowhere. He had a chance to prove himself and he was willing to make sure that he wasn’t going to fuck it up.

His eyes closed, hearing his phone vibrate. It was going to be a long day but as long as she was waiting for him, that would be all that mattered. As he slept, someone had gotten off the cot and given him room to turn on his other side. He felt her arm wrap around him. His deep sleep prevented him from reaching back and grabbing ahold of her hand. He had to have been dreaming as her warmth slowly started to disappear.

Wake up! Wake up!

“Smile!”

Laughter made him shift as his eyes opened. He looked up to Mark as he finished taking another picture of him sleep. He rubbed his eyes, looking to his costars waking on the cots around him.

“Ugh. What time is it?”

He rolled to his back, hitting his elbow on the bare wall. That was when he forced his eyes open.

“Where is she?”

Tom rolled to the floor, seeing his jacket folded neatly next to him with a piece of paper on top. He flipped the piece of torn paper open and felt his heart rip from his chest.

I’m sorry.

Mark squatted down so that they wouldn’t be heard.

“She was gone when I got here and that was at least an hour and a half ago. I’m sorry, man.”

He forced himself up and calmly closed himself off in the unoccupied bathroom. He crashed to the floor, shaking, completely out of touch with reality without Aubery there. He kept his mouth closed but he could only cry.

______

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[thechasefiles]

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 3/18/2019

Good MORNING  #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Monday 18th March 2019. Remember you can read full articles for FREE via Barbados Today (BT) or Barbados Government Information Services (BGIS) OR by purchasing by purchasing a Daily Nation Newspaper (DN).

POLICE IDENTIFY VICTIMS IN DOUBLE MURDER - Police have identified the victims in tonight’s double homicide at Rices, St Philip. They are 52-year-old Betty Mayers and her 32-year-old son Jamal Mayers of the same address.  Lawmen have cordoned the immediate scene and restricted movement of vehicular traffic along Rices main road. (DN)

UPDATE: DOUBLE MURDER AT RICES, ST PHILIP – The murder toll increased to 18 this evening after two people were shot at Rices, St Philip. According to Acting Police Inspector Rodney Inniss, 52-year-old Betty Mayers and her son, 32-year-old Jamal Mayers were found lifeless at their residence. Inniss said that around 8 p.m. they received a call that two masked men were seen at a house in the community. On arrival at the house, lawmen discovered the motionless body of a female at the front door and upon further investigations they found the body of a male on the outside. “When the ambulance arrived, the EMTs [Emergency Medical Technicians] and the paramedics confirmed there were no signs of life, ” he said. Inniss appealed to residents or anyone with information about the incident to contact Police Emergency at 211, or any police station and Crime Stoppers at 1-800-8477. “Anything that you have heard, anything that you know, however small we are appealing to people to let us know what is going on,” he urged. (BT)

CHANGES IN PETROLEUM PRICES FOR MARCH – Effective midnight Sunday, March 17, the retail prices of gasoline and diesel will increase, while the price of kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas will remain unchanged. The retail price of gasoline will be adjusted from BDS $3.56 per litre to $3.57 per litre, an increase of 0.01 cent.  The price of diesel will increase by 0.20 cents per litre, moving from $2.89 per litre to $3.09 per litre.  Kerosene will continue to retail at $1.40 per litre. Liquefied petroleum gas will continue to retail as adjusted at December 2, 2018. The 100lb cylinder will retail for $163.07, the 25lb cylinder at $45.87, the 22lb cylinder at $40.53, and the 20lb cylinder at $36.84. These price adjustments are in keeping with Government’s policy of allowing retail prices to be reflective of those on the international market. (BGIS)

US$85 000 A MONTH – THE MIA MOTTLEY ADMINISTRATION will save more than a billion dollars in principal and interest savings in its restructuring of Barbados’ debt, but it is paying a high price for the advice to achieve it. According to the engagement letter available on Parliament’s website, Government has agreed to pay White Oak Advisory Ltd US$85 000 (BDS$170 000) per month to help Barbados navigate the situation. The engagement letter, dated last May 30, between the globally-recognised company and Government was laid in Parliament at the start of the recently concluded annual Estimates Debate on February 18. It was laid by Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn, for public record in response to Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley’s request for information about it.   (DN)

ROCK HARD BRACES -The cement war may not be over after all. Seems Rock Hard Cement is preparing for another fight from the western hemisphere’s largest cement producer, CEMEX. Rock Hard scored a major victory in its war with Trinidad Cement Ltd (TCL) and its Barbados-based subsidiary Arawak Cement Ltd last week, when CARICOM’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), along with the World Customs Organisation (WCO), determined that the cement product Rock Hard imported from Turkey should be classified as “other hydraulic cement”. But executive chairman of Rock Hard, Mark Maloney, told the DAILY NATION he was bracing for another fight from CEMEX, the parent company of TCL, which controlled most of the market share in the cement business in the Caribbean. (DN)

BOSTIC KNOCKS UNWILLING HANDS – Member of Parliament for The City, Jeffrey Bostic, had a tongue-lashing for some of his constituents last night, who he said were not stepping up to the plate in helping him carry out his plans. He also lamented that many of his initiatives were being set back due to the upsurge of violent crimes in City hotspots like Chapman Lane and New Orleans. Saying he was “just one man”, Bostic, who is also Minister of Health and Wellness, urged those who were making many demands on him to “wake up”. (DN)

NUPW CELEBRATES 75 YEARS – The National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) celebrated its 75th anniversary with a service at Collymore Rock Church of the Nazarene this morning.  Invited guest Colin Jordan, the Minister of Labour, said the union and the Barbados labour Party shared parallels in their desire to improve the lot of workers in Barbados and lauded the union for its theme “75 years of Consistent Representation and Growing with Technology”.  “I think it is appropriate that the NUPW, recognising that workers are the foundations of the building of a country, society and economic structure, also recognises that people . . . have to interact with technology. [Your theme] tells me the union recognises times are changing and even though people will remain the most important aspect of any country, it has to embrace the changes developing technology brings,” he said.  Union president, Akanni McDowall also said the theme was relevant as it challenged them to blend the old and the new and moved them not to rest on their laurels but to be on the forefront of re-educating the union’s membership in light of an ever changing working environment fuelled by technical advancement. He then urged the members to take part in the upcoming activities while outlining his wishes going forward.  “It is my wish that prosperity is restored to the nation and we will endeavour to make our contribution, however small, to nation building. I wish we redouble our efforts in thought, word and deed to move our nation forever forward, onward and upward – inspired exalted, free,” he said.  The sermon was conducted by Pastor David Holder who warned the congregation not to forget God in good times or bad as this leads to a pointless life. He urged the congregation to then make a fresh commitment to God. (DN)

LATAPY ON BOARD – Barbados’ football is set to get a magical touch. Trinidad and Tobago legend Russell “The Little Magician” Latapy is expected to be announced as head coach of the Barbados senior national football team later this week. While president of the Barbados Football Association (BFA) Randy Harris is keeping details close to his chest ahead of a planned media conference at the BFA’s Wildey, St Michael headquarters on Wednesday, high-level sources close to the situation confirmed the stunning development yesterday afternoon. (DN)

WHEELCHAIR WARRIORS A HIT – The fans who stayed away missed a treat. Wheelchair bodybuilding made a rousing, historic first appearance in Barbados at the season opening Flex Championships on Saturday night at the Derrick Smith Vocational School in Jackmans, St Michael. Exemplying courage and defying all odds, the wheelchair competitors, spearheaded by a razor-sharp Randy Mathurin, stole the spotlight at the three-dimensional event which also showcased the Mr and Miss Fit Model along with the programme opening Children’s Fitness. Mathurin, who caught the attention of the audience with his rock-hard back and bulging tri-ceps, may have been the headline act, but this was a night that will be remembered for the steely resolve of the 11 wheelchair entrants, three of them female.  (DN)

BUJU BANTON DELIVERS BIG AT LONG WALK TO FREEDOM CONCERT – For two hours Saturday night, reggae artiste Buju Banton, whose given name is Mark Myrie, belted out hit after hit at his Long Walk to Freedom concert at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. If there were questions about his state of mind and his ability to perform in front of a sold out crowd, after almost a decade in isolation, Buju put those to rest, breezing through his extensive catalogue of musical masterpieces.   Dressed in an all-white ensemble, Banton entered the stage with a pensive look on his face, and that was enough to indicate that he meant business. He opened his set with a worship song asking, “Lamb of God, have mercy on me”. He then smoothly transitioned into Not An Easy Road, a song many thought would have been his track of choice, based on all he has had to overcome. As he sang through the lyrics of the song, the crowd went wild. Hits like Destiny, Champion, Driver, Untold Stories and Wanna Be Loved had the crowd singing and rocking along. And he was not alone as he wrote a piece of entertainment history. The Gargamel’s set involved several collaborations as he invited the likes of Beres Hammond, Marcia Griffiths, Wayne Wonder and Gramps Morgan to share the stage. (BT)

For daily or breaking news reports follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter & Facebook. That’s all for today folks. There are 292 days left in the year. Shalom! #thechasefilesdailynewscap #thechasefiles# dailynewscapsbythechasefiles

[angelofberlin2000]

Keanu Reeves opens up about a lifetime of playing iconic badasses, why he must eat steak before a big fight scene, and how he's managed to stay fit into his 50s        

The always-guarded actor talks about his life, his past hits, his latest project ('John Wick: Chapter 2'), and how he's still ready to kick lots of ass.

by David Katz                                        

February 10, 2017 3.32pm     

Do you like action movies?” asks Keanu Reeves, unable to contain his excitement, as he leads me on a tour of 87Eleven Action Design, a cavernous gym, production company, and choreography studio located in an industrial park near LAX that is arguably the white-hot center of modern movie fighting. “It’s like a training school, a dojo for stunts,” he says, clearly pumped to be back at what was his “second home” while he prepped for the cult action movie John Wick (2014) and the next installment, John Wick: Chapter 2, in theaters now.

Reeves’ youthful enthusiasm is a little surprising, and not because the guy is officially 52 years old. (In his mod black jacket emblazoned with “Arch”—the motorcycle company he co-founded—he doesn’t look anywhere near that age.) And it isn’t because I expected Reeves to be a jerk, either. The truth is, I had no idea what to expect, because Keanu Reeves—a star for more than a quarter century, a guy whose films have amassed nearly $2 billion at the box office—has achieved something miraculous in today’s celebrity-obsessed world: He’s preserved some mystery about himself.

“I’m not looking for a red carpet to walk, and I’m not trying to have a celebrity footprint,” he says when I mention that it’s rare to see his name  flashing across TMZ, and it’s even rarer for him to sit for an extended interview like this one. And while so many actors in Hollywood are focused on building their online “brands,” Reeves seems totally fine with letting the world of social media entirely pass him by. “I can see the appeal—it’s just not to my taste,” he says. 

Before I meet him, I know a few basic facts: He’s unmarried, with no kids. (“I’m an unsuccessful representation of the species,” he jokes.) Also, I know that much of my impression of Reeves is formed by his work, notably his tendency to play stoic heroes—like the Zen-like savior, Neo, in the record-shattering The Matrix trilogy—so I half expect to encounter a quiet, impenetrable monk.

Instead, Reeves is more like a high-energy action-movie fanboy, rattling off some of the films that 87Eleven co-founders—veteran stuntmen David Leitch and Chad Staheleski—have choreographed: The Bourne Legacy, Fight Club, and, of course, The Matrix, on which Staheleski served as Reeves’ stunt double. Fifteen years after that movie’s smash success, he knew those guys aspired to direct, and Reeves brought them a project he was developing about a retired assassin who goes on a bloody revenge spree after a group of thugs off his dog.

Reeves would star, and they would direct.

“Just good clean fun,” he says of the movie, with its super-stylized violence, insane body count, and wry tone. (“It is funny,” Reeves admits. “But not ha-ha funny.”) It was an odds-defying hit: Made on a small, $20 million budget, it grossed $86 million worldwide, cementing Reeves’ status, once again, as one of Hollywood’s most appealing and bankable action heroes.

In 2017, it’s easy to forget that Reeves is an unlikely badass. He first hit it big in comedy, in 1989, with the ridiculous Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, about two bodacious, underachieving California teenagers traveling through time in a phone booth. Not only was Bill & Ted Reeves’ first (but hardly last) surprise hit, earning a sequel, but nearly 30 years later people still talk about a reunion—an effort Reeves supports. “It would be absolutely fantastic and ridiculous to play those roles again,” he says. “Bill and Ted in their 50s?! Excellent. Bodacious!” (Yes, a writer is currently working on a script.)

For his sudden transformation into ass-kicking leading man, however, Reeves credits director Kathryn Bigelow, now known for war movies The Hurt Locker (2008) and Zero Dark Thirty (2013), but then starting out with Point Break, in 1991. Bigelow cast a 26-year-old Reeves as an FBI agent embedded with a band of bank-robbing surfers led by Patrick Swayze. It was another ridiculous premise, another huge hit for Reeves. “It was pulpy, it had a real energy,” says Reeves (who hasn’t seen 2015’s failed remake). “I’ve met people over the years who said, ‘I started skydiving because of that movie,’ or ‘I started surfing because of that movie.’” 

“Before a fight sequence. I still eat a steak. It started on ‘The Matrix’. It’s totally psychological.”

Reeves jumped from a plane once during production to get a taste of what it’s like, but he says that his co-star, Swayze, really caught the bug. “I think he had 30 jumps while we were filming,” he says. “The insurance company was, like, no. Eventually, he got a cease-and-desist from the production company.”

Whether it was because of the surfing, the long hair, or the laid-back delivery, Point Break stereotyped Reeves as the ultimate SoCal underdog—an image only bolstered by the blockbuster Los Angeles freeway thriller, Speed (1994)—which still persists today.

The irony is that Reeves isn’t a native Californian, or even an American. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to a British mother and Chinese-Hawaiian father (his name means “cool breeze” in Hawaiian) and spent his formative years in Toronto with his costume designer mom and her eclectic group of friends, including singer Alice Cooper. Reeves still identifies as Canadian, even if he’s lived in L.A. since he was 20 years old.

“Those were my formative years, from like, 7 years old on,” he says. He explains his attachment to his home country as “like the imprimatur of youth, that early sapling that grows into a tree.”

As he leads me up the stairs to 87Eleven’s annex, we get a bird’s-eye view of the place. Most of the floor space is taken up by a huge blue mat overhung by cables used for “wire work,” the suspended choreography that allows actors to dodge bullets midair and pull off impossibly high roundhouses. Today it’s being used by a stunt team from Logan, Hugh Jackman’s final Wolverine film, and Reeves looks on with jealousy. “I always want to work out here,” he says, “just come in and get some more training.”

For Wick, that meant he had to learn an entirely new discipline: judo. “I had a little experience in movie fighting,” he says, with typical (and sincere) modesty. “But I’d never done judo.”

He says the form is tricky to fake onscreen because, unlike throwing punches, “you really gotta throw someone.”

Reeves adopted a former MMA fighter named Eric Brown as his sensei. “At the beginning, I didn’t even know where to put my feet,” he says. “So it was a lot of me learning the basics.”

By the time he flew to New York and Rome to shoot John Wick: Chapter 2, which expands the mythology behind Wick’s order of assassins and reunites Reeves with The Matrix co-star Laurence Fishburne, he was a bona fide judo expert. “Keanu is the most persistent, non-giving-up guy you’ll ever meet,” says Stahelski. “He doesn’t want to act out the part. He wants to be the part.”

Reeves loves pushing himself during his action sequences, though he rejects the word “stunt” for anything he does himself. “There’s an incredible stuntman who doubles John Wick,” he says. “They hit him with a car. He’s standing there, and they hit him—that’s a stunt. Me? I’ll shoot some guns, flip some people—and that’s action. So, yeah, I do as much action as I possibly can, because I love it—and I love the opportunity to bring the audience along.

Which is one of the reasons why Reeves never enjoys stepping aside for the sake of his safety. “I hate that, it’s always a drag,” he says. “I want to be able to do everything. Since The Matrix, I’ve used this term, ‘superperfect.’ As in, ‘Can we get it superperfect?’” On a huge-budget studio movie that can afford infinite takes, that means doing it until it’s right. On a leaner film like Wick, where fights that could have been allotted five days might get two, it means no room for error. “But that’s part of what makes [a great action film] a pressure cooker,” he says. “It’s the intensity of just trying to do the best you can in the circumstances that you have.”

Looking back, he credits Point Break for making him think about his body more. “It was life-changing for me,” he says. “It introduced me to fitness and training.” He began working with Denise Snyder, who has remained his main fitness guru for more than 25 years, and has overseen his body throughout his career.

“He can get huge,” says Snyder. “That worked for Speed. But usually I don’t think for him massiveness works. On John Wick, it’s about his presence, and it can’t come from size. It’s got to come from structure. It’s really about pulling his shoulders back.”

Reeves says that meant not having “huge traps.” “I wanted to have that back,” he says, “to look like if I grabbed you, you were in my world now.”

Reeves isn’t slowing down his exercise regimen these days, though he admits that the biggest difference between playing an action hero at 52 versus 25 is the wear and tear on the knees. “I can’t do stairs as fast,” he says. “But if you say ‘action,’ I’ll go.” His recovery is a little slower, but his endurance is solid. His training diet is still simple. “Low sodium, low fat, and the night before a big fight sequence, I still eat a steak. It started on The Matrix. I was like, ‘Gotta go eat a steak, Carrie-Anne [Moss, his co-star].’ It’s totally psychological.” He prefers a nice New York cut, with a little fat on it. 

With Wick behind him, Reeves says he has some “civilian living” ahead of him before he chooses his next project. During these periods, he takes it easy. “Steak. Red wine. A nice single malt with a big ice cube. Ride a motorcycle.”

Reeves plans to keep the great action movies coming. “You just gotta find the right one,” he says. “You can’t just do it to do it. Unless you need the dough, which is a good enough reason.”

Of course, Reeves, who allegedly took in millions for his work on The Matrix movies alone, doesn’t need the dough. “Well, I do,” he insists, declining to elaborate too much. “It’s a long story that I don’t want to share with you.” Though later he offers a clue: “When you’re friends with someone, you want to help them, you sign something that turns into something else, and that comes back to haunt you.” Still, he says, money is a bad way to make career choices, and his résumé bears that out. (See: 1991’s My Own Private Idaho, 1993’s Little Buddha, and 2012’s Side by Side, a documentary he produced about Hollywood’s conversion from traditional film to digital.) He’s also the guy who started a motorcycle company five years ago.

In fact, Reeves actually showed up today on one of his bikes, a gorgeous Arch KRGT-1, what he calls a “performance cruiser.”

Arch is more than a vanity project, he says. He’s involved in every facet of the company, from design and testing to administration. The project fits perfectly into what Reeves sees as the guiding philosophy of his life: “You’re gonna die—make stuff.” 

http://www.mensfitness.com/life/entertainment/keanu-reeves-opens-about-lifetime-playing-iconic-badasses-why-he-must-eat-steak

[trainsinanime]

Logan

About a day has passed, I’m mostly awake again now, and I know more people on my timeline have seen the movie, so I think it’s time to dive in and talk about it in detail. Which requires spoilers for absolutely everything, so don’t read this yet if you’re planning on watching the movie soon.

I’ve already said that this movie is great in every way; the best X-Men movie yet (even including Deadpool), and quite possibly my favorite Marvel movie. I mean, Avengers 1 was nice and all, but now that the novelty value has worn off, it’s really just very nice; and Guardians of the Galaxy’s soundtrack was making promises that the movie sometimes struggled to keep.

Hugh Jackman is amazing in this. Patrick Stewart is even better, doing perhaps his best acting since „there are four lights!“. Both portray characters that are broken, full of history, portraying most of the things that need to be said without words. All their emotions are genuine, beautiful and heartbreaking. But we already knew these guys were great. What’s really amazing is that Dafne Keen as Laura cannot only keep up, she often ends up stealing the scene. Careful and guarded, then suddenly full of wonder, weary beyond her young age and incredibly badass, she does it all and it’s perfect. And most of that without ever speaking.

The movie is beautifully shot and directed, which you already knew if you saw the trailers. Most people talk about how it’s a western, and it is. But the really important thing is how human this movie is; how close it gets to its characters and their emotions. It all works.

Now for some things I wanted to discuss in more detail:

Why no post-credit scene tho?

After so many years of patiently sitting through the credits and wondering why movies always need someone to grip keys, it’s certainly unexpected to have it missing here. It’s nice that Marjorie Liu and Kyle Host got special thanks.

While I did sympathise with the disappointment that could be heard throughout my theatre, I think it was the right choice. The movie didn’t need a post-credit scene, and any post-credit scene would have made it weaker. Post-credit scenes are hints for what comes next, but this movie is all about providing closure, and it does so beautifully.

Whatever happens next, if something happens next, is a new story. Not a new part of this one.

What is the locomotive on the mexican freight train?

No idea; I think it’s entirely fictional. The lack of windows implies automatic operation. The closest thing visually would be the GE U50 (which has been out of service since 1977) and maybe the E60C, but both of these are a big stretch honestly. So my guess is entirely fictional, just like the automated trucks.

Gabriela: A reference to All-New Wolverine?

Maybe, but I’m guessing it’s just a coincidence and that both projects were developed more or less in parallel, without either one influencing the other to any meaningful degree. If they had wanted to reference Tom Taylor’s work, they could have put him on the „Special thanks“ list after all.

Could automated trucks really be built without a cab, just the pure container ending there?

Yes! The idea of a truck without a cab in front of the trailer is not actually new; the Steinwinter 2040 was a prototype built int he 1980s. That one still had a cab, of course, and the concept ultimately never went anywhere - while there was a lot of interest, nobody wanted to fund a series production. This approach would make a lot of sense for a fully autonomous vehicle, as well, where the issues of visiblity and crash safety are less pronounced.

I don’t know whether it makes enough sense to actually happen; even for automated road trains, some sort of shield before the trailer would make sense aerodynamically (if the aerodynamics of container haulage interest you, then don’t forget to google „UP Arrowedge“). I’m also not sure that we’ll be in a place for fully automated trucks by 2029. I guess it works if we have a head canon where these trucks are limited to motorways and a few well-defined roads between loading areas and motorways. We can almost already do that today. „Platooning“, i.e. automated control of multiple trucks together as if they were one very long truck, is already being trialled as well.

Generally speaking, one of the big problems of trucks is that they have to carry a person around. The cab is dead weight and takes up lots of space. Getting rid of it makes trucks much more attractive compared to trains. They still have the disadvantage that they have lots of small (by railway standards) diesel engines instead of one big one, and that rubber wheels on roads have much higher friction than steel wheels on steel rails, but every little bit helps. If such technology is available, you can be sure that there will be much more freight hauled on overloaded road networks, increasing traffic jams, and much less on energy-efficient, economically and ecologically superior railroads. Progress!

Is there anything wrong with the movie?

Nothing major, I guess. X-24 is ultimately a waste. He could have worked as a contrast to Logan, but the movie never goes there, so he’s just a CGI-heavy obstacle. In general, the movie suffers heavily from forgettable Marvel movie villain syndrome; nobody will remember who Pierce was two months from now. Finally, compared to Laura, the other kids that show up in the third act are just not that interesting.

Mind you, what this boils down to is „at times, the movie almost drops down to the level of Iron Man“.

Will Laura become the new Wolverine now?

God, I hope not. That would be incredibly stupid. Laura is her own character, always has been, and putting her into someone else’s shoes does disservice both to the original character and to her own history.

Yes, it works well in All-New Wolverine by Tom Taylor. But the reason why it works there is because Laura didn’t. actually become Wolverine. She’s just using the name and costume. It’s still clearly a Laura book just as much as the ones with X-23 in the title. There’s no overlap with Logan’s history, with Logan’s usual modes of operation and so on. It works, but giving her the name is entirely unnecessary for that.

In general, what does this movie set up?

No idea. There are certainly some hints dropped that can be picked up elsewhere, but it seems just as likely that future X-Men movies will ignore it and leave it in some sort of canonical timey-wimey limbo, presumably the same one that Deadpool is in.

I’d be okay with that. Ultimately, no amount of setup can ever change whether this was a good movie, and it was.

Isn’t this movie taking a woman’s story and turning it into an accessory to a man’s?

This is a point I heard on Twitter shortly after the first trailer dropped. Having seen the movie, I can confidently say: Yes, kind of.

Obviously, the movie is called Logan, and it’s ultimately him that is the star. But it’s also notable how little women there are besides Laura. Sarah Kinney, her mother in the comics (it’s complicated because comics) is absent. Her closest equivalent, Gabriela (reference to the current comic or just coincidence? I’m leaning coincidence), gets killed fairly soon, but she also has far less impact on the story. Sarah was in many ways one of the masterminds of Laura’s torture; she had agency, culpability, guilt and internal conflict. Gabriela doesn’t get any of that depth.

There’s also the part where the three surviving mutants are all men, despite X-Men being pretty balanced ever since Claremont. The movie’s plot is carefully constructed so that it seems inevitable that these are the folks involved, but it’s not like that was the only choice.

(If you’ll allow an aside: They could, for example, have chosen Kitty Pryde instead of Caliban. Just make her a former mutant hunter. After all, there’s precedence for randomly giving Kitty powers that actually belong to Rachel.)

I think the movie can get away with this simply because it is so damn great, and because Laura in particular is so great here. I know some people will weigh things differently and come to a different conclusion here (though I don’t expect there to be very many).

If the stretch limousine is a 2024 Chrysler, and FCA plans to use the Giorgio platform for basically all their RWD stuff going forward, then doesn’t that mean someone did a stretch limo of a car with a transaxle platform and a carbon-fibre drive shaft?

That’s where my mind is going to anyway. My head canon is that they swapped the carbon fibre driveshaft for a cheap one made of steel, though I have no idea whether that is more or less realistic than any alternative. Either way I would assume this car isn’t that great for high-performance driving.

By the way, this is once more a movie that is full of FCA cars but doesn’t have any Alfa Romeos. I hated that about Batman v Superman. Here, I think it fits. This movie works if the heroes are driving an American truck; it would never work with a Stelvio. In Batman v Superman, though, they even brought in an IVECO truck (from the truck division of CNH which is the industrial arm/sister of FCA) to an ostensibly American city, even though that company’s products where never sold in the US, so the odd Giulietta wouldn’t have hurt, would it? Basically, fuck Batman v Superman.

With people praising Logan, will they now give the DCEU the second look it deserves?

I actually found a person on Tumblr who said that, then forgot to save a link so I guess I’ll have to sub-tumble them. Sorry. Dear person, if you read this: No. While you are correct that there are high-level similarities between the two, if you look in detail you’ll find that everything that actually matters is done well in Logan and badly in the DCEU. For one example, see the paragraph about the cars and product placement right above.

If that’s not sufficient, then let me put it like this: In its efforts to be dark, gritty and mature, the DCEU has thrown out plot, relatable characters, and all forms of fun except pee jokes. That is a major misunderstanding of mature. Logan is mature, gritty, violent, not the slightest bit flashy and so on. But at its core, it’s about humans relating to each other. It’s about them coming together, not finding ways to divide them. It’s violent, but it’s also all about the cost of that violence and about finding a way out of that cycle.

Perhaps most importantly: This movie takes comics, the old brightly coloured ones that are silly and full of flashy costumes, the very thing that both the DCEU (and the original Old Man Logan comic…) tried to abolish to show us how mature they are… and tells us how important it is to believe in them. That by believing in the „childish immature crap“ from the comics, we find together, and we get the strength to get us to where we’re going. Because it’s not actually childish to dream of a better world at all, as our hero has to learn; it’s what makes us human.

So pack in all your pitchforks, dear DCEU fans, when you hear that Logan is getting much better reviews than any DC movie ever, and that it’s making much more money. It’s not because people like Marvel more. It’s because DC keeps making shitty movies whenever they’re not made out of Lego.

(I do hope Wonder Woman won’t be shitty, but based on the trailers, the most I’m hoping for is „a little less shitty“. Sorry.)

What about that MovieBob Video? Will attempts at copying Logan lead to a new comics crash?

I’m talking about this video here. And let me just say that while I respect Bob a lot, he’s also wrong a lot. That guy thought Cars 2 was a better movie than Cars 1, after all. This video, to me, feels like a guy with too much time on his hands thinking too much about stuff that happened decades ago.

The fundamental problem with his argument is that comic book movies are in the mainstream, and they’re being made because they get mainstream levels of money. There was a good (short-term) business case for going fans-only for the comics industry in the 1990s. That’s just not the case today.

It’s certainly possible that Logan will inspire studios to try dark and gritty deconstructions of superheroes… but DC’s been doing that for years with questionable success and no influence whatsoever on the company that makes the good ones, i.e. Marvel.

What I do find fascinating is that between this, Deadpool and Legion, we’re now in a place where Fox’s X-Men movies may just be the inventive, innovative and weird superhero franchise, and the bits and pieces and preview animations that have come out for the New Mutants movie hint that it may be going in that general direction as well. That would be an awesome way for things to develop, and the X-Men certainly have their share of characters that fit that description. Of course, it seems like Fox landed in this place almost by accident, so any attempts to prolong it or end it or pretty much do anything with it seem incredibly dangerous. We’ll see how it turns out.

[chrismaverickdotcom]

The Logan Supremacy.... (no spoilers)

I’ve kind of gotten sidetracked away from doing movie reviews for a bit here. Sorry about that. I’m still not quite sure if anyone cares. People say they want my take, but it always feels like there’s far more people interested in my political stuff. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to write one for Split for a while (saw it a few weeks ago) and didn’t get to it. So now I’m not sure if anyone is interested anymore. Let me know.

That said, there’s a new superhero movie out. Logan. And of course I have to review that one. So here we go.

I’m kind of wondering if the post award season hard-R superhero movie spot is just going to become a thing with Fox. After last year’s Deadpool (which I liked a lot) and this year’s Logan, Fox seems to have something. Certainly something beyond what they did with Fant4stic and X-Men: Apocalypse, both of which pretty much royally sucked. I’m actually quite happy to say that with Logan, they actually had something going here.

I always try to avoid spoilers in these as best I can. Here it’s going to be quite easy because my thoughts on what made Logan work really don’t have much to do with the movie at all. It’s more about what they DIDN’T do that really works for me.

I’m actually kind of starting to hate movie franchises. It’s not just that they’re cash grabs. All movies are cash grabs. All products are cash grabs. That’s just how it works. Everyone wants to make money. And I understand that you need big tentpole films in order to make Hollywood work. And that’s the honest truth of it. For anyone who likes to say that they don’t care about these big budget extravaganzas, you need to understand that they keep Hollywood running. Without big budget superhero films, there is no La La Land or Moonlight. It’s a sharing of the wealth. That’s just the business. And movie franchises have always been a big part of that. I mean literally always. Go all the way back to the Golden Age of Hollywood. We have Casablanca, Citizen Kane and Singing in the Rain because your great grandparents sat through a shit ton of really godawful Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies and that’s not to mention Ma and Pa Kettle or Andy Hardy. Because no matter what you like to remember about the Golden Age of cinema… no matter what La La Land and Hollywood want you to believe… most of it was basically a big shit show. Just like now. In fact, in those days — Code Era Hollywood — it was even worse.

But one of the things that the franchises understood back in those days was that they weren’t TV (or maybe more accurately they weren’t radio). The Tarzan films are not high art, but they all stand alone. They are related, but only nebulously. The order of them doesn’t even really make all that much difference. So long as you saw the first one and know the origin story, you’re good to go with any of the. Frankly, if you missed the first one, you’ll basically figure shit out. White dude with the accent of a caveman, swings from vines and yells a lot. Hell, if for some reason you want to make a Tarzan movie without Johnny Weissmüller, just throw in Buster Crabbe. Who the fuck will know the difference?

And this is how franchises have always worked. After the days of movie serials (which were weekly, like TV shows), Hollywood learned that you couldn’t expect everyone to see every film in the franchise and certainly not to wait a year or two for the next installment of a story. This has been the way of franchises for movie history. Even serialized films like Star Wars didn’t require all the parts to tell the story. That’s why they were able to start with EPISODE FUCKING FOUR and most people never even noticed. James Bond is theoretically one ongoing franchise, but it doesn’t make sense in the slightest. Actors change. Events contradict each other. There’s a soft reboot for the most recent Daniel Craig films which takes them back into being prequels to most of the other ones (or a replacement in the case of the Casino Royales) but even those don’t make sense, because they retain the M (Judi Dench) that was hired in the final Pierce Bronson pictures. But it all just kind of works. Because there’s just an understanding by the viewer that continuity in the Bond Universe only matters when it does. The individual films are consistent in themselves and that is is enough. You can watch any Bond film and its fine. The others may or may not have canon that happened. It doesn’t matter. No one cares. If you’re doing a Bond marathon and you happen o hate Octopussy. Just skip it. I doesn’t matter. The same is true of Tarzan, Andy Hardy or (to a lesser extent) even Star Wars.

But somewhere along the way, this broke. Maybe it was Empire Strikes Back that broke it. Even though i remains the best Star Wars movie, it really doesn’t have a beginning or an end. It’s all middle. But it was certainly broken by he time we got to Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Hollywood figured out that they could make us pay to see episodic TV in theaters. And frankly it kind of sucks.

Not all franchises are like that. The success of the Marvel films is that even though they’re sort of episodic, they don’t really rely on each other much. At least not really Avengers: Age of Ultron kind of did, and it’s one of the things that I really don’t like about that movie. It’s one of the big problems with Batman v. Superman. That’s not really even a movie. It’s a lot of set up for other movies that hasn’t been earned yet. What makes the Marvel films work is that when I walk out of the theater, I (usually) feel like I’ve seen a complete and conclusive story — even if it is a story that is part of a larger one. What makes a franchise not work is when each installment is more concerned with locking the viewer in for the next installment OR PREVIOUS ONES than it is with telling it’s own story.

What made Logan work is that it just didn’t give a fuck.

And it was great because of it. Like Deadpool, this is a movie that exists within the X-men universe. But only in the most superficial of ways. It matters in the same way that it matters that any Bond films related or any Tarzan films. Instead of trying to tell an X-men franchise story, James Mangold directed a simple and compelling action movie that happens to be set in the X-men world. In effect it isn’t really an X-men movie at all. It’s a Jason Bourne movie. It’s a John Wick movie. It’s Léon, The Professional, where the part of Léon will now be played by Wolverine.

And it was fucking awesome.

Ot at least it was awesome for what it was. If you like Jason Bourne style action movies, you should love this. It is the story of a reluctant hero, put into a situation which he didn’t choose, where his only way out is to kill a lot of people. REALLY a lot of people. And kill them… like a bunch. Like so much killing. Like if you’re into a movie where dead fuckers are stacking up left and right. This is the movie for you. If you don’t want to see that, you will not enjoy this. Because there is so so so so so so very much killing going on.

And I’m trying to review this for what it is. This is a franchise movie. It is not high art (which The Professional inexplicably is). It doesn’t want to be. It is trying to be the best franchise movie it can be and the best killing spree movie it can be. I am judging it on that merit. The action was fun. The killing was gory. It gives movies like Bourne and Wick a serious run for their money. At the same time, there is enough of a compelling story to gesture towards something like The Professional to make it something more than a mindless action spree. It has heart and soul in a way that most movies in this genre really don’t. There are real stakes for the character and between the killing… oh so very much killing… the film gives you a reason to care for the characters and want them to succeed. I mean, a reason beyond wanting to see them survive to kill some more.

But it didn’t rely too heavily on it’s franchiseness. What you need to know about the other X-men/Wolverine movies. Logan is a guy with claws and a healing factor. Professor Xavier is a guy with mental powers. They’re mutants. Nothing else matters. These things aren’t explained. Much like it’s never explained why Tarzan is in the jungle or talks funny after the first movie. Why does John Wick have a gun? Cuz he’s a dude with a gun. That’s who he is. Let’s move along.

Beyond that, the other movies don’t matter. Frankly, a lot of the events of the other movies are kind of contradicted by this one. And that’s fine. It just doesn’t matter. Like Bond, continuity only matters in this film when it does. And when it doesn’t, Mangold just doesn’t give a fuck. In fact, probably my least favorite part of the film are the time (relatively few times) that Mangold tries to address the ongoing X-men continuity just to keep the geeks off his back. It’s done with a bit of a wink. He lets you know that the film doesn’t really “fit” and he doesn’t care. The Wolverine character pretty much tells you that directly. It’s too much. I don’t need it and it took me out of the movie. It’s a double edged sword I guess. If he didn’t do it, there’d be a bunch of assholes on Twitter saying “but this doesn’t work, because the events of X-men: The Last Stand say this other thing. Mangold is explicitly saying “I know. I don’t care. That movie fucking sucked and this one is better. Deal with it!” And he’s right. He did make a better movie. But it would be even better still if he didn’t have to say that in the film itself. Bond films never apologize for being Bond films.

The particulars of the film are pretty good. Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart are excellent in their characters… and they should be since they’ve had 17 years of practice. Dafne Keen is also very good in the role of Laura. She’s not going to be getting Natalie Portman/Mathilda style accolades… but she was good and I hope she has a future in it. Seeing her fight as an 11 year old girl was cool, though there were some points where it was kind of obvious that she was stunt doubled or CGI’d out in a way that it isn’t as much so with Jackman and that makes her seem a little more artificial in an otherwise very gritty film. The rest of the cast is basically “okay.” I don’t feel like there is anyone else I can really rave about, but no one is offensively bad (and that’s a positive in a movie like this).

So I recommend seeing it. Especially if you’re a fan of Bourne style movies. It is an excellent entry into that genre (generally not one of my favorites) and, assuming this really is Jackman’s final time in the role as he has said, a great send off to his version of the Wolverine character. Just don’t look for much else out of the film than that. Instead, appreciate it for all he things that it doesn’t do.

And it is the best there is at what it doesn’t do… well… maybe not the best… but pretty damn good.

★★★★☆ (4 out of five stars)

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The Logan Supremacy…. (no spoilers) was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom

[dramamomma56]

What is the Wheel Education Marketplace?

My father taught me to diversify and I credit him with any time I do so.

For instance, I wanted to become an actress when I finished college.  I had the talent, but my father encouraged me to get my teaching certificate so I had something to fall back upon.

I’m very glad he suggested it to me.  I enjoyed teaching even more than performing and that’s saying something!

Since my days in college, I use this suggestion all the time–create a play writing contest because there wasn’t one in existence for what I was needing (youth theater plays), create a youth theater company to provide more drama education opportunities for our community, spread our money over several stocks and bonds, etc.

I’ve been a Teacherspayteachers.com seller for two years.  I have no complaints with it at all. However…when an acquaintance suggested I look into The Wheel Education Marketplace as another website to sell my drama education products, I was intrigued.

When you begin your store, it’s addictive and you can become hyper focused on it and not realizing there are other education marketplaces out there in web which may be a good fit for you, too.

What is The Wheel Education Marketplace?

The Wheel Education Marketplace is a youngun’ created in 2017.  As of this writing, 170 sellers populate the website!

From their website: “The Wheel is an educational networking and resource marketplace that connects educators and students with knowledge, resources and tools to excel. Either digital or physical, each product is created to assist educators or students researching or preparing for a specific subject matter. The Wheel was founded by Michael de Main, a NSW Secondary Teacher.

The Wheel is a service designed for both Educators and Students to access educational resources to further their learning needs. Educators are able to share, and sell, resources they have produced and have the rights to distribute to other Educators. They are also able to share and sell directly to students, enabling them to develop broader knowledge of the topic they need assistance with. Students can access any resources for their own personal use or sell their old High School notes to the next cohort.”

Strengths of The Wheel Education Marketplace

I asked Michael De Maine what are the strengths of The Wheel.  He stated, “The ability to build your own email list so you can send emails (either via the site itself or using your own platform) and not rely on just a notification like TpT. Adding up to 5 of your own related resources rather than TpT suggested ones. If you have your own website then you can embed your resources which means you keep people on your site longer plus it’s faster and easier to do. Also that resources can be filtered right down to your state or province when filtering so you know what you’re using is right for your outcomes and locality.”

As a seller, I can email my followers.  That’s a wonderful asset!  In my opinion, to be able to communicate with my followers and share any new products  I have is worth the work of setting up a store.  An email list is absolutely vital to a store of this kind.

I asked a teacher/author Mathew Forman of ELA in Middle School what he thought of The Wheel, he said, “”I love the easy access to the administrative team! Always ready to help if I encounter a problem!” (I agree!)

I’m impressed with The Wheel (as I affectionately call it.) Michael de Main is interested in creating the best website he can offer and he does an excellent job of listening to his sellers.  I like that I can ask him a question and he answers it pronto.  That doesn’t always happen in other sites.

The Reasons to Diversify Where You Sell Your Products

My goal is to have all of my drama education lessons on The Wheel by September.  Lord knows if I’ll make it (I have over 200), but I’m gonna try.

I was researching the subject of the reasons to diversify where you sell your products and ran on to this great blog post from dearhandmadelife.com. Here is a bit of it.

       #1 Reach New Audiences and More People

Just like you wouldn’t only sell wholesale in ONE retail shop, limiting where you sell online to only one place can have you missing out on audiences that would have never known you otherwise!

Think of these places as advertisement for your product beyond immediate selling propositions. It is a new place to gain SEO. It’s a new place to have an influencer, gift guide or buyer stumble onto your product.

     #2 Weather Platform Ups and Downs

Whether it’s been good or bad for you, Etsy has become a very different place. It’s changed a lot. Same with the craft show scene. Even how wholesale is conducted has changed a lot in the last few years and continues to change!

These changes are inevitable. The good thing is that the more diversified your selling outlets are, the better chance you’ll have of weathering that. A platform like Amazon Handmade can help create a steady stream of sales, even if it doesn’t become your primary place to sell online.

      #3 Push a Growth Mindset

You should experiment and figure out what works for you.

This naturally stretches you and your business to help create a growth mindset. While putting yourself out there in a new avenue can feel intimidating, if you do it enough it becomes old hat. Other bigger challenges don’t seem so scary!

     #4 Understand Your Business from a New Perspective

Putting yourself into a new business avenue can give you perspective you never had! You can see your product through the eyes of new customers and better hone in on what you offer. Each interaction with new customers gives you a little bit more data about your product, marketing and service. This means better products and ways of selling.

Helpful, huh?

If you are interested in seeing a few of my Wheel Marketplace products, check them out here: DRAMAMOMMASPEAKS 

Hamilton, the Musical

Hugh Jackman Biography

In the Heights Musical

Costume Design with Fairy Tales

It Could Always Be Worse

The Brave Little Tailor

Growth Mindset Posters

Set Design Unit

Playwriting Lesson

Radio Theater Unit and Play

The good part of diversifying is that it is easy for me to pivot (which seems to be our buzz word for 2020) from one store to another.  In time, I will offer a product or two on the Wheel which you can not get anywhere else.  Of course, the challenging part is keeping up with everything, but that’s nothing new for me.

Do you sell products on line?  Do you sell them in several places?  I’d love to hear about your experiences.  Contact me at dhcbaldwin@gmail.com or DeborahBaldwin.net

What is The Wheel Education Marketplace? What is the Wheel Education Marketplace? My father taught me to diversify and I credit him with any time I do so.

[its-a-soft-science]

CH 1 untitled Taron/Hugh WIP

Sooo... I’m just gonna post a bit here to see if I can connect with some other folks who ship these two and maybe get a little feedback on this thing while I continue to work on it. My heart is so warmed by their adorable “just two nontoxic theater school bros” giggle-fest dynamic, but then there’s also like this massive undercurrent of switchy, flirty energy that I really need to write about. Also I am obsessed with the architecture of Taron’s career and how all these admiring older men keep supporting his rise to greater heights of fame, and really interested in how this fictional version of him might feel about that.

CHAPTER ONE

He’s visiting at his mum’s house when Matthew rings and asks him if he knows who Eddie is. 

“We’ve got this script we’re fixing it up. It could be exactly the right next thing for you.”

He doesn’t in fact know who Eddie the Eagle is, which is slightly horrifying because he already really wants to nail this. His mum passes through the kitchen at that moment and he grabs a pen, scratches a quick note and waves it at her - “EDDIE the EAGLE? ROLE? MATTHEW V!” Her eyes widen and she nods and gives a thumbs up. She also makes a sort of quizzical, funny face at him before ducking out of the room again, which he has trouble deciphering. Was she laughing? He puts Matthew on speaker and does a quick google.

“Ok,” he scrolls through the results. “That’s… a look,” he murmurs, but not unkindly.  Eddie seems like a very sweet man.

“Mate, you can do handsome just by showing up.” Matthew isn’t a flatterer. He has an eerily clear vision for the trajectory of Taron’s career, which Taron truly appreciates. “Debonair is easy for you. This one would prove your range.” 

It’s a good point, and he trusts Matthew’s sense of the business implicitly. He knows who Dexter Fletcher is. And he is pretty aware of Hugh Jackman, for fuck’s sake.

“So am I auditioning then?” Not that he would mind at all. He may have starred in a movie but he doesn’t feel like a movie star, and god knows Hugh Jackman would be the big name in this one between the two of them.

“No no, it’s a screen test. We’re not trying you out against anyone, we want both of you and we’re trying you out together. It’s to protect you, and everybody really, and just make sure things really work before we get started.”

“Oh. Well that’s amazing actually. I mean, I’m in? I’m in.”

“Great. Listen, I wouldn’t bring this to you unless I thought it was going to work beautifully. I’ll send you some pages and we’ll give it a try, eh?”

“Yeah, ok. Um, thank you? Very excited, Matthew.”

“This could be something special,” Matthew promises before he hangs up.

Taron looks at the picture of Eddie again, and tries sticking his chin out a little.

***

It feels a bit like a blind date, Taron realizes on the day. He realizes this when he enters the Marv rehearsal space and comes face to face with Hugh Jackman for the first time.

Hugh is wearing a hoodie and dark jeans, and his handsomeness feels like an actual, tangible shape in the room. He’s taller than Taron imagined, broad shoulders, built like a mannequin, and he glows with a warm, ultra-famous movie star level of confidence. Taron feels like an absolute muffin in comparison. One of those small, dense ones that comes in a flimsy cellophane wrapper in American convenience stores. He tells himself that it’s highly likely most men feel like this around Hugh Jackman, and refuses to let it bother him.

Hugh greets him with a very vigorous, very Australian handshake that turns into a one armed hug. Unsurprisingly, he smells amazing. 

“Taron, excellent to meet you, mate!”

“Yeah, hello, lovely to meet you too,” Taron feels his voice doing the thing when he’s nervous and coping, where it flip flops from deep to high to deep again. He takes a deep breath to try to settle his nerves, and Hugh immediately notices.

“Good idea.” Hugh smiles and takes another deep breath in sync with him. “Have you done one of these before?” 

“Screen test?” Taron shakes his head. 

“It’s kind of like a blind date, I always think.” Hugh flashes him a wide, reassuring grin. “Let’s try to have fun and not overthink it, okay?” 

“Good idea.” He can feel himself mirroring Hugh’s smile and can’t wipe it off his face, even though he badly wants to be playing things so much cooler than this. Here at the thirty second mark of their acquaintance, he is sure that he deeply, deeply likes Hugh to the point of embarrassment. 

Hugh claps him on the shoulder. “Great. Say, I loved you in Kingsman. Just awesome, man.”

“Thanks. I will not miss the training.”

“Jesus, I feel you there. I’ve got a few months before I start up again. Let me know if you want to torture yourself with one of those actor discussions about protein supplements and core work, I’m great at those.”

Taron cocks an eyebrow in exaggerated intrigue. “Yeah I would love that, we can compare crash diets-”

“Mmm, yeah, describe our muscles to each other, really dig right into our deepest body insecurities-” Hugh nods.

And wow, Taron feels very seen. “Oh my god, yes, sign me up. Favorite part of the business.” 

This is a really nice surprise. He had honestly wondered if Hugh was going to maybe secretly be a slight prick, because of the weightlifting/wrestling/gym hound thing. But he appears to be a fairly normal person- or like if a normal person were also a stunningly fit dad.

“I did genuinely love you in Kingsman, you’re great. I just got this sense that there’s a lot of other things you’re good at, if that makes sense. Not just action, like some guys.”

“Um yeah, thank you. Not to be ungracious, of course. I owe Matthew a lot, And don’t get me wrong I loved it-“

“Of course,” Hugh nods in understanding. “I mean you sing though, right? Matthew mentioned.”

“Wow, yeah, I guess he talked me up.” Taron feels himself start to blush a little and shrugs.

Hugh shrugs back, smiling. “Just a little bit. Said we’d be good together.” 

Taron doesn’t know quite what to say. “Yeah! I sing, I mean not like you, but I do definitely skew more toward drama school than Die Hard.” 

Hugh raises an eyebrow. “Well me too. So this oughtta be fun.”

***

It is, in fact, very fun. It’s an acting work out, bouncing off of Hugh. It’s stiff at first but in a totally normal way, and things loosen up rapidly once they do the first scene a couple of times. He’s naturalistic and open, and it seems like he’s mostly just being himself but with a weary American swagger, and then each time they break he perks up again, eager and engaged and twinkly and Taron realizes how much depth Hugh’s actually layering into his performance.

There’s an aspect of him that reminds Taron slightly of Colin, the way he’s both excited and at ease. Different versions of a very self-possessed masculine energy, only Hugh is all wide-open sunshine where Colin is a gracefully poised, breezy day. Taron wonders if it’s just maturity that they have in common. 

He feels the edge of something, a feeling he knows well but hasn’t put a name to before. Something about Hugh’s groundedness with him today is making it easy to be self-aware without sliding into worry. So he turns the feeling over in his mind, and waits for it to make itself better known. This happened with Colin too, of course. He might be star struck. Or crushing. He can admit that, he’s not an idiot and there’s nothing wrong with it. The more scenes they run, the more primed his whole nervous system gets toward Hugh, laser focusing on all his reactions. Acting with him feels like playing, and it’s fucking fun. Plus, every time they break Hugh just shoots him these wordless looks of admiration like he’s blown away by every choice Taron’s making. They have to take a longer pause eventually, because Hugh keeps cracking up with delight whenever Taron tries out another Eddie thing.

“Sorry, it’s just really good. Would you heighten it?” 

“Well if I heighten it you’re clearly going to lose it, so no.” He smirks and adjusts the glasses he’s worn for the day, sticking his chin out more and heightening everything anyway.

“The squint! Yes! How are you doing that?”  At first Taron suspects that maybe he’s just being kind, building him up so that the screen test goes well. But Hugh is just genuinely fucking delighted, and it starts to give Taron a classic show-off high. 

“It’s kind of a sad eye thing, like this,” And he takes his glasses off for a moment to show Hugh how he squints in a faintly mournful sort of way. 

“Yep, that’s it.” Hugh claps his hands, beaming. “God, you really look just like him, that’s it.”

The validation washes over him and splashes messily over the top, he’s beaming right back and laughing like a bit of a tit, honestly, trying not to be too obvious about the way Hugh’s praise is hitting him. Then Matthew and Dexter both join in and start talking about how well the test has gone, and before he knows it the day is over, Hugh’s hugging him again and it’s time to go.

“So… I had a really nice time. Can I see you again?” Hugh jokes as their respective cars pull up outside the building. 

“Yeah, definitely call me,” Taron answers with a smile and wink, which gets Hugh absolutely guffawing as he turns away and waves over his shoulder. They’re going to do the movie together, that’s clear after today. And that interesting feeling does one more quick lap around Taron’s nervous system.

***

[oltnews]

A Hollywood body is not built in the gymnasium. Or it is not always built in the gym - and for every two-hour Wahlberg weight training session, there is one actor forced to get into screen-worthy form according to a program that always sees them on set or on the road. So while lounging on the couch in your tracksuit doesn't seem like an A list, locking can be exactly what you need to finally achieve those Hemsworth-worthy abs you've always dreamed of. We've checked out some of the leanest and leanest workouts and on-site diet programs in Hollywood, and - with expert help - applied them so you can make superhero gains in your living room. 1,000 "bulk matrices" by Tom Hardy The film: BronsonThe method: While it may seem impossible to the man who brought Bane to us, Tom Hardy was once skinny. Then, in 2008, he was chosen as Charles Hardy, a tough and imposing man. In order to win three stones for the role, Hardy used a “bulk matrix” suitable for prisons of up to 1,000 presses per day.The application: Hardy himself admitted that his Bronson body was a "traffic accident", involving a lot of body fat and minimal leg muscles. That's because a balanced body requires balanced training, according to Hollywood PT and mobility coach Jack Hanrahan. "There is no doubt that push-ups are one of the best exercises to have for your body," says Hanrahan. “But it is also very important to balance this pushing exercise with that of traction. This will keep your shoulders healthy and help you build well rounded muscle mass. "To balance at home, Hanrahan suggests his own twist on the bulk matrix: press 10 times, rest for 30 to 60 seconds, then make 10 rows of resistance bands. Rest, then repeat 10 times for a total of 200 repetitions. DOMYOS training belt 25kg DOMYOS decathlon.co.uk £ 8.99 Resistance band for men's health Men's health argos.co.uk £ 8.99 Vellio Shine resistance band set Vellio Shine amazon.co.uk £ 10.64 Gritine resistance bands Gritin amazon.co.uk £ 13.99 Christian Bale's Quick Black Coffee The film: The machinistThe method: Christian Bale is the king of bodily transformations on screen, but his first is still his most infamous metamorphosis. For 2004 thriller The machinist, Bale dropped four tempting stones in four months with a diet of black coffee, an apple and a can of tuna a day.The application: Unless you want to leave the lock on in an ambulance, don't do what Bale did. "That's less than 200 calories a day, so it's not healthy at all," says Daniel O’Shaughnessy, Harley Street health expert, aka The Naked Nutritionist. "An extreme diet like this will disrupt your metabolism and cause a lot of stress on the body." As a healthier alternative, O’Shaughnessy and Hanrahan are both proponents of the 16: 8 intermittent fasting method, which involves consuming all the calories in your day within an eight-hour window."Out of all X Men a few years ago, Hugh Jackman told me he was a fan, ”says Hanrahan. "He's the most conditioned and vascular actor I've ever been face to face with, so there's probably something to do with it." The fights of Chadwick BosemanThe film: Black PantherThe method: Boseman avoided the weights for a more methodical approach to embody the feline warrior, get in shape with a mixture of karate, jiu-jitsu, capoeira and kung-fu.The application: If you're stuck inside without heavy weights or exercise equipment, you could be doing worse for your body than practicing martial arts. "Most fighting styles burn a ton of calories by increasing the heart rate and involve a lot of explosive movement," says Hanrahan. "More practical styles like Jiu-Jitsu will also massively recruit the upper body and core muscles, which is good if you're trying to add muscle definition." Boseman was trained by legendary martial artist Marrese Crump - check out his YouTube channel for some tips. Dwayne Johnson 12 Labor DayThe film: HerculesThe method: Johnson's legendary meals are almost as famous as the man himself. To fuel his extreme training regimen for Hercules, he undertook a "12 works" scheme, consisting of seven meals (and twice as many eggs) per day. The application: The current climate means that you are moving less and therefore burning fewer calories. So even if you are the size of The Rock, be careful when you increase your food intake - even if they are all protein. "If you consume excess protein, it can be stored as fat, while excess amino acids are excreted and are not used to build muscle," says O’Shaughnessy. "Research says that we should be eating about 1.5 g of protein per kg of bodyweight to build muscle, and I won't go over that during home workouts." Zac Efron 1000 rep bodyweight circuit The film: BaywatchThe method: To get in shape worthy of a co-star Johnson, Efron used constantly evolving bodyweight workouts defined by PT Patrick Murphy. In an interview with E! News, Murphy said a workout could include "20 alternate jump jumps in one place, 20 jump squats, 60 climbers, electric pumps, followed by a five-flight run of stairs, and then one-leg crouched jumps using a TRX rope. "Efron rested for a minute, then repeated it twice to arrive at an overall total of over 1,000 repetitions.The application: When it comes to bodyweight workouts, Hanrahan recommends taking the Efron approach by setting a representative goal to hold you accountable. He also advises a mixture of upper body, lower body and trunk exercises, and "take a gentle jump" to avoid putting excessive stress on your joints. "Stay with the same workouts for 3-4 weeks, so you can apply a progressive overload such as increasing repetitions, adding sets, or decreasing rest," says Hanrahan. "Mix things up too is often less effective. The galactic galaxy of Chris PrattThe film: Guardians of the GalaxyThe method: The chubby sitcom star Chris Pratt's transformation into a screen superhero has been so abrupt, Parks and recreation had to insert a joke to explain why his character looked so different. `` The only thing you did was stop drinking beer? Asked a confused colleague, and he was not far from the mark - Pratt attributed his rapid weight loss to `` six months without beer '', as well as a heroic daily consumption of 1 oz l of H2O for each pound body weight.The application: It is well documented that removing alcohol will do wonders for your body, and there is never a better time to give up empty calories than when all pubs are closed. But should you replace those lost pints with extra liters of water? Yes, but in moderation. "Generally, 35 ml per kg of body weight is ideal," says O’Shaughnessy. Pratt put the double aside. "For an average person weighing 80 kg, this represents 4.8 liters of water per day. This may be a bit much, given that most people find it difficult to reach two liters." In addition, you will interrupt all of your Zoom calls for bathroom breaks. Sterling K Brown Zero Weight Workouts The film: Hotel ArtemisThe method: Another Black Panther An actor with envious physique, ex-American footballer Sterling K Brown was so muscular when he started playing that his teachers encouraged him to cut weights. It worked - Brown turned to gymnastics and ended up landing lead roles in everything from the science fiction blockbuster Hotel Artemis to the sincere television drama It's us.The application: Gymnastics ticks the same boxes as gymnastics, which is why supporters like Brown use it to build the lean muscle you see in Olympic athletes. "It's not always the most practical method, because you need a good weight / power ratio," says Hanrahan. "Exercises like pull-ups, dips and gun squats are all very difficult." He advises getting your hands on a set of dumbbells or a kettlebell, to give you more options if you don't have access to a set of monkey bars. Hexagonal dumbbell weight MAR International amazon.co.uk £ 19.99 Tri-Grip Dumbbells TnP accessories. amazon.co.uk £ 159.99 Adjustable dumbbell Men's health argos.co.uk £ 149.99 York Fitness Dumbbells York Fitness amazon.co.uk £ 39.99 Carbohydrate-Free Jungle Diet by Alexander SkarsgardThe film: The legend of TarzanThe method: To embody everyone's favorite ape-man, Scandi actor Alexander Skarsgard had to train like a gymnast and eat like an animal. His diet initially consisted of 7000 bestial calories per day, but then it was reduced to a lean and keto-esque phase in which he was allowed no sugar, dairy or fast carbohydrates.The application: For O'Shaughnessy, restrictive diets like Skarsgard involve sorting wheat from the husk. "Limiting sugar and refined starch is a healthy thing to do," he says. "But dairy is not bad for you, unless you are allergic or sensitive to it." If you're looking to follow the keto approach (high in fat and low in carbohydrates), O'Shaughnessy recommends limiting the carbohydrate content to 25g per day for six days, then increasing to 150g the seventh with a range of unrefined carbohydrates like rice and sweet potato. "If you are still in a low-carbohydrate state, your body may become lazy because you never burn glucose," he explains. Jake Gyllenhaal's 7-Day Boxing Explosion The film: SouthpawThe method: When the trailers fell for the first time Southpaw, the world gasped collectively in front of a totally unrecognizable Jake Gyllenhaal. The actor's hard work shows: to become the almost impossible torn boxer Billy Hope, Gyllenhaal would train almost all day, seven days a week. He would wake up, do 1,000 sit-ups, run eight miles, and then get into a 4 to 6 hour workout routine of jumping, boxing, and weight training. He could then have done 1,000 sit-ups before going to bed. The application: "Training seven days a week in any capacity is more likely to destroy you than to develop you," says Hanrahan. "Even the fittest athletes know the value of rest to repair and rebuild." Still, although he doesn't recommend Gyllenhaal's overdrive approach, Hanrahan concedes that boxing-style exercises are a great way to get in shape without the need for equipment. He recommends a shaded boxing session: use a mixture of jabs, hooks, crosses and upper cups, making sure that you are light on your feet and "catchy" with your punches. "Go at a pace that you can maintain for three minutes, then rest for 1-2 minutes and repeat 5-10 laps," he says. A little sit-ups will not hurt. But you probably don't have to do a thousand. We R Sports Kettlebell We R Sports amazon.co.uk £ 35.99 Golds Gym Kettlebell Golds Gym amazon.co.uk £ 59.99 Escape Fitness USA Kettlebell Competition Escape Fitness USA amazon.co.uk £ 103.00 Rubberized kettlebell No amazon.co.uk £ 55.48 Like this article? Subscribe to our newsletter to receive more directly in your inboxSUBSCRIBENeed positivity right now? Subscribe to Esquire Now for Style, Fitness, Culture and Expert AdviceSUBSCRIBE https://oltnews.com/hollywood-bale-tom-hardy-and-dwayne-johnson-hollywood-training-tips-esquire-com?_unique_id=5e9d50659a95e

[ulyssessklein]

Tony Lewis of The Outfield – Out of the Darkness Into the Light

By: Skip Daly

Tony Lewis – Image courtesy of Protocol Entertainment

“Josie’s on a vacation far away…”

That’s all I have to say, and now you know (if you didn’t already know) who Tony Lewis is.

That voice. The pure, siren song of ‘80s pop rock at its absolute zenith.

When The Outfield’s debut album, Play Deep, conquered the airwaves in 1986, I was but a freshman in high school. The album had actually been released in 1985, but the first single (“Say It Isn’t So” – still a great song in its own right) didn’t achieve mass penetration on American radio.

That honor fell to follow-up single “Your Love,” released to maintain a presence for the band during a brief break in touring.  “Your Love” hit the airwaves like a tsunami, and would go on to achieve a ubiquity only rivalled by the biggest hits of the decade.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this was my own personal Beatles moment.  That sound: Tony’s unreal, ethereal-yet-amazingly-strong voice, coupled with John Spinks’ unique, ringing guitar riff and Alan Jackman’s rock-solid drumming (with due credit to the beautiful, pop sheen of Bill Wittman’s production). This was my ticket to becoming a real fan of popular music – an adventure that continues to this day. I wore that cassette out.  (Yes, cassette.)  Then I wore the replacement out (no exaggeration).

Much has been said of “guilty pleasures,” and let’s face it – there’s no winning an argument with “serious” music folks if you try to expound on the virtues of a pop-rock band when stacked up against genres or artists universally accepted as “sophisticated.” It’s not a bucket list item for me to find the nearest hipster and try to engage them in an Outfield vs. Miles Davis discussion. Pass.

But I’m also old enough to scoff at the concept of feeling “guilty” over simple pleasures. You like it or you don’t. It resonates or it doesn’t. And while tastes expand and I don’t listen to certain things every day anymore, I will confess to still having a soft spot for this band, and to buying everything they went on to release.

I still derive shameless enjoyment from cranking the hell out of “The Boys Of Summer” (the endearing nickname earned by the band in that wonderful summer of ’86) with the windows rolled down on a warm summer day.

If this sounds like the diatribe of an apologist, then I’m out of line. The Outfield’s legacy stands strong in its own right – a career that spanned four decades, nine studio albums, nine Top 40 hits, millions of records sold, countless tours, and a dedicated base of fans.

Unfortunately, in the mid-2000s, in the midst of the band’s resurgence, tragedy struck: John Spinks was diagnosed with cancer. The Outfield soldiered on to produce one final record for the fans before John passed away in 2014.

For Tony, this hit home like the loss of a brother, and he walked away from music entirely for over two years. Eventually, with encouragement from his wife, Carol, Tony slowly started putting together tracks and now, almost four years to the day since John’s passing, Tony stands poised to release his first solo album, Out Of The Darkness (Madison Records) on June 29, 2018, before then embarking on a summer tour as part of the Retro Futuro line-up.  

I was fortunate to catch up with Tony for a conversation in the wake of the release of his new single, “Into The Light”, and as he begins preparations for the upcoming tour.

******

Skip Daly: Thanks so much for calling in, Tony. I was hoping to share a quick story with you to start things off, particularly since it leads right into a couple of my first questions. I’ve been an old school fan, going all the way back to the first record, and I saw the band on the Voices Of Babylon tour (1989).  And in 1998, after your hiatus, when you started touring again, I drove down to Atlanta to catch a gig, since you weren’t coming anywhere near the D.C. area. I ended up spending the day hanging out with you guys, and I have to say that of the bands that I have gotten to know, or have interviewed, you guys were just the most welcoming, friendly group of people.  John, in particular, just went out of his way, and it really blew my mind. When I think back on that day, it was a blast. Your wives, Carol and Jean, were in town that day, and I ended up hanging out with them, and everyone was really just so nice.

Tony Lewis: Yeah, I remember that!

Skip: So, starting off…and I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this, and it’s been a few years, but my condolences on the loss of John.  He was such a warm human being. I have very fond memories of that day, and the subsequent few times we got to catch up and hang out. Every time I met you guys thereafter, it was just so welcoming.  And not all bands are like that. So, I wanted to start by saying “thanks again” for those experiences. But it struck me at the time, even back then, that you guys were even more a family than just a band, and this seems to continue into this new record, as your wife collaborated with you in that she wrote the lyrics for it.

Which leads in to talking about the new record.  It’s fantastic and full of your signature sound, but also sounds very fresh and new in a lot of ways. You’d written occasional songs for The Outfield in the past, like “Girl Of Mine,” or collaborated with John on songs like “Taken By Surprise.” Did you have a bunch of stuff written over the years that just, for whatever reason, didn’t feel right for The Outfield?  Have you always written stuff, or is this record a totally new endeavor for you?

TONY: I’ve written stuff in the past.  I’ve been writing since around ’87. I have a Portastudio, and I’d record demos on that. I’ve always been a bit diverse [in terms of material] from [the main thrust of] The Outfield. I’m a minor chord and John was a major chord. So, I was coming from a different angle, and some of the ideas didn’t work, but then some stuff did – like “Girl Of Mine” worked. I’ve always been very critical of my own stuff.

Coming out of this four year hiatus since the passing of John, I just sort of put some backing tracks together, and I was struggling with lyrics, and Carol helped me out. She’s good at telling a story.  So, it just grew from there. There wasn’t any real “plan.” It just built and built, and after about a year – boom, it was coming together, and then it was a matter of recording and producing it.

Then Randy from Protocol Entertainment emailed me a couple years ago and asked “What are you doing?” There wasn’t really a plan to put at album out. I mean, at some point I wanted to release something of my own, just to show the fans that I wasn’t just the voice and bass player from The Outfield. I have other strings to my bow.

So, Randy and I met in London and he liked the stuff I was putting together, and he had a connection to Tanner Hendon from Madison Records, and he signed us last October. It’s been quite a long process…mixing it, and getting the artwork together. To be honest with you, it’s been quite enjoyable. I’ve always treated music like…..and John and I would always say this too: if we’re not enjoying doing it, we should stop. You’ve obviously got to be motivated, but you should enjoy doing it. You shouldn’t record because you feel you have to.

Skip: It’s interesting that you mention “just being a voice,” because I know John was credited as songwriter on most of The Outfield material, but you two must have worked very closely together on putting those melodies together, developing the nuances of the arrangements, etcetera, and it must have been a very collaborative process.

Tony Lewis: Yeah, we produced them ourselves. I mean, on the Replay record, he would play bass and I would play guitar, and a little bit of drums.  And then we got Alan back to play drums, because we wanted to make one final album together, since John’s health had started deteriorating by then, and it made sense to do an album like that. It just grew from there.  And we had learned tricks of the trade from the producers we’d worked with. And with drums, working with software like EZDrummer and Superior Drummer. If you program them right, you can give them the right feel as well.

I’m very much into drums myself. I like to put drums down as an instrument, instead of just tapping along to a song. The two of us were always very conscious of putting a proper rhythm section down before we put any of the guitars down. Once it’s tight and solid…I mean, that’s how this album came together. I made sure to put a good drum track down, then a good bass track, and then built the guitars on top of that.

And Carol’s lyrics really fit with a lot of the backing tracks I was doing. Though some of them we did from scratch with the acoustic, and it was just a matter of finding melodies and choruses. It came naturally to me because I’ve learned over the years how to do it, by working so closely with John on producing Outfield albums. When we finished with MCA, we got so used to producing the albums ourselves and we enjoyed doing it.

Skip: When you speak of drums though, do you primarily program them, or do you actually sit down to play on a kit at all?

Tony Lewis:It’s funny because Tanner Hendon, from Madison Records, is a drummer himself. He played with Paul Rogers and Bad Company. That was quite a thing, to connect with an indie label where the owner is a drummer. He drummed on five of the tracks, including the first single (“Into The Light”), and hopefully the second single, which might be “Here And Now.” And I did the rest myself.

But when I sent in the songs, he thought they were real drums. He didn’t know they were sequenced. A lot of the drums I did in quarter time, because I try to give a real human feel to them, but you can’t beat a real drummer. If it’s so clinically in time, it can sound sequenced.

Skip: Well, with drums perhaps more than any other instrument, I know that the sound of the room, and the acoustics of the room, can have a real bearing on how the drums sound.  For this record, did you go into any professional studio at any point, even if for mixing or mastering, or did you do the whole thing at your home studio?

Tony Lewis: No, I did it all pretty much at my house. I added ambient reverbs and overhead mics…because these drum programs now, they’re so sophisticated you can even change the “overhead mic” and what not.

But with all the software in the world, nothing replaces a real drummer.  You can’t beat that – the sound of a real drummer. It just helped me in putting songs together to put drum tracks down that were quite convincing. It’s raw – it’s pop music, so there’s no grace notes, or intricate jazz patterns. It’s just straightforward rock music, so I think people really care whether the drums are sequenced or not.  

Even on “Replay,” when we had Alan in, I think some people thought that some of the drums were sequenced, and they were all played by him. I mean, full credit to him for his timing being so precise!

Skip: Yeah, it all comes down to feel.  Speaking of Alan, are you still in touch with him?  Were you tempted to call him up to do drums on this record?  Or even on the upcoming tour, I have to wonder: will we see Alan and Tony together again in some way, shape, or form?

Tony Lewis: To be honest, when John passed, for me it was the end of The Outfield. I wanted to do this on my own, and he was fine about it.  We’re still good friends. But if Alan had been on this record, it would have been two-thirds Outfield. I didn’t want to go out on tour as “The Outfield,” because it just wouldn’t sit right with me. As for the record, I love doing drums anyway, so I just wanted to do it myself.

Skip: That makes sense. And that’s refreshing to hear because we see so many touring acts where it’s really only, like, one or two original members… That always feels a little “impure” to me when people start doing that.

Tony Lewis: Yeah, it gets quite confusing. Wang Chung is an example…I’d always known Wang Chung as Jack Hues.  And now he’s not there, but it’s called Wang Chung. I find it hard to get my head around that.

Skip:Yeah, and what’s even more bizarre is when there’s a band like Yes, where you’ve got two different line-ups touring at the same time!

Tony Lewis: Right, and there’s been, what, three different lineups of Bad Company? I always associate Bad Company with Paul Rodgers. For me, he’s the singer from Bad Company. I just think it’s very confusing when a band has disbanded, but people go out and use the name. That’s another reason I didn’t want to go out as “The Outfield” – it just wouldn’t be right.

Skip: So, going back to the new record, how did the collaboration with Carol tend to work?  Did she come to you with lyrics first, or would you tend to go to her when you’d worked up some music and ask her to write some lyrics to go with it?  Or a bit of both?

Tony Lewis: Well, the first three tracks off of the album started with some backing tracks that I had, and she had some words, and they just seemed to fit. “Out of the darkness, into the light…”, I wanted the first three songs to tap into the spirit of The Outfield, and then when you get deeper into the album, you hear more of my version of things…rather than just banging out an Outfield-sounding album. I wanted to use the first three to help people feel like “that sounds like The Outfield!”

But, the Outfield’s music…I mean, that’s just the kind of music I love playing. When I was in the band, I was the biggest fan of The Outfield!

Skip: Oh wow, that’s really fascinating that you deliberately sequenced the album like that!  Pulling the listener in with what’s familiar, and then you take them somewhere else.

Tony Lewis: Yeah, because working with and associating with Randy, and even back with The Outfield, he would talk about radio, and there’s the notion that you had to grab the listener in the first five seconds.  You can’t have slow builds, or four-bar intros of guitars….they’ll dial into another station, so you have to grab people straight away. The Outfield albums were always put together like that.

Tony Lewis – Image courtesy of Protocol Entertainment

Skip: Speaking of the way the album evolves as you get deeper into it, that actually brings me to a song-specific question. Listening to the record, I can definitely feel the parts that have some familiarity to the past work, and also some parts where it feels like you’re stretching out. What really grabbed me was the fiinal track, “I Know,” with that acoustic sound. That’s a really beautiful song, and quite different from your work with The Outfield.

Tony Lewis: Yeah, you know, I played that for someone and they said “You need all the bells and whistles and the big production on there,” but I said “No, I think the song stands up on its own with acoustic”, don’t fix what isn’t broken, and all of that.

Skip: Yeah, and it sounds really contemporary. I mean that in the best possible way. It just struck me as really different, and breaking new ground for you. I know the band had done the occasional acoustic thing, but this is very fresh, and it’s a powerful closing track.  Did you ever intentionally try to depart from sounds you’d previously been associated with, or was it a more natural thing where you just went with what felt right? Was there any different type of process that came into play with a track like that, because it’s so different from what you’d done before?

Tony Lewis: Yeah, I mean, as I was saying before, John would always come from the perspective of … he liked major chords…and he liked choruses and middle eights, and I was always into…not the “darker” side, but different rhythms and different chords. And that’s just how the production sort of worked.  

I wanted the album to be a blank canvas, once you got past the first three songs, which have that stronger Outfield feel…I wanted the listener to feel like “wow, this is taking me somewhere else.” It wasn’t “intentional” per se, so much as just that it’s how I like to write music, and how I feel songs. I wanted to write material that really connects with people, as opposed to just writing straight-up love songs. Less predictable.

Skip: You mentioned in a recent interview that producer David Kahne once described you as “a freak,” due to the nature of your voice.  As I was listening to this record, it really struck me. How is your voice possibly still in such good shape, as these years later? It’s amazing how you still have that high range? Do you have a special regimen that you follow to keep your voice in shape? I’m shocked at how good your voice still sounds.

Tony Lewis: Yeah, I guess I’m just lucky.  When David Kahne said I was “a freak,” it was in Sunset Sound in California when we were recording the “Voices of Babylon” album and we were working on the song “No Point.” We were working on the arrangement, and he had spliced some notes together, and I went in and sang them, and he just looked at me as said “I don’t know how you’re singing that high – you’re a freak!”

I think he meant it in a nice way – I took it as a compliment anyway. [Laughs] 

Yeah, we were just trying different things…different melodies. Because, once again, he was coming at it from a different angle, which worked for that album. He was coming from a musically-trained background, and had had success with The Bangles by that point, and he put together a great sound for that album.  I mean, it was a turning point in the sound of The Outfield, after the first two more straight-up rock-sounding albums.

But, getting back to your voice question, I don’t do anything special. I should do vocal warm-ups before a show, but I don’t.  I had a rehearsal yesterday, and was really going for it, and sometimes your voice breaks up.  If you’re got a loud drummer and you’re pushing it…I mean, the first two weeks on tour are always really rough on me. Because your throat is a muscle. If you’re not using it…it’s like an athlete…like if you’re a runner, and you haven’t been running, and suddenly you start sprinting, you’re going to be hurting.

It’s the same thing with the throat. You have to try to take care of yourself, and sing as often as you can. I think one of our tour managers had mentioned that Robert Palmer did a tour where he was flying between dates, and he would be singing on the plane.  And I understand that, because you have to keep the tubes clear, and keep your vocal cords in shape, and primed. When you’re on stage and you’ve got a loud drummer going, and you have to project above things, yeah, I guess I’m just lucky that I have one of those voices that can survive it.

Skip: We talked about how you play various instruments on this record. Do you still consider bass your primary instrument?  And getting into “gear talk”, what kind of equipment are you preferring these days? What kind of bass?

Tony Lewis:Primarily, in the live setting, I’m the bassist, but when I’m at home I tend to find rehearsing with a bass boring.  I tend to like playing guitar at home better. Bass is great, but in terms of expression, when you’ve got a straight going through all these effects, going through a guitar amp, it’s wonderful.

I have a Fender Strat that my wife bought for me for my fiftieth birthday, and I bought am American Elite Telecaster, but I always go back to the Strat.  I love the Strat. It has so many different tones. So, primarily I’m a bass player, but I really love playing guitar. And drums as well!

For basses, I have two Status basses. I still have the original bass I used in the “Your Love” video. For the recording of the album, I used my Steinberger. It’s got the EMG pickups, and is just great. It’s a great work tool for me. But live, I use the Status basses. Oh, and I bought a Rickenbacker 4003 recently. I’ve used that on a couple of the songs that I hope will go on the next album. It sounds really nice.

Skip: Oh yeah, those have that great distinctive growl! That ’70s sound…

Tony Lewis: Yeah! But I always go back to my Steinberger for recording and the Status for live. Because I made that tone, and that’s the tone that I like. And I’d never use anything but my Ampeg SVT – I’ve used that all the way through, for 33 years. That’s just my favorite amplifier. People change their sound a lot…they’ll change guitars, but I just like the sound that that Status makes. It sounds like a guitar – that’s probably why I like it.

Skip: So, for the summer tour, can you give any clues as to what the band will be like? Is it going to be a trio, a four-piece band, or what?  Will there be any players we know? You mentioned rehearsals, have you been getting together with the band yet?

Tony Lewis: I haven’t met them. For the Retro Futuro tour, Randy has lined up a backing band for me.  So, I’ll fly into Atlanta, and we’ll do two days of rehearsals. It’s only a 20-minute set, so that’s…4, 5, maybe 6 (at the most) songs. We’ll go through those.  They’re learning the songs from live recordings that I’ve sent them. But yeah, I haven’t met them yet. It’s quite exciting. Because it tends to be a lot of pressure on people when they go solo to get a band together.  

And you’ve got to get on, you know, with different personalities and the timing might not be right, or the guitar sound might not be right. But when you’ve got a professional backing band, you think “Whoa, all I’ve got to do is just show up and plug in and play with them,” and then we’ll see what happens. But, I’m looking forward to it.

Skip: In terms of the setlist, I assume it’ll be a combination of songs from the new record mixed in with some of the older hits?

Tony Lewis: It’s going to be primarily Outfield songs. “Say It Isn’t So,” “All The Love In The World,” “61 Seconds,” “Since You’ve Been Gone”…hopefully I’ll get one or two of the new ones in there, ”Into The Light,” and maybe “Here And Now.” All I’ve gotta do is learn them!

Skip: I assume, given the short set, you might mix some songs up night to night?

Tony Lewis: Yeah, we’ll probably rotate some of them around. There’s no set sort of plan. But with Retro Futuro, it’s all about The Outfield. I mean, if I go and see Sting at The Albert Hall, or wherever he’s playing, I’d want to hear The Police songs, you know? People come to see me, they’re going to want to hear “Your Love.” I’m not going there to try to shove my songs down their throat. I just want to go there and be part of a great ’80s tour and see what happens.

Tony Lewis – Image courtesy of Protocol Entertainment

Skip: Have you given any thoughts to plans beyond this summer? You mentioned songs for a follow-up album. Have you thought about doing a smaller club tour where you’d headline and play longer sets?

Tony Lewis:I don’t know. I’m just taking it one day at a time. I mean, I haven’t toured in fourteen years. When Carol and I fly over to Atlanta, and I rehearse and then the first show at Chastain Park, there will be, what, 7,000 people there? That’ll be amazing.

So, I just want to get out there, and get onstage, and do the tour, and see what happens after the tour.  I don’t have any set plans for what happens next. I just want to enjoy it and take it one day at a time.

Skip: My last question is maybe a little corny, but if John were still with us, what do you think he’d say to you, about the new record, and going into this tour…your re-entry into the music scene?

Tony Lewis: I hope he’d be pleased for me. I really do. I mean, I can’t believe it’s actually coming up on four years since his passing. That’s going to be really really strange getting up onstage, and not seeing him on stage with me. That’s going to be a really bittersweet thing. Not a day passes where I don’t think of him.

I’ll just take it a day at a time. I mean, going over and not being in The Outfield is going to be a whole new experience for me anyway. But it’s also going to be quite exciting. I’m trying to stay positive about everything.

Skip: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat today, congrats on the new record, and best of luck with the tour.

Tony Lewis: Thanks, it was my pleasure.

[businessweekme]

Great Mysteries: The True Value of Bitcoin

It took two economists one three-course meal and two bottles of wine to calculate the fair value of one Bitcoin: $200.

It took an extra day for them to realise they were one decimal place out: $20, they decided, was the right price for a virtual currency that was worth $1,200 a year ago, flirted with $20,000 in December, and is still around $8,000. Setting aside the fortunes lost on it this year, Bitcoin, by their calculation, is still overvalued, to the tune of about 40,000 percent. The pair named this the Côtes du Rhône theory, after the wine they were drinking.

“It’s how we get our best ideas. It’s the lubricant,” says Savvas Savouri, a partner at a London hedge fund who shared drinking and thinking duties that night with Richard Jackman, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics. Their quest is one shared by the legions of traders, techies, online scribblers, and gamblers and grifters mesmerised by Bitcoin. What’s the value of a ­cryptocurrency made of code with no country enforcing it, no central bank controlling it, and few places to spend it? Is it $2, $20,000, or $2 million? Can one try to grasp at rational analysis, or is this just the madness of crowds?

Answering this question isn’t easy: Buying Bitcoin won’t net you any cash flows, or any ­ownership of the blockchain technology underpinning it, or really anything much at all beyond the ability to spend or save it. Maybe that’s why Warren Buffett once said the idea that Bitcoin had “huge intrinsic value” was a “joke”—there’s no earnings potential that can be used to estimate its value. But with $2 billion pumped into cryptocurrency hedge funds last year, there’s a lot of money betting the punchline is something other than zero. If Bitcoin is a currency, and currencies have value, surely some kind of stab—even in the dark—should be made at gauging its worth.

Writing on a tablecloth, Jackman and Savouri turned to the quantity theory of money. Formalised by Irving Fisher in 1911, with origins that go back to Copernicus’s work on the effects of debasing coinage, the theory holds that the price of money is linked to its supply and how often it’s used.

Here’s how it works. By knowing a money’s total supply, its velocity—the rate at which people use each coin—and the amount of goods and services on which it’s spent, you should be able to calculate price. Estimating Bitcoin’s supply at about 15 million coins (it’s currently a bit more), and assuming each one is used an average of about four times a year, led Jackman and Savouri to calculate that 60 million Bitcoin payments were supporting their assumed $1.2 billion worth of total U.S. dollar-­denominated purchases. Using the theory popularised by Fisher and his followers, you can—simplifying things somewhat—divide the $1.2 billion by the 60 million Bitcoin payments to get the price of Bitcoin in dollars. That’s $20.

So far, so straightforward. It turns out, however, that when it comes to putting a price on Bitcoin, the same equation can yield many different answers. In September, Dan Davies, an analyst at financial research firm Frontline Analysts Ltd., wrote up a “guesstimate” of Bitcoin’s value that he’d originally conducted in 2014 using—again—the quantity theory of money. He plugged in estimates for each variable and got about $600.

On Dec. 10, Mark Kirker, a high school math teacher in California, published an analysis online using the same equation for the same purpose. He concluded that Bitcoin should be way above then-current levels. He’s since revised the number. Contacted by Bloomberg, he says it could be $15,000.

How can something be worth $20, $600, and $15,000 within the same theory? One key reason stems from what we don’t know about cryptocurrencies rather than what we do know. We know Bitcoin’s maximum supply is 21 million, and we know the velocity of most commonly used currencies. We don’t know how widely Bitcoin will be adopted tomorrow, how frequently it will transact, or what it will be used for. In Davies’s example, a guide to Bitcoin’s future potential was the illicit drugs market, an obvious home for more-or-less-untraceable digital cash. The United Nations has estimated this market at $120 billion. Plugging in that number helped Davies get to $600.

For Kirker, though, drugs and criminals are only part of the story. He imagines including the output of some developing countries where ­cryptocurrencies might have better takeup than traditional banking. But with so much up in the air, the equation starts to look less like algebra and more like alchemy. Even in the non-Bitcoin world, the velocity of money and its price can fluctuate in ways not predicted by fundamental analysis. “I am not wholly surprised it doesn’t pin down a price target to within a factor of 100 either way,” Davies says. Some believe the cloud of confusion has to do with the simple fact that cryptocurrency is something entirely new—it needs a fresh school of economic thinking to go with it. A quantity theory of cryptomoney, perhaps.

John Pfeffer, formerly a partner at KKR & Co., has written several papers to this effect, arguing that technology is turning the centuries-old equation on its head. Bandwidth and computing resources are the fuel of cryptocurrencies, and they need their place in quantity theory, he argues. His version of the equation imagines a world in which more powerful computers and faster connection speeds combine to lower the cost of maintaining a ­crypto-economy over time, while the same forces radically increase the availability and speed of its digital coins. There already exist hundreds of tokens other than Bitcoin, pointing to a world where digital currencies are, well, a dime a dozen.

In a future where cryptocurrencies become a form of economic resource (like fuel, water, or electricity) that’s computerised and commoditised, would anyone get rich from hoarding them in her trading account? No, says Pfeffer. In his view, the more widely used a particular brand of digital cash becomes, the higher the probability its value tends toward zero. In quantity theory terms, ­cryptocoins’ velocity could go way, way up, while the cost of many services within the crypto-economy could go way, way down. Crypto could change the world and still leave a lot of people with worthless tokens.

Pfeffer dangles one hope in front of the Bitcoin faithful who dream of riches: the possibility there’s one cryptocurrency out there that will serve as a store of value for the digital world. Like gold, a metal seen by investors as a haven in times of crisis or when the purchasing power of cash is eroding, whichever coin wins that crown will have a completely different use—and price—than the rest. Applying this thinking to Bitcoin, Pfeffer explains, would yield a price target of $260,000 to $800,000.

Such a value would be not too far off $1 million—where the frequently mocked, frizzy-haired self-help guru James Altucher expects Bitcoin to be in 2020. Software entrepreneur John McAfee has said it will hit $500,000. “If not, I will eat my d— on national television,” he tweeted. He later doubled his target price. Pfeffer has been more careful than most in warning of significant risk of investment loss. “This could all go substantially to zero for various reasons,” he wrote in December.

Putting a price on Bitcoin is therefore less about crunching numbers and more about deciding just what it is and what it could be, if anything. That’s appetising for risk-hungry optimists in the venture capital world, who are accustomed to their investments turning into big hits or big flops. Ride-hailing service Uber Technologies Inc., for example, has lost an eye-watering amount of money, yet it’s one of the most highly valued companies in the world. It’s a bet that more traditional investors would have difficulty justifying using traditional metrics.

But it also means science and snake oil sit side by side. Quantity theory is one example of how an equation can be remodeled to fit different scenarios or different wishes about where the price will land. And it’s not the only one: Network adoption, the cost curve of Bitcoin mining, and transaction volumes have all been bundled into marketable literature advising traders and investors on what to buy. It’s a thick numbers soup. At least Uber has financial accounts to review.

Those with long memories also remember the quantitative analyses that underpinned the hot new asset classes of the past, from dot-com stocks to securitised art. These were often sold to investors as new metrics and radical investment theses, only to be ditched when a recession or panicked sell-off hit. “They’re always talking about a new paradigm, but I say it’s the same meat, different gravy,” says Côtes du Rhône theorist Savouri, who maintains traditional economic theory should be embraced rather than ignored by the Bitcoin faithful.

For Savouri, the easiest way to understand the efflorescence of theories and valuations being bandied about is to opt for a simple, overarching one: the greater fool theory. It says that one fool buys in the hope that there’s an ever-bigger sucker willing to pay more. “The problem,” he says, “is that we don’t breed fools geometrically.” Lionel Laurent, Bloomberg Gadfly

The post Great Mysteries: The True Value of Bitcoin appeared first on Bloomberg Businessweek Middle East.

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[jakelace]

Marvel Ranked: Part 3 (22-12)

The night of the Spider-Man: Homecoming premier is upon us now, so again Aaron Hahn and I are going through our rankings of all of the Marvel movies since 1998. In case you have missed any of the previous installments, you can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 on Aaron’s blog here. Without any further ado, lets dig into those Marvel films that are just on the verge of being some of the best of all time.

22. THE WOLVERINE

“Eternity can be a curse. It hasn't been easy for you, living without time. The losses you have had to suffer. A man can run out of things to live for. Lose his purpose. Become a ronin. A samurai without a master.”

Jacob: The train scene, Aaron! The train scene! It was moments like that that left me so high after viewing this film. In fact, the first two acts of this film are really great. James Mangold was on his way to directing one of the greatest X-Men films ever! Sure, we can say he’s done that now, but not with The Wolverine. It is really a shame how quickly this film goes downhill once the final battle begins. While the film doesn’t squander all of its goodwill it had with me, it certainly tries by including last minute villains and plot twists that were so obvious they barely felt like twists at all.

Aaron: Yes, yes, the train scene is an innovative and thrilling action scene, as are many of the early samurai-inspired battles, but they’re almost drowned out by the goofy, muddled CGI climax. For the first two thirds of the movie, starting with that harrowing Hiroshima opening, James Mangold’s Noir-influenced character study is a refreshingly nuanced, involving superhero flick. Hugh Jackman is great as always, as are Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima. It really is such a shame about the third act being so overblown, but thankfully Mangold and Jackman took this film as a learning opportunity, and fixed those tonal inconsistencies the second time around.

21. X-MEN

“I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul who comes to that school… looking for trouble.”

Aaron: A lot of the commendation for the original X-Men film is directed towards its significance in the history of comic book adaptations. Fueled by some pitch perfect casting choices that went on to pervade the venerable franchise, including Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Patrick Stewart as Professor X, X-Men was the first successful superhero blockbusters in the modern era, paving the way for the MCU and more to follow. It’s a significant film, but also a pretty good one. Beyond the excellent cast, the film features plenty of exciting (though dated) action, and there’s a lot of charm in its plot’s embrace of comic-book wackiness. While the X-Men franchise would have better (and worse) entries later on, the original film remains a well-made, enjoyable foundation.

Jacob: Of all the X-Men films, this is the one I’ve seen the most by far. While I would never claim it is the best, there is something to it that I just can’t stop coming back to. I love our introduction to Jackman’s Wolverine, the villains’ oddly convoluted plot, the oddly inconsistent accents of Rogue and Storm, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love the “toad and lightning” line in some dark and twisted part of my soul. That line is absolutely horrible, from the writing to the stilted delivery of it, but I consistently laugh at it every time. Not for the right reasons, mind you, but I still laugh. I think that’s the best way to describe my feelings for this film honestly. It isn’t always good, but it has charmed me to the point where I can forgive its shortcomings and laugh along with it.  

20. ANT-MAN

“Baskin-Robbins always finds out.”

Jacob: Just so everyone knows, it kills Aaron that Ant-Man is this high on the list. I, however, had fallen for Ant-Man the minute the credits rolled. It is flawed, sure, but there is a lot here that works. Paul Rudd is a charismatic lead, Ant-Man’s power set makes for interesting and often times hilarious set pieces, and the bits left over from Edgar Wright’s original vision for the film are sublime. On top of that, it was the first film in the MCU that really made the universe feel like a living, breathing world, and that is no simple tasks. It’s hard to shake the thoughts of how great this film could have been if Wright had stayed on the project, but if you can manage, there is a lot to love underneath.

Aaron: Going in, we both knew this was going to be one of the most contentious films to place, and, yes, I’d personally put it lower. Ant-Man was one of the first films I reviewed for my blog, and I received a lot of flak for my indifferent response to it. Sure, Paul Rudd, the humor, and the set-pieces are great, but all these elements are just loosely strung together by a series of forced emotional beats and clunky “Hey, this will be important later!” dialogues. I like what you said about it making the MCU feel more like an authentic world though, as the film’s small-scale stakes are refreshing (and fitting for the character). It’s noticeably clunkier than your average MCU film (that Falcon detour is so contrived), but hey, that Thomas the Tank Engine gag never fails to make me laugh.

19. AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

“The city is flying and we're fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense.”

Aaron: Avengers: Age of Ultron’s reception was perhaps unfairly damaged by the inescapable pressure put on it following the all-out success of the first film. It could never have completely recaptured the magic of watching these various heroes unite on the big screen for the first time, but that doesn’t stop it from trying, to marginal success. The quipy writing and excellent chemistry of the all-star cast once again shines, especially in quieter moments that ended up being the best parts of the film, such as the roundtable attempts to lift Thor’s hammer. There’s plenty of cool visuals and dynamic team-up action, and while Ultron’s inconsistent characterization is disappointing, one can’t deny that James Spader was absolutely perfect casting. Age of Ultron can’t help but pale in comparison to its predecessor, but is still a blast for comic-book fans.

Jacob: Speaking of the inescapable pressure of the original, poor Joss Whedon, man. Nearly everything that doesn’t work in this movie can be directly traced back to Marvel mandated content that he had fought against during the film’s production, to the point where it burned him out on working with them altogether (although now he’s with DC, so it couldn’t have burned him out too badly). When this movie shines though, it’s fluorescent. The attempts to lift Thor’s hammer are certainly fantastic, but the moment that shined through the most to me was the introduction to the Barton farm. It’s scenes like those that really prove what Whedon is capable of. He can take characters who we know or care very little for and turn them into some of the most fleshed out and cared for in the series, and that’s really something special...or Thor can take a bath in some cave or something. Not entirely sure what was happening there, but that was in this movie for some reason.

18. IRON MAN 3

“Is that all you've got? A cheap trick and a cheesy one-liner?”           “Sweetheart, that could be the name of my autobiography.”

Jacob: Let’s continue the train of Marvel films Jacob loves that Aaron barely tolerates! Next stop: Iron Man 3! Man, I really dig this movie. From Shane Black’s excellent direction to another show-stopping performance from RDJ, it’s hard for me to believe that people hate this movie. I mean, I even like the parts that people hate, like the Mandarin reveal and the fact that Iron Man is barely in it. This is partially helped by the fact that I love watching films where characters who are out of their element have to find creative ways to solve their problems, and the whole second act fits the bill for me there. On top of that, the finale is bonkers and is everything I wanted from the final solo Iron Man outing. House Party Protocol anyone?

Aaron: Yeah, that “need to find creative ways to solve problems when out of their element” part doesn’t really work. In the first one, Tony Stark is able to create the Mark 1 suit as a captive in a cave in Afghanistan. Here, with access to an entire hardware store, he makes… a electrocuting glove..?  And couldn’t we have traded that annoying kid’s screen-time for more Iron Man action? Nevertheless, I have become a lot more favorable to this film after embracing the fact that this is more a Shane Black film than your typical Marvel one. The humor’s great, the parade of new Iron Man suits is delightful, and the examination of Tony’s PTSD is surprisingly heavy material for a summer blockbuster. The Mandarin twist even adds some fascinating political commentary to the mix. It’s too bad it also leaves us with Guy Pearce’s bland villain.

17. THOR

“Your ancestors called it magic, but you call it science. I come from a land where they are one and the same.”

Aaron: I remember, back before the MCU carried a sense of obligation, being very hesitant to see Thor in theaters, having never been a huge fan of the comic character. However, I ended up loving the film, even more than most, as it still ranks as one of my favorite MCU films. The casting is solid all around, including the charismatic performance of the at-the-time relatively unknown Chris Hemsworth, the gravitas generating presence of Anthony Hopkins, and, of course, the introduction of surprise fan-favorite Loki, played by Tom HIddleston.  From the elaborate costumes to the various unearthly realms, the film is visually fantastic, embracing its colorful comic book roots. Sure, the detour to Earth slows down the film significantly, but when swept up in fantasy drama of Asgard, imbued with the excellent Shakespearean sensibilities of director Kenneth Branagh, the film is magical.

Jacob: Alright, it’s been a while, so I guess it’s time for me to have another confession time: I don’t really like this movie. I think it might have something to do with not really liking Asgard as a setting, but I find it hard to feel connected to this film and its stakes. On top of that, this is easily Hemsworth’s worst go at the character, and I find it hard to put my finger on as to why that is. Perhaps it’s because Thor is really whiny in this movie? Oh yeah, that’s it. As much as I could nitpick at this film, it’s hard to dismiss it entirely. There are some fun moments like anything with Agent Coulson and our short introduction to Hawkeye, and of course this film introduces us to Hiddleston’s Loki, but on the whole, this is a film I’m content to skip when looking through the MCU’s filmography.

16. BIG HERO 6

“Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion.”

Jacob: A Disney team-up was practically inevitable from the moment Marvel was acquired by them. I wasn’t expecting much from this film, but thankfully, Big Hero 6 is way better than it has any right to be. A lot of this is helped by a great voice cast including Scott Adsit as Baymax and Alan Tudyk as Alistair Krei (side note: why is Tudyk so fantastically talented? There’s no reason for that.) This film is gorgeous, hilarious, heart-warming, tear-jerking, and pretty much everything else that we’ve come to expect from this most recent string of Disney films. Thankfully for Marvel they were lucky enough to be along for the ride.

Aaron: I guess I’m the opposite in that I expected great things from this film, and was left somewhat disappointed. The story was far too predictable, and for a film called Big Hero 6, the rest of the team are completely overshadowed by Hiro and Baymax. Still, this imbalance is understandable, given how absolutely hilarious and lovable Baymax is. His antics never fail to make me smile, and Scott Adsit is fantastic in the role. It has the expected gorgeous animation of your standard Disney film, and its exploration of grief and depression represents another emotionally mature, yet still fun for the whole family, effort from Disney. I hope we get a sequel to this wonderful, heartwarming film someday, one that moves us further away from this one’s familiar material.

15. DEADPOOL

“You're probably thinking, ‘My boyfriend said this was a superhero movie but that guy in the suit just turned that other guy into a f***ing kabab!’ Well, I may be super, but I'm no hero.”

Aaron: Deadpool is perhaps the most accurate comic book adaptation ever made. After four failed comic book entries (including #39 on this list, Blade: Trinity), Ryan Reynolds found the role he was born to play, perfectly embodying the manic eccentricities of the anti-hero, uninhibited by the unnecessary muting the character received in X-Men: Origins: Wolverine (#36 on this list!). Mocking everything from the X-Men franchise’s convoluted timeline, to the film’s low budget, to Green Lantern, Deadpool is a riotous blast, with plenty of inventiveness in the action scenes as well. Considering how well it sends up the superhero genre, it is a bit disappointing that it’s clichéd origin story takes up so much of the runtime, but the film packs in enough jokes and absurdities into its brisk runtime to more than make up for all of its shortcomings. Deadpool was a breath of fresh air for the superhero movie genre, and its risk-taking was thankfully rewarded with critical and commercial success.

Jacob: Thankfully is right. Remember when there was a time where Deadpool wasn’t one of the biggest heroes in the world? Well, keep that memory close, because I’m pretty certain we won’t be seeing anything like that again for years to come. Whenever Deadpool is actually being Deadpool in this film, you can’t help but smile from ear to ear. This film is unbelievably gory, raunchy, and hilarious in all of the best ways, but all of that is set to the side for about twenty minutes or so of runtime. While that might not sound like a lot, it’s enough to have you begging for more action, based on the fact that all of it is so good. It’s those twenty minutes that keep this film out of the running for the top ten Marvel films, and that’s no joke. Deadpool is really that good.

14. DOCTOR STRANGE

“Dormammu, I've come to bargain!”

Jacob: It was only a matter of time until the MCU started to dive into the mystical side of the Marvel-verse, and it was a moment I had been eagerly anticipating. Before Doctor Strange was released I did my best to stay away from promotional materials, and I’m thankful I did, because I was completely blown away by what I had seen in that theater. While the story is fairly well- worn in its genre and beyond, Strange differentiates itself by being a spectacle to look at. The way the rooms and cities fold in upon each other all while containing well shot action is nothing less than kaleidoscopic and mesmerizing. That’s without even mention the climax which is the most original in Marvel’s history bar none.

Aaron: The fourteenth film in the MCU, Doctor Strange both adheres strongly to the established studio template, and completely breaks the mold. The story bears strong similarities to the likes of Iron Man and Ant-Man, but, man, those M.C. Escher/Inception-esque kaleidoscopic set-pieces really are just some of the coolest, most visually arresting action scenes ever put to film. There’s also a fantastic cast, with Benedict Cumberbatch doing the type of arrogant genius role he does best, Mads Mikkelsen elevating his underdeveloped villainous role with sheer talent (Man, that “Mr. Doctor” exchange is just sublime), and Tilda Swinton once again proving she’s one of the best actors currently working. And that climactic showdown was fantastically surprising, inventive, and perfectly fitting for the hero. Just wish the rest of the plot had shown that much risk-taking.

13. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2

“He says, Welcome to the frickin' Guardians of the Galaxy! Only he didn't use ‘frickin'.”

Aaron: It’s always hardest ranking the newest entries for a list like this, as they hasn’t been enough time for their impact to be fully gauged. However, it seems like a safe bet to place Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 this high on the list, considering it fully delivers on more of the same irreverent humor, colorful visuals, and rockin’ 70s tunes that made the first film such an unexpected success, even if it is a bit too much of the same. The plot may be a bit sluggish, but that allows the film to spend lots of time further developing the wonderful character dynamics between the fantastic cast, and engaging in extended comedic beats. It doesn’t quite recapture the magic of the first film, but at the end of the day, getting to go on another zany adventure with the endearing Guardians is just an absolutely great time at the movies.

Jacob: I think you’re right in assuming that this placement is somewhat free of a recency bias. Now is it free of my bias for these characters? No…no, it probably isn’t, but man it’s hard to argue against just how much fun this movie is. From the very opening battle to the five (yes, five) after credits scenes I couldn’t help but be fully engrossed in this world and its characters. James Gunn has done such a fantastic job with writing and directing these movies, and though the plot takes a backseat in this entry, it allows Gunn to prove just how much he adores these characters by giving nearly everyone a moment in the spotlight. Oh, and I’ll put the “Come A Little Bit Closer” scene up against nearly any other MCU scene. Don’t @ me.

12. X2: X-MEN UNITED

“The war has begun.”

Jacob: Despite the original X-Men still being quite good and a landmark for superhero cinema, X2 is a quantum leap forward in quality. In fact, a lot of people cite this as their favorite superhero film of all, and while I certainly don’t agree, I can see exactly where they’re coming from. X2 takes the groundwork of the original and builds upon it with great characterization for the series mainstays and newcomers alike (Nightcrawler especially), and well-choreographed action sequences for all of the mutants. Plus, Brian Cox’s Stryker is one of those great villains that I absolutely love to hate.

Aaron: That wicked, intense opening scene of Nightcrawler in the White House is just such a perfect way to kickstart this great movie, and then it’s followed up by that Magneto prison escape, the X-Men Mansion invasion, and that Wolverine/Lady Deathstrike battle? X2 not only contains a plethora of magnificent action scenes, but a lot of strong character work as well, particularly the exploration of Wolverine’s origin (If only that hadn’t felt the need to follow it up with that Origins film…) Plus, Magneto’s betrayal and ultimate master plan is legitimately haunting, helping make X2 not only one of the best X-Men films still, but also one of the best superhero movies ever.

That’s all for today, but be sure to check back tomorrow on https://thiscleverblognameisalreadytaken.tumblr.com/ for the final part of our Marvel Ranked series, where we talk about the best Marvel has to offer in the realm of film.

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Review: SniktBub

I never got around to writing a proper review of this film before, when it was in theaters, so now that it’s out on the DVDs, I’m a do right by this outstanding film. It was OUTSTANDING. Like, too dope for words. As a swan song for one of the most recognizable superheroes of all time, this films doubles as an emotional conclusion to a character arc that spanned seventeen years as well as a character study in redemption. It’s easily the best X-Film I have ever seen in my life, and I thought Days was top five all time film, ever.  

The Okay

The inclusion of this film makes the timeline wonky. I imagine they could have a soft reboot a la Days again down the line to incorporate this into the lineage. Personally, I believe it falls in the original timeline, where Wolvie killed Jean, and kind of box ends that bleak ass arc. Most would say otherwise, I think Mangold said it’s in it’s own little world, but, to me, it only makes sense in that little bubble of torment after United.

I feel like Xander Rice was a little meh. He was easily the weakest character in the entire film and it showed. I was really hoping for Mr. Sinister, even if that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I guess Rice fit the roll, albeit a little flaccidly. He wasn’t in the film enough to detract from the dope.

X-24 seemed a little tacked on, I think. I liked the juxtaposition of Old/New, facing who you were as who you are now, but that whole arc was a little on the nose. Again, didn’t detract from the shine but it was just enough to knock it from Dark Knight awesome.

The Good

The Script here was stupendous. I was mad surprised by how coherent it was. The dialogue, the character development, the stakes, the pay-off; all of it was too dope for words. I was saddened that it took three films to give Wolverine his proper due.

That hard R rating did wonders for this film’s presentation. There’s no way PG-13 could have been used considering all of the rawness found in this movie.

That nihilistic tone was crushing. Goddamn, was this film bleak! It was a nice change of pace considering the last two Wolvie films were comic book shenanigans.

The performances in this thing were goddamn brilliant. All of them. Even the supporting characters. Like, the kids from Gen X (I’m calling them Gen X cuz I feel like it!) were outstanding. To get such quality performances out of so many young kids was brilliant.

The Better

Fox got the f*ck out of the way and let Mangold direct the movie he and Jackman wanted to make. After the debacle with Fan4Stic, the under performing Apocalypse,  and the recent troubles Sony had with Spider-Man, it looks like at least one of the studios with Marvel characters on loan has learned their lesson. Stop meddling. Let the people who make films, do their jobs. It works over at Marvel Studios. It worked for Deadpool. It worked for Logan. Trust in your guys and they will reward you with goddamn brilliance.

Mangold’s direction was almost impeccable. Goddamn, did he tell a story. I teared up at the end a little bit. Not because of Wolvie dying but because of the journey I had been on with this character. 17 years of my life, man. I went from a sophomore in high school, to a 33 year old man with this character. High Jackman IS Wolverine. To send him off with such skill, such reverence, such CARE? Goddamn outstanding.

Sir Patrick Stewart. ‘Nuff said.

Boyd Holbrook was disgustingly charismatic as Donald Pierce. I wasn’t a fan of The Reavers as the main antagonists but Holbrook sold me with his gnarly, down home, viciousness.

The Best

This movie was goddamn beautiful. The way it was shot, the framing, the themes explored, the pacing, the cinematography; all of it, goddamn outstanding!

Dat Family Dynamic, Tho! Goddamn, if that’s not what Wolverine wanted, NEEDED, only to have it taken away? Dude. The feels…

Hugh Jackman. Breh, he was actually able to ACT as Wolverine and it was goddamn brilliant. I felt bad that this was the ONLY film that Fox allowed him some sort of emotional levity outside of growling and stabbing. It’s amazing it took them 17 years to let High Jackman act. There were glimpses in The Wolverine but this outing was just a tour de force.

Dafne Keene. Ol’ girl got talent. Her potential is ridiculous. To be that young and literally STEAL scenes away from Sir Patrick Stewart and High Jackman is a real feat. I hope they give her the opportunity to BE Laura for a good while. Not Hugh Jackman long, but another movie or two to show her growth as a character. Make her the lead of her franchise at, like 14! First Legacy character to make it to film!

Goddamn, was this movie great! I loved it. I loved almost everything about it. It’s literally up there with The Dark Knight; One of those rare instances where a cape-film transcends it’s genre and becomes a damn good movie, in general. It was the best send-off for a character I grew up with while potentially ushering a whole new generation. The villains were a little weak but overall, outstanding film. This is NOT a superhero film. This is NOT and X-Men film. This is a movie about family, finding acceptance, reflection and regret, and love. It’s a ridiculously grounded take on the back end of the human experience, in the face of the beginning, told with so much renown and dedication that it’s heartbreaking to think this is the end. What could have been if so much care was taken with everything involving this character from the beginning. This is a character study of how a good man dies the hero’s death and that sh*t is tragic but beautiful. Buy it. Rent it. Watch it. Experience it. You’re doing yourself a disservice by not.