#while malcolm saw how ian was treated

[bassguitarinablackt-shirt]

I had a thought last night which is the stoll brothers and conner stoll is gay and transmasc(and imahine if he was dating a son of athena) and travis is pansexual

HOLY. YES. GIVE ME QUEER STOLL BROTHERS OR GIVE ME FUCKING DEATH.

[gracesshelves]

Jurassic Park (1993)

            Jurassic Park (1993) was based the book written by Michael Crichton. While this was not my first time watching Jurassic Park, I knew quotes from this movie before I ever saw it. In my opinion, this is the biggest blockbuster we’ve discussed so far. I would rate this four and a half out of five stars. As someone studying the Save the Cat method for my novel, it was so cool to see how clear the beats are in this film. The moments of building and releasing tension were so well crafted. I found myself getting stressed, even though I knew the characters I cared about would live. The characters feel so alive and even those who had smaller arcs, such as Dr. Grant learning to like children, had me emotionally invested. Speaking to the hubris of humanity, I believe Jurassic Park will always be relevant.

            As a new horror writer, I wanted to take notes while watching this movie. This comes as no surprise as the film was directed by Steven Spielberg, who’d already had a massive number of hits under his belt by 1993. The writing, acting, directing, and cinematography work together seamlessly. I particularly enjoyed how we switched between the two main groups in the most dramatic scenes. The camera work during the scene where the visitors are attacked by the T-rex heightens the fear by focusing on different characters' reactions and switching rapidly between them. I felt like we as the audience were looking around frantically with them, unable to see the dinosaur, yet experiencing its impact on the environment. The horror is hidden until we are at the edge of our seats, and then lighting strikes, revealing the dinosaur as it eats the goat. Spielberg maintains our fear by switching between Hammond and his employees in the office, and the people being attacked. We have moments of respite, but during that time we are thinking about what is happening to the kids. He does the same thing later in the film when Dr. Grant climbs over the electric gates with Tim and Lex, as Dr. Sattler turns the power back on. Seeing both perspectives makes it more stressful because we know how close she is to turning it back on, versus how slow the other three are climbing. At one point Dr. Grant told the kids to take their time and I yelled out loud: “No! Go faster!”.

            I admired so much the way this movie was structured, however, there was one thing that bothered me a little bit. You can only do so much character growth in a movie with this big of a cast, but I would have liked to see more from Dr. Sattler, Ian Malcolm, and Tim. I picked up on three arcs of change: Hammond realizing his hubris, Dr. Grant learning to like kids, and Lex being able to face her fear to save her brother. These arcs were done so well and did not take time away from the story to complete, that I wished we had seen growth from the other three. If they’d had less screen time, I would be more okay with them being flat, but they were in so much of the movie that I wanted more. Again, this is a very picky complaint, but I think it would’ve just leveled up this already great movie even higher.

            The whole theme of humans getting their hands on a power they don’t know how to control reminded me of how we treat technology today. We are making progress in so many fields, especially AI, but I don’t think we are spending enough time considering how this will affect our society. Tech companies may have some good intentions, like Hammond did in the film, but ultimately what they are creating has the potential to hurt a lot of people. Already people have used AI to create sexually explicit images of others as a way to harm them. We’ve seen so many cautionary tales, and yet we do not seem to be taking their advice. Hopefully, before anything else happens, we can sit and think about potential consequences. Personally, I do not want to be eaten by the AI “dinosaur”.

[darkfires]

"jurassic park was about capitalism only, the scientists did nothing wrong" is honestly a really stupid way to look at it and completely disregards the point that michael crichton was trying to make and I think if you think that you should reanalyze your biases.

science is not immune to criticism. it's not immune to abuse of power, either, and we could sit here all day while I list the insane amount of extremely inhumane crimes scientists have performed "for the greater good of knowledge". this "scientists only do bad things cause ummm capitalism" argument is so inherently flawed. scientists have done disgusting things for the pursuit of knowledge alone, for personal gratification, for figurative immortality, all of which they believe makes their practices justified. again we could go on and on about this.

jurassic park is an extremely faithful (albeit less gory) adaptation of the book, and somehow people still constantly misinterpret the theme to be either man v. nature. jurassic park is man v. god.

both the scientists and the showrunners are the villains. no, the scientists are not just "doing their jobs". they're engaging in a severely unregulated and brand new branch of science and experimenting with no boundaries. they're literally doing things just because they can. IAN SAYS THIS OUTRIGHT. what makes the anti-capitalism message go hand in hand with the message that unregulated science is extremely dangerous is that Hammond funds the researchers and then doesn't give them any boundaries.

no one- not wu, not hammond- treats what they're doing with any degree of seriousness. again, AS IAN SAID, no one stopped to think what the possible consequences of this massively unregulated practice were. no one considered the idea that it might all go wrong.

the reason being that, AND AGAIN THIS WAS STATED IN THE MOVIE BY SATTLER, the idea that they MADE the dinosaurs gives them this massive god complex, a complete illusion of control in their science jerk-off circle. how could something they made turn on them? it's hubris.

this is pretty much relevant to everything that goes wrong in the park. like the fucking computer system, which they were assured was extremely reliable and could keep the park running for days alone, was taken offline by one disgruntled employee.

the computer system failed.

the fences failed.

the prevention of breeding failed.

the lysine fallback failed.

THE SCIENCE FAILED. THAT WAS THE POINT. THAT WAS THE ENTIRE MOVIE.

and wu didn't even do a good job making those fucking animals in the first place. the reason why the t-rex couldn't sense movement is because the gaps in the DNA were filled with various different modern, living amphibians and reptiles, some of which cannot sense movement.

no one, not the scientists, not the businessmen, not the engineers, took it seriously. they played god. they operated on the "what could go wrong?" model. they reassured themselves that these animals were in their complete control and then popped bottles of champagne for scientific discovery.

the abuse of genetic power, and the failings of it, is such a huge part of the movie I cannot imagine how stupid you would have to be to ignore that. the scientists had the same illusion of control that everyone else did, and that ian malcolm did not. remember that massively famous scene? nature finds a way? that was blatant commentary on how the "science" they practiced was aiming to wrangle and control nature, and that nature is unpredictable and cannot be contained by people.

the reason why chaos theory was such a major talking point in the story is because chaos theory is built on recognizing underlying patterns during apparent chaos. ian saw a bunch of scientists who were playing with a relatively new field of science, a businessman who was completely in over his head, and a structure that was doomed to fail, and he recognized a pattern, and predicted an outcome. and he was right. it's the same as a weather forecast.

henry wu was killed in the first book, along with john hammond.

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

went to see jurassic world: dominion again today, and i’m so sorry to all the haters, but you’re still wrong!!!!!!!!!

i have a lot of random thoughts to type up later re: things i really enjoy in this movie (with an elaborate sub-section for grant ‘n sattler happenings), but just a few more general thoughts right now:

i think if you go into this movie loving these characters, then it’s a total treat. if you’re wanting a movie that works independently of being invested in the characters, maybe you don’t get that. but i cannot imagine not adoring the characters from the jurassic park and jurassic world ‘verses, so i cannot relate.

i didn’t really clock this until the second viewing, but i really like how both this movie and the first jurassic park movie are centered around the theme of parenthood -- with alan opening his heart to the idea of parenting with ellie in the first movie as the main arc (sob), and claire and owen being maisie’s adopted parents and really proving their unconditional devotion to her and cementing their familial bond here.

i LOVE that screenwriters emily carmichael and colin trevorrow did not blow up ellie, alan, and ian’s lives in order to serve the story of the younger generation of characters. it’s just so nice how nothing about where they are in this movie tarnishes the original story we got to know and love them in, and we can have the sense that they’ve had pretty good lives doing what they love since we last saw them. (alan and ellie being broken up, obvs, is the one thing that stings, but that was the work of jp3, and this movie heroically fixes it!) i think that’s a really kind thing for franchise writers to do, and a sadly pretty rare one. it is truly a delicious balm for the star wars sequel trilogy-stricken soul.

there are so many great women in this movie. yes!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!! (also, kayla watts + soyona santos as the main characters in the next trilogy [or perhaps a high-budget spinoff tv show in the style of disney+’s star wars or marvel series], PLEASE. and they have an incredible slow-burn love/hate romance, because i say so. ramsay cole too because i adore him! also, i’m like 97% sure upon my repeat viewing that he and ian malcolm are definitely hooking up.)

i guess i can see some people hating on an adorable baby raptor romping around in the snow with its mama while a heartwarming flute theme plays in the background, but i for one am NOT that bitter and am in fact ENCHANTED

[adamwatchesmovies]

Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

Jurassic World Dominion is stomping in like it’s the long-awaited conclusion to a trilogy we've been following with baited breath but it brings nothing new to its franchise. The picture seems to have no ambitions beyond being “another Jurassic Park movie”. That’s not enough, certainly not when you have all of these characters, find nothing to do with them, and then cap off your story with a message that contradicts everything we've seen so far.

Four years after the incident that released countless dinosaur species into our world, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) are protecting them from poachers while taking care of Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) - the first human clone. When Maisie and the Velociraptor Beta, are captured by bounty hunters and sent to the government-approved Biosyn Genetics company, Claire, Owen, and their pilot, Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise) set out to rescue them. Meanwhile, paleobotanist Dr. Eli Sattler (Laura Dern) discovers a swarm of giant locusts who devour all crops except those grown from Biosyn seeds. With the help of paleontologist Allan Grant (Sam Neill), she hopes to approach Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) - working at Biosyn - for answers.

I suspect you can already tell why Dominion goes awry. This picture has too many characters and it's stuffing them all, along with the dinosaurs together in this bloated story that requires people to wind up in this one location when they’ve got no business going there. Why would supervillain Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, playing the guy who gave Dennis Nedry the shaving cream container in Jurassic Park) hire Malcolm? So the chaotician can demoralize his staff with lectures Monday-through-Friday? Why did "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" tell us that Blue is the last Velociraptor if we’re just going to retcon that away and give her the ability to reproduce asexually? If the movie wanted more velociraptors, just pick more raptor-like dinosaurs and have them attack our heroes! In fact, it does! with two different species!

Shockingly, this “concluding chapter in the Jurassic World Trilogy” is not all that interested in its dinosaurs. The locusts and Maisie turn out to be the biggest motivators for the heroes, meaning you could rewrite and shorten this movie significantly by removing the thunder-lizards from the plot entirely. I suspect director Colin Trevorrow (who co-wrote the screenplay with Emily Carmichael and has made nothing but clunkers since 2015) just didn’t know what to do with this series. For anyone reading, I’ve got a premise for you: A group of researchers need to recover critical cancer research from a laboratory deep in a valley now infested with dinosaurs. Instant high stakes, likeable characters, and the cretacious-era beasts are back to being horror movie antagonists. I can tell you're excited already!

We’re introduced to multiple prehistoric reptiles that ultimately all play second banana to the ones we saw in the original film and feel like they’ve been selected to give us something new… but not so new. Is Giganotosaurus significantly different from the Indominus Rex? I don’t see how. Then it ends on a note that should make even the most hardcore future paleontologists raise an eyebrow. We’re told that humans and dinosaurs might just be able to live together, that the leviathanesque Mosasaurus could live alongside whales, Triceratops among rhinoceroses, etc. That message might not ring so hollow if we hadn’t just watched six movies where prehistoric carnivores did nothing but eat people.

In this movie’s defence, the special effects are convincing. While the characters aren’t all that well utilized, it is a treat to see the cast of Jurassic Park together again. Jurassic World Dominion has many scenes of dinosaurs in urban settings, several of which feature people getting gobbled up, which I'm sure will delight many. I suppose this will tidy me over until we get that inevitable adaptation of Dinosaurs Attack! but what we have here is another Rise of Skywalker: a concluding chapter that had no idea what it wanted to be. (3D Theatrical version on the big screen, June 12, 2022)

[clarasimone]

Iain Glen nailing Hamlet (1991)

In 1991, after winning the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actor, Iain Glen gave his soulful all, not on the stage in London, no, not yet, though really he could have, but at the Old Vic in Bristol, donning the persona of the Dane, Hamlet. He won the Special Commendation Ian Charleson Award* for his performance and yet it appears we will never see but stills from this production as no video recording was made, not even by and for the company. The University of Bristol has the archives of the production: the playbook, the programme and black and white stills. The V&A archives have the administrative papers. In our day and age, this sad evanescent corporeal sate of affairs is unimaginable. The memory of the play, of this performance fading away? We rebel against the very thought. We brandish our cell phones and swear we shall unearth and pirate its memory, somehow, somewhere. Even if we have to hypnotize patrons or pull out the very hearts of those who saw Iain Glen on stage, those few, those happy few, to read into their very memory and pulsating membrane just how brilliant he was. Because he was, he was. That’s what they’ll all tell you... 

Below, those pics and testimonies....

*(The Charleson Awards were established in memory of Ian Charleson, who died at 40 from Aids while playing Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1989)

- Iain Glen is a rampaging prince, quixotic, technically sound, tense as a coiled spring, funny. ‘To be, or not to be’ results from throwing himself against the white walls, an air of trembling unpredictability is beautifully conveyed throughout. ‘Oh, what a rogue and peasants slave’ is blindingly powerful. My life is drawn in angrily modern post Gielgud Hamlets: David Warner, Nicol Williams, Visotsky, Jonathon Price. Iain Glen is equal to them. He keeps good company. THE OBSERVER, Michael Coveney

- Paul Unwin’s riveting production reminded me more strongly than any I have ever seen that the Danish Court is riddled with secrecy. Politics is a form of hide and seek: everyone stealthily watches everyone else. Iain Glen’s Hamlet is a melancholic in the clinical sense: his impeccable breeding and essential good nature keep in check what might be an approaching breakdown. His vitriolic humour acts as a safety valve for a nagging instability, his boyish charm is deployed to placate and deceive a hostile and watchful world. Glen brings out Hamlet’s fatal self absorption: the way he cannot help observing himself and putting a moral price tag on every action and failure. He is a doomed boy. And his chill but touching calm at the end is that of a man who has finally understood the secrets behind the closed doors. The Sunday Times, John Peter

- This is an excellent production of Hamlet from the Bristol Old Vic. The director Paul Unwin and his designer Bunnie Christie have set the play in turn of the century Europe. Elsinore is a palace of claustrophobically white walls and numerous doors. All this is handled with a light touch, without drawing attention away from the play. Our first encounter with Hamlet shows him bottled up with rage and grief. Glen gives a gripping performance. The self-dramatising side of the character is tapped to the full by this talented actor. The Spectator, Christopher Edwards

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The following though is my favorite review/article because it situates Iain Glen’s creation is time, in the spectrum of all renowned Hamlets.

How will Cumberbatch, TV’s Sherlock, solve the great mystery of Hamlet? by Michael Coveney - Aug 17, 2015

In 1987, three years before he died, the critic and venerable Shakespearean JC Trewin published a book of personal experience and reminiscence: Five and Eighty Hamlets. I’m thinking of supplying a second volume, under my own name, called Six and Fifty Hamlets, for that will be my total once Benedict Cumberbatch has opened at the Barbican.

There’s a JC and MC overlap of about 15 years: Trewin was a big fan of Derek Jacobi’s logical and graceful prince in 1977 and ended with less enthusiastic remarks about “the probing intelligence” of Michael Pennington in 1980 (both Jacobi and Pennington were 37 when they played the role; Cumberbatch is 39) and emotional pitch and distraction of Roger Rees in 1984 (post-Nickleby, Rees was 40, but an electric eel and ever-youthful).

I started as a reviewer in 1972 with three Hamlets on the trot: the outrageous Charles Marowitz collage, which treats Hamlet as a creep and Ophelia as a demented tart, and makes exemplary, equally unattractive polar opposites of Laertes and Fortinbras; a noble, stately Keith Michell (with a frantic Polonius by Ron Moody) at the Bankside Globe, Sam Wanamaker’s early draft of the Shakespearean replica; and a 90-minute gymnastic exercise performed by a cast of eight in identical chain mail and black breeches at the Arts Theatre.

This gives an idea of how alterable and adaptable Hamlet has been, and continues to be. There are contestable readings between the Folios, any number of possible cuts, and there is no end of choice in emphasis. Trewin once wrote a programme note for a student production directed by Jonathan Miller in which he said that the first scene on the battlements (“Who’s there?”) was the most exciting in world drama; the scene was cut.

And as Steven Berkoff pointed out in his appropriately immodestly titled book I Am Hamlet (1989), Hamlet doesn’t exist in the way Macbeth, or Coriolanus, exists; when you play Hamlet, he becomes you, not the other way round. Hamlet, said Hazlitt, is as real as our own thoughts.

Which is why my three favourite Hamlets are all so different from each other, and attractive because of the personality of the actor who’s provided the mould for the Hamlet jelly: my first, pre-critical-days Hamlet, David Warner (1965) at the Royal Shakespeare Company, was a lank and indolently charismatic student in a long red scarf, exact contemporary of David Halliwell’s Malcolm Scrawdyke, and two years before students were literally revolting in Paris and London; then Alan Cumming (1993) with English Touring Theatre, notably quick, mercurial and very funny, with a detachable doublet and hose, black Lycra pants and bovver boots, definitely (then) the glass of fashion, a graceful gender-bender like Brett Anderson of indie band Suede; and, at last, Michael Sheen (2011) at the Young Vic, a vivid and overreaching fantasist in a psychiatric institution (“Denmark’s a prison”), where every actor “plays” his part.

These three actors – Warner, Cumming, Sheen – occupy what might be termed the radical, alternative tradition of Hamlets, whereas the authoritative, graceful nobility of Jacobi belongs to the Forbes Robertson/John Gielgud line of high-ranking top drawer ‘star’ turns, a dying species and last represented, sourly but magnificently, by Ralph Fiennes (1995) in the gilded popular palace of the Hackney Empire. Fiennes, like Cumberbatch, has the sort of voice you might expect a non-radical, traditional Hamlet to possess.

But if you listen to Gielgud on tape, you soon realise he wasn’t ‘old school’ at all. He must have been as modern, at the time, as Noel Coward. Gielgud is never ‘intoned’ or overtly posh, he’s quicksilver, supple, intellectually alert. I saw him deliver the “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave” soliloquy on the night the National left the Old Vic (February 28, 1976); he had played the role more than 500 times, and not for 37 years, but it was as fresh, brilliant and compelling as if he had been making it up on the spot.

Ben Kingsley, too, in 1975, was a fiercely intelligent Royal Shakespeare Company Hamlet, and I saw much of that physical and mental power in David Tennant’s, also for the RSC in 2008, with an added pinch of mischief and irony. There’s another tradition, too, of angry Hamlets: Nicol Williamson in 1969, a scowling, ferocious demon; Jonathan Pryce at the Royal Court in 1980, possessed by the ghost of his father and spewing his lines, too, before finding Yorick’s skull in a cabinet of bones, an ossuary of Osrics; and a sourpuss Christopher Ecclestone (2002), spiritually constipated, moody as a moose with a migraine, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

One Hamlet who had a little of all these different attributes – funny, quixotic, powerful, unhappy, clever and genuinely heroic – was Iain Glen (1991) at the Bristol Old Vic, and I can imagine Cumberbatch developing along similar lines. He, like so many modern Hamlets, is pushing 40 – as was Jude Law (2009), hoary-voiced in the West End – yet when Trevor Nunn cast Ben Whishaw (2004) straight from RADA, aged 23, petulant and precocious, at the Old Vic, he looked like a 16-year-old, and too young for what he was saying. It’s like the reverse of King Lear, where you have to be younger to play older with any truth or vigour.

Michael Billington’s top Hamlet remains Michael Redgrave, aged 50, in 1958, as he recounts in his brilliant new book, The 101 Greatest Plays (seven of the 101 are by Shakespeare); Hamlet, he says, more than any other play, alters according to time as well as place.

So, Yuri Lyubimov’s great Cold War Hamlet, the prince played by the dissident poet Vladimir Visotsky, was primarily about surveillance, the action played on either side of an endlessly moving hessian and woollen wall. And in Belgrade in 1980, shortly after the death of Tito, the play became a statement of anxiety about the succession.

There’s a mystery to Hamlet that not even Sherlock Holmes could solve, though Cumberbatch will no doubt try his darndest – even if he finds his Watson at the Barbican (Leo Bill is playing Horatio) more of a hindrance than a help; there are, after all, more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his friend’s philosophy.

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Oh! Did I say that we were never going to see Iain Glen in the skin of the great Dane? Tsk. How silly of me. Meet IG’s Hamlet in Tom Stoppard’s postmodern theatrical whimsy ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, shot the year before the Bristol play.

Though almost surreal and most often funny as the film follows the Pulp Fiction-like misadventures of two forgettable Shakespearian characters, crossing paths with other more or less fortunate characters, their time with Hamlet makes us privy to the Dane as we never quite see him in the Bard’s play... but for one memorable scene,  in which Iain Glen absolutely nails it, emoting the famous “To be or not to be” which you see tortures his soul, brings tears to his eyes and contorts his mouth; the moment made all the more memorable by the fact that it is a silent scene. You never hear him utter the famous line, but you see the words leave his lips and feel them mark your soul.

I’m kinda telling myself that it’s 1991 and I’m sitting in the Old Vic, in Bristol, not London. Not yet.

[bee-kathony]

Fraser Memorial | Ch. 1 “Sutures”

Thank you @sassenachwaffles for being my beta on this chapter and thank you @jules-fraser for approving of my pictures and indulging me as I started another fic! 

2015 | Scotland

The emergency room had been quiet all morning, only three people had come in with minor injuries that were fixed in minutes. My fingers ached to suture someone’s skin, fix a broken nose... anything that would take my focus off of my ex.

Frank Randall had cheated on me. Simple as that.

But it wasn’t simple, he was my fiancé, we’d been together for six years and had plans. Hopes and dreams that involved us buying a house, getting married, children… he ruined them when he slept with one of his students. A history professor at Oxford University, Frank had wooed me in my last year of school. He was a new professor and I was smitten with the teacher.

I should have known that something like this could have happened.

I was once the student, crushing on their professor, hoping he would ask to see me after class so we could talk those extra five minutes without anyone else around.

It’d only been three months since I found out he was sleeping with her and in that short time I had relocated to Edinburgh to get away from him and my shattered dreams. Thankfully the hospital accepted my transfer. It was rare that they would take on a resident from another hospital, especially since I was English.

I glanced down at my watch, only ten minutes had passed since I’d last checked it. Sighing, I ran my hand through my mass of curls, getting my finger stuck in a knot. “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I cursed, yanking my hand and managing to make matters worse.

“Ye need scissors?” Geillis, a fellow resident, asked from behind the nurses station.

I huffed, “No, thank you. I’ve almost,” I pulled a bit more, “Got it!” My hand came free and only a few loose strands drifted to the white tiled floor.

“Ye ever think about cutting it? Yer hair?” Geillis pointed to my bird’s nest.

Shaking my head, I pulled my hair tie off my wrist and started putting it in a messy bun, “I would look horrific if I cut my hair,” I laughed, tucking loose bits into the bun. “They would stick out even more, if that’s even possible.”

“Aye, yer probably right.” She laughed and then we both turned our heads to the emergency room doors that were now opening with a bang. Finally.

A man with a slight limp walked through the doors, holding up a very large red headed man who appeared to be doubled over in pain.

“Mine!” I called before Geillis could and raced off to meet the men, leaving Geillis’ shouts of complaint behind me.

“How can I help?” I asked, my eyes taking stock of what was before me. The larger man’s face was twisted in pain, and his hand was clutching his opposite shoulder. Dislocated. There was also blood, and a lot of it, running down his arm.

“This idiot here thought he could lift a box of about forty-five bottles of whisky, clumsy dolt.” The blonde man laughed through his words, “Happened walkin’ up the stairs. Smashed all the whisky o’ course.” I chuckled lightly to myself, clearly the man was not too concerned about his friends pain.

“Come with me, we’ll get you set up in a bed and I’ll take a look at that shoulder.” I led the two men who slowly followed over to the row of beds. The large man laid down, wincing as he fell back against the pillows.

“You’ll probably want to sit up and not lean on that arm.” I instructed and moved my fingers in a ‘come forward’ motion.

“Aye, I think it’s broken.” The red haired man said, groaning as he sat up in the bed.

I laid my hand gently on his shoulder to assess the damage, it was in fact dislocated. This would be an easy fix. “It’s not broken, only dislocated.”

“Only,” he laughed and I looked into his eyes for the first time to find that they were the brightest blue I’d ever seen. Caught off guard, I shook my head slightly and turned my attention back to his shoulder.

“I’m going to pop it back into place, it’ll hurt but then feel a whole lot better.” I placed my hands firmly on his arm and he nodded, gritting his teeth and looked straight ahead.

Applying pressure, I forced his shoulder back and then up and it made a sort of popping noise as it reset. The man grunted but then let out his breath, looking down at his shoulder to see it good as new.

“Ah Dhia, it feels a thousand times better, thank ye Sassenach.” He smiled up at me and I felt my belly do a little flip.

“You’re welcome. It really wasn’t very — wait… what did you call me?” I shot my eyebrows up at him. I’m pretty sure that ‘Sassenach’ was not a very nice name to call someone.

The man blushed, his ears turning pink as he met my gaze full on, “Och, I didna mean it in a bad way, of course not, yer English are ye no’?”

“Well, yes I am.” I crossed my arms in front of me and waited for further explanation.

“So…” he drew out the word, “’Tis only a way of calling ye that, yer an outlander, lass. Please dinna take offense because I truly didna mean to offend ye. ’Tis only I dinna ken yer name.”

I looked down at my chest where my name tag should’ve been but it had somehow fallen off during the day. “Oh, I’m Claire. Claire Beauchamp.” I smiled and then I remembered the man’s friend and turned my head to him as well, offering him the same smile.

“This is Ian, my brother-in-law,” the man pointed to his friend with the limp, “and I’m Jamie. Now that we ken each other’s names maybe ye could attend to this blood that hasna stopped drippin’ out of my arm?”

I cursed under my breath. Christ, I had completely forgotten that he had been bleeding. His eyes were a distraction and his Scottish lilt was rather enchanting. Of course, I knew that by moving to Scotland, I would in fact hear plenty of Scottish accents but there was something in the Highland-lilt -- something about the way he said ‘Sassenach’.

“Jesus! I’m sorry,” my cheeks turned red and I moved over to the cabinet beside the bed, quickly pulling out what I would need. Definitely sutures, bandages, antiseptic and tweezers to pull out any remaining glass.

Once I set up the tray and had it arranged neatly, I rolled the small cart over beside the bed. “Hold out your arm please.”

Jamie lifted his arm, and I sucked in the air between my teeth, there was a large piece of glass sticking out. I normally had a strong stomach but sometimes, there were things that put me over the edge.

“Jamie, yer doctor’s afraid of blood. I told ye we shoulda gone to the other hospital,” Ian laughed and put his hand on Jamie’s back.

“I’m normally fine, blood doesn’t make me ill but seeing that,” I looked down at his arm again, “has made me just a wee bit nauseous.”

“Dinna fash, Sassenach. If ye throw up, I promise to make sure none of that hair on top of yer head gets in the vomit.” Jamie laughed and I would have hit him on the arm if he wasn’t injured.

“Thank you,” I said sarcastically and turned to grab the antiseptic and cloth to clean around his wound before I dislodged the glass shard.

While I cleaned his wound, Jamie didn’t complain, only pressed his lips tightly together and put on a brave face. “This may hurt,” I said in a soft tone as I held my tweezers near the glass.

“Just do it, lass.”

The glass came out easily enough, and thankfully it wasn’t very deep into his skin but he would definitely need sutures. I laid the shard on the tray and grabbed another cloth to clean him and this time Jamie let out a little yelp as the antiseptic touched his wound.

“Can deal with a dislocated shoulder but not a little sting?” I mused, smiling up at him as I continued to clean the remaining blood.

His arm twitched slightly but he didn’t pull it back, “Och, the stinging is verra painful, Sassenach, dinna make fun of me!”

“He’s a big baby, Claire, dinna listen to him,” Ian chimed, “He cries in sappy romantic movies too, don’t ye?”

Jamie glared at Ian, but there was a slight mischievous glint in his eye.

“I dinna cry, I have allergies,” Jamie grumbled, puffing out his chest a little.

I grabbed the needle and threaded the suture through the small hole and brought it to his skin. “I have allergies too, you know like when I watch ‘Titanic’ and Jack dies, somehow I always get allergies during that scene,” I joked, which earned me a nudge from Jamie’s other hand into my side.

“Dinna joke about ‘Titanic, Claire, ’tis verra serious, their love was forever.” He laughed and I had to admit to myself that he was very interesting. Jamie was such a large presence, one wouldn’t think at first glance that he was into romantic movies and even cried during them.

“Seems like ye’ll be awhile,” Ian said, “I’m gonna go and grab a snack out of the vending machine, ye need anything, Fraser?���

Fraser? Surely not…

I waited until Ian had walked away before asking Jamie what was currently making me freak out.

“Fraser? That’s your last name?” He jumped slightly as I poked him with the needle and began to suture his wound.

“Aye, James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, to be exact.”

“As in… Fraser Memorial… the name of this hospital?” I paused my work on his arm to look up into his face.

Jamie’s ear’s turned pink again, “Aye, well ’tis no’ like it’s me who owns the hospital. That’d be my Da Brian. One day though… it’ll be mine.”

He was practically my boss and here I was picturing late nights cuddled up next to him on the couch watching ‘Titanic’ and crying.

“So it’s named after your dad then? Kind of odd to name a hospital after yourself, aye?” I resumed suturing his wound, nearly done.

“Och, no. It’s named after my older brother Willie.” He replied, looking down to watch the needle go through the last bit of skin and I clipped the end and tied it off. “He passed away when I was a lad.” I watched as I saw his blue eyes go gray and his smile faded for a moment. “He had cancer.”

My hand lingered on his arm, offering comfort, “I’m so sorry Jamie. Was he treated at this hospital?”

“Aye,” his voice trembled, as if he was remembering his brother now, “My father partnered with a man and bought the hospital a year after Willie died. Then they renamed it for him, to remember.”

I bandaged his arm in silence, not quite knowing what to say, what could I ever say to that?

“You’re all done.” I tucked in the end of the bandage underneath, “You need to clean the wound daily, and for the first couple of days you’ll need to change out the bandage, some blood seeping through is normal.” I assured him, and looked over to see Ian returning with bags of crisps and candy in his arms.

“Och, yer finished? I had to go to three different floors to find what I wanted.” He groaned and offered Jamie a bag of crisps.

“Thank ye, Sassenach. For healing me wi’ yer wee hands so well.” Jamie grabbed my hand and placed his lips on the back of it. I could have sworn he heard my heart beating frantically in my chest.

“No problem at all, anything for a Fraser,” I laughed, hoping I didn’t sound like I was trying to suck up to the owner’s son.

“Will I need to come back to get the sutures taken out?”

“Oh, yes! Come back in about three weeks and I’ll take them out for you.” I only prayed that when he returned I would be on shift.

“Aye, three weeks then, Claire.” Jamie smiled and turned to leave with Ian, who was munching on a Snickers bar, going on and on about how stupid Jamie was to lift that heavy of a box.

My eyes never left the back of his head as I watched them walk away and just before they turned around the corner, Jamie’s eyes met mine and he grinned, setting butterflies loose in my belly.

Present day

I checked my reflection in the mirror, applying one more coat of mascara before I decided my make-up would just have to do for the evening. My dress was a simple black, that hugged every curve and line of my body. Just the way my husband liked, or so he showed me.

“Sassenach!” He called from the living room, “Are ye ready? We dinna want to be late!”

“Such an impatient man,” I fussed, grabbing my coat from the bed and slipping it on over my shoulders. Jamie was waiting for me, his arms crossed, looking down at his watch.

“I’m ready. I swear it!” I smiled and kissed him on the cheek as he turned his face to press his lips to mine.

“Don’t!” I pulled back, “You’ll mess up my lipstick and I don’t think you want to wait around for me to fix it.”

“I’d love to mess up yer lipstick, Sassenach. And that wee dress of yers too,” the color of his eyes turned into a deep blue, “but yer right, we must go.” He sighed, frowning as he settled for a kiss to my forehead and took my hand, leading me to the door.

“Are you nervous, Jamie?” I squeezed his hand as we walked to the car parked on the street.

“Aye, a wee bit.”

“Your speech will be great, I know it.” He stopped us before we climbed into the car, his hands slid down my body to rest on my hips.

“’Tis a big responsibility, bein’ an owner of a hospital.” He squeezed my sides making me jump, “With my father retiring and all, I ken it has to be me but I just worry I willna be good at it.”

Not caring about my lipstick or the stain it would leave on his lips, I pressed forward and closed our mouths together. “Jamie Fraser, you’re the bravest man I know. You’re ready for this, your father has trained you well. Besides…” I smirked, my hands sliding down over his arse, “I can’t wait until I can say I sleep with the boss.”

Jamie laughed and pressed his lips to mine again, “I love ye, Sassenach. Truly, I do.”

“And I you, Jamie. Now let’s go! It’s bloody freezing out here, and I need those heated seats!”

He let go of my hips and opened the passenger door for me. The entire drive over, his hand never left mine - I squeezed it off and on, a matter of habit, to remind him I was there. I was always going to be there, I was always going to be his biggest supporter.

The tension was seeping out of his body. No normal person would have known that, but I knew James Fraser, and I knew just how big of a night this retirement gala at Fraser Memorial was going to be.

[ljones41]

"JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM" (2018) Review

"JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM" (2018) Review Following the release of "JURASSIC PARK III" in 2001, I had figured that was it for the JURASSIC PARK movie franchise. Boy, was I proven wrong. Fourteen years after the release of that third film, Universal Pictures and producer Frank Marshall presented a fourth movie for the franchise, "JURASSIC WORLD" in 2015, that proved to be a major hit. Following the success of that film, it was only natural that a fifth movie would be made.

Set three years after the events of the 2015 movie, "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM" began with the United States Senate debating over whether to save the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar from an impending volcanic eruption from the island's volcano Mt. Sibo. Mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm testifies that the dinosaurs should be allowed to die in order to correct John Hammond's mistake of cloning them. Meanwhile, Jurassic World's former operations manager, Claire Dearing, has established the Dinosaur Protection Group to save the animals. When the Senate decides not to rescue the dinosaurs, Hammond's former partner, Benjamin Lockwood, summons Claire to his Northern California estate, where he and his aide Eli Mills reveal a plan to relocate the dinosaurs to a new island sanctuary. They need Claire to help reactivate the park's dinosaur tracking system in order to locate the animals - especially Blue, the last surviving Velociraptor. Despite being estranged from him, Claire recruits Jurassic World's former Velociraptor trainer and Blue's alpha, Owen Grady, to help capture her. Accompanying them would be the park's former technician Franklin Webb and paleo-veterinarian Zia Rodriguez. Upon their arrival on Isla Nublar at the now defunct Jurassic World amusement part, Claire and Franklin work to reactivate the park's online tracking system. Meanwhile, Owe, Zia and a mercenary team led by Ken Wheatley search for Blue. When they find the velociraptor, one of Wheatley's men shoots Blue and Wheatley tranquilizes Owen. The mercenaries take Zia with them to treat Blue's injury. The mercenary ship, loaded with the captured dinosaurs, departs for the U.S. mainland, while the dinosaurs left behind die in the eruption. Meanwhile; Claire, Franklin, and Owen manage to escape the dying island and sneak aboard in time and assist Zia in transfusing Blue with Tyrannosaurus blood. The group now realizes that the captured dinosaurs were never being transported to a new island and have been captured for another purpose. And the latter has to do with a financial scheme being involving Eli Mills and Dr. Henry Wu, behind Lockwood's back. Despite earning over a billion dollars at the box office, "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM" received very little positive reviews upon its release. In fact, it is regarded by some as a failure. Many critics and some film goers certainly regard it as inferior to the 2015 movie. How do I feel about "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM"? I had a few problems with it. Well . . . to be perfectly honest, I had two major problems with it. My first problem centered around Benjamin Lockwood's estate serving as the setting for the film's second half. I found this rather limiting and claustrophobic. And I found myself wondering if the film's budget was responsible for this decision to limit the setting to a California country estate. The longer the film remained on that estate - especially inside that house - the more I became frustrated. And I have a second complaint about "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM" - namely the fate of Benjamin Lockwood's granddaughter, Maisie. Why did Owen Grady and Claire Dearing end up as her guardians at the end of the movie? What happened to Maisie's nanny, Iris, who had been with the family for years? I do not recall her being killed by a dinosaur. So what happened to her? Why did she not take care of Maisie, following the death of the latter's grandfather? Despite my complaints, I enjoyed "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM". In fact, I enjoyed it very much. Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow created a first-rate tale filled with tension, drama and especially comedy. I remember when the film first hit the theaters, many had complained about the movie's finale. They found it . . . illogical. Messy. I still find this complaint rather hard to swallow. The premise behind the JURASSIC PARK franchise can be considered illogical. Frankly, considering what happened in a period of twenty-five years and five movies, I thought it was only a matter of time that the franchise would reach this point. It almost did in 1997's "JURASSIC PARK: THE LOST WORLD". However, this film took it a step further with the release of several dinosaurs into the modern world. It was bound to happen. InGen and John Hammond had opened Pandora's Box a quarter of a century ago with the creation of dinosaurs, thousands of years after they naturally went extinct. I would almost equate the creations of these animals with that of nuclear energy and weaponry. Considering the occasional misuse and mishandling of nuclear energy throughout the years, I found it appropriate that a more disastrous scenario would finally befall in the JURASSIC PARK franchise than what happened in the previous films. "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM" is also a popcorn summer film that depends upon a great deal of action. And it had its share of some first-rate action sequences. If I must be great, I enjoyed most of the action in the film's first half. I especially enjoyed the sequence featuring the natural destruction of Isla Nublar and Owen Grady, Claire Dearing and Franklin Webb's efforts to escape from the island after being abandoned by Ken Wheatley's team. For me, it was a breathtaking sequence as the trio raced to reach the boat conveying Wheatley's team and Zia Rodriguez (kidnapped and forced to treat the wounded Blue) to the United States. But there was an action sequence in the film's last hour that also impressed me. It featured the protagonists being hunted throughout the Lockwood mansion by Dr. Henry Wu's latest creation, the Indoraptor, a creation from the DNA of Indominus rex from the last film and Velociraptor - namely Blue. For me, those two sequences featured the best of some pretty damn good action scenes throughout the film. The movie did not feature as many breathtaking visual scenes as "JURASSIC WORLD". But there were a few that caught my eye, including scenes of those dinosaurs roaming the Earth:

But the one scene that produced a knot in my throat featured that last shot of Isla Nublar . . . and the death of the very brachiosaurus that Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler and Malcolm Campbell first saw in 1993's "JURASSIC PARK". Director J.A. Bayona, cinematographer Óscar Faura and the visual effects team really knocked it out of the ballpark by capturing both the grandeur and the pathos of the scene:

If there is one thing I can guarantee from a JURASSIC PARK/WORLD movie, it is a first-rate cast featuring excellent performances. Jeff Goldblum returned to give a short, yet solid performance as Dr. Malcolm Campbell, one of the original visitors to Isla Nublar. "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM" featured the acting debut of Isabella Sermon, who gave an excellent performance as the young Maisie Lockwood. Trust this franchise to always hire naturally talented child actors. Ted Levine's performance as mercenary Ken Wheatley struck me as a gleeful portrayal of toxic masculinity. B.D. Wong's return as Dr. Henry Wu was somewhat briefer than it was in the 2015 movie. Yet, once again, the actor conveyed the convoluted egoism of Dr. Wu with great skill. I hope he will have a bigger role in the next film. Toby Jones gave an entertaining, yet slightly theatrical performance as the weasely auctioneer hired by Eli Mills to help sell those dinosaurs taken from Isla Nublar to potential buyers. James Cromwell struck me as emotional, yet dignified as Hammond's former partner, Benjamin Lockwood. Geraldine Chaplin gave a skillful performance as the Lockwoods' reliable employee Iris. Daniella Pineda was brash and entertaining as the sharp-tongued Dr. Zia Rodriguez. Justice Smith proved to be equally entertaining and quite hilarious as anxiety-ridden systems analyst Franklin Webb. Rafe Spall skillfully portrayed one of the most subtle and corrupt villains in the franchise, Eli Morrow. Chris Pratt returned as former Navy SEAL-turned-dinosaur trainer Owen Grady. I realized that many might not agree, but I enjoyed Pratt's first-rate portrayal of the no-nonsense Grady more than I did in the 2015 movie. I thought Pratt's performance was more subtle and best of all, his Grady seemed to have dropped that sanctimonious I had found slightly irritating in the previous film. Bryce Dallas Howard managed to skillfully take her character, former operations manager of Jurassic World, to the next level. In "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM", Claire's previous encounters with the dinosaurs had led her to develop an appreciation of them as sentient beings. This new Claire is a passionate animal rights activist who has dropped her arrogant disregard of the park's inhabitants. It is possible that this new passion may have slightly affected her common sense, especially during the film's last 10-15 minutes. But thanks to Howard's excellent performance, she managed to convey a sense of plausibility in the slight changes in Claire's personality. As I had earlier pointed out, the critics did not like "JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM". In fact, some moviegoers had expressed dismay at the film's ending. I had at least two quibbles with the movie. But if I must be frank, I enjoyed it very much. More importantly, I found its ending very believable for a science-fiction tale. For once, the franchise was willing to face a consequence that its previous films managed to elude so far. The movie featured first-rate direction by J.A. Bayona; a well-written screenplay by Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow; and an excellent cast led by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Good work guys!

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Can Claire and Jamie go camping? I think they need a getaway.... :)

Flood my Mornings: Vermont (i)

Notes from Mod Bonnie

This story takes place in an AU in which Jamie travels through the stones two years after Culloden and finds Claire and his child in 1950 Boston.

See all past installments via Bonnie’s Master List

Previous installment:  Round and Round (A day out at the fair)

Late June, 1951

James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser was an impressive sight at any time of the day or year. 

Naked, silhouetted against a bright summer moon; the curve of leg and hip and scar all gilded into sharp edges by the glow of the fire behind him… he was positively primordial, ancient man surveying the vast wilderness.

 “God, it’s just…..”

He didn’t finish the sentence, just stood there on the verge of our mountaintop, taking in the sight of the sleeping valley below.

I could have finished the sentence for him, though: …like home.

The Green Mountains of Vermont—or this section of them, anyway— were quite similarly beautiful to those of Scotland. The main difference was the trees, of course: in contrast to the sparse, heathered slopes of Jamie’s birthplace, every inch of these mountains was covered in lush forests that spiced the air with the tangs of evergreen and leaf mold. Still, looking out across the horizon, the ranges had that same rolling and dipping quality, that sense of movement about them that felt so much like the Highlands. One could almost imagine looking down into one of these valleys and seeing the roof of Lallybroch below, enticingly belching smoke from the fires of Mrs. Crook’s promised supper.

—and I supposed that Jamie was doing just that. 

I left him to dwell in the serenity of the moment, there at the top of the horizon. My own peace was complete, astonishing in its sensory fullness: 

the beauty of the night, of the rolling valley far below, 

a warm breeze across my naked skin, the same that swelled the forest into a rustling, shushing chorus,

the afterglow of lovemaking pulsing gently through me, there in our nest of blankets by the fire on the mountaintop, 

and Jamie. Always, Jamie. 

Tom and Marian had many times this year offered us the use of their mountain cabin in Vermont. Between work schedules, my schooling, pregnancy, and the general hustle and bustle of normal life, we simply hadn’t made the time for such a lavish treat as a holiday away. At last, though, with the academic term over and with the baby due in just over a month, we’d decided that getting away, just the two of us, was just the thing. Lord knew, once a nursing infant was in the mix, it could be quite some time before we could do so again.

Jamie, true to form, had fretted over me for weeks leading up to our departure, trying to call the whole thing off. ‘Sassenach, what if the bairn comes early?’….”There willna be a hospital for miles and miles. What if something happens?’….‘If ye think I can deliver a child, woman, you’re WRONG.’ 

But at last, he’d had no choice (short of chaining me to the house, that is) but to relent, and the further we drove westward, the higher the elevation rose, the quieter he became. His eyes got wider and wider, the glory of being among mountains soaking into him like sunshine.

After settling our things in the cabin earlier that afternoon (’Rustic,’ the Harpers had warned us)(’Better equipped than any Highland castle,’ Jamie had snorted as we walked in and saw the full kitchen), we’d made a few hasty sandwiches and ventured out for a walk before the light went. The vistas were absolutely spectacular, even more so when the skies were painted with the pinks and scarlets of sunset. 

Jamie had built us a fire a few hundred yards from the house, when we got back, just near the overlook, and we’d spent hours snuggled together before it, toasting marshmallows, sipping hot chocolate heated over the coals, laughing and talking and telling stories as the stars brightened overhead. 

At last, the quiet and beauty of the night had settled around us, and we’d made love there in the clearing, slowly and sweetly. For a very long time after, we’d lain panting and trembling, cocooned together in perfect calm, no demands on our time save enjoyment of one another. 

….and, eventually, pragmatically, those of Jamie’s bladder.

From somewhere in the woods, there came the sound of something large moving about; a deer, I thought, since Jamie was not reaching for an absent knife. He did start, though, the lively night pulling him out of his trance. Assured there was no danger, he turned to me with a slightly-sheepish grin. “Forgive me, mo chridhe, I was lost in fancy.” He began picking his way across the grass back toward the fire. “Feeling alright, Sassenach? All well?”

“Very well,” I promised, “as long as you don’t make me move from this spot.” I burrowed further into the blankets in illustration. “Couldn’t budge for all the tea in China.” 

“Dinna fash, lass.” He crouched beside me and provided a very entertaining view as he slid his hands under me, “I’ll carry ye up to bed.”

“No, you won’t,” I said, neatly rolling away. “We’re sleeping out here.”

“Certainly we are,” he laughed, rolling me back, “are not.” 

“Why ever not?” 

He gave me a look. “Ye think I’m going to let my eight-months-gone wife sleep like an animal on the cold ground?” 

“It isn’t cold.” I raised an eyebrow. “And you’d not have given it a second thought, back in Scotland, would you?”

He blinked, then laughed. “Christ, you’re right,” he groaned, putting a knee down and scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’ve become quite the pampered popinjay in only a year, aye?”

“Well, you can earn your tough-as-saddle-leather badge back tonight. Come here,” I wheedled, patting the blankets. “Come keep your lady warm for the night.”

He obliged, coming in to settle spoon-fashion behind me. “My lady,” he murmured, precisely as I breathed, “God, a year…”

We both laughed and exhaled together.

He kissed my neck. “It’s been a wonderful year, mo ghraidh.”

“To think that this time last year…” I shuddered and kissed his hand. “No, it doesn’t do to think of what life was, last June.”

“No,” he agreed, “it doesna.” 

He’d been close to starvation on the streets of Boston, scouring the streets and hospitals for any news of me, my whereabouts. I’d been—I’d just been. I’d loved my work, adored Bree; but apart from the promise of seeing her grow up happy and loved….I hadn’t much hope. Now…

“I guess that means this could almost be a wedding anniversary trip, couldn’t it?”

“Which one?”

“What?” 

“Which wedding?”

I laughed, surprised. “Well, I did mean the one last year, but I guess we’re pretty close to our first as well. When would it have been? June? Late June?” 

“I canna recall the precise date,” he admitted, running his hands up my thigh and onto the huge curve of my belly, “but that seems correct.” 

“And our twentieth-century anniversary is the 8th of July…meaning you found me in July….and little wiggleworm, here, should be born in either July or August…” I snuggled back against him and pulled his arm tighter around me, sighing happily.  “Good things tend to happen to us in the summertime, don’t they?” 

He kissed his way down the curve of my shoulder. “Aye, they certainly do.” 

“I’d like the bairns to know a place like this,” he murmured a while later into my neck. 

“The cabin?” I had very nearly nodded off in the cozy silence that had intervened. My voice was scratchy and sleepy. “Why is that, love?”

Jamie didn’t immediately answer; and when he did, I was surprised to hear a slight hesitation in his voice, a carefulness in his words that bespoke unease. “Ye ken I love our life, Claire, aye?” 

I nodded and squeezed his hand. 

“It’s more than I could ever have dreamed of, let alone have hoped to have for myself, for you, and for them.” He pulled me closer with one hand and spread the other absently over my belly. “I’m so grateful,” he whispered with deep feeling, “for the safety; the plenty; our home; having the income to take care of our family in comfort; that you’re able to pursue your profession; that the bairns will be able to pursue theirs, one day, wi’ nothing like birthplace or station to hold them back…. I wouldna trade our life for anything.”

I reached behind to stroke his hip, waiting. 

“…But I also canna shake some sense in my heart that—that this is how things are meant to be.”

“Naked in the woods?” I teased gently.

“Aye,” he laughed, just what I’d wanted, his unease evaporating in a moment, “exactly so.” He ran his hand across my legs, coming up to cup my breast. “Nothing but my brown-haired lass, naked in my arms…” An intake of breath hissed gently from us in unison as we felt the sudden shifting within me. “And new life, promised to us….”

We lay still, his hand over mine as we gloried in feeling little Ian moving about. I wondered if he was dreaming. 

That they may be sweet, little love. 

“But I suppose I meant, this out-of-door life,” Jamie said at last. “Wild, living things. Animals. Forests and burns. Hunting. Sleeping under the stars, among the hea—among the trees and the grasses. Tracking and tending the land. Mountains,” he said, with quiet intensity. “I want them to know mountains.” 

I pulled him as close as I could. “We will make this part of our life, Jamie, if you wish it.”

“We will?”

“We’ll come on holiday with them as often as we can, just like this. And, eventually—Well, it can’t be all the time, particularly not once I’ve started medical training; but as soon as we can afford it, maybe we’ll have a second home somewhere wild, somewhere like this.”

“A second home?” he asked, dubious. “Folk keep two houses, then?”

“Not all, not even most; but Tom and Marian manage it, don’t they?” 

“Aye,” he said slowly as he glanced up at the house, considering, “Aye, just so….But Tom owns the whole of Fernacre. Will we truly ever have the means to afford such extravagance?” 

“MDs make some of the best money available,” I said, as simply as I could, “and other than being charitable and giving as much away as we can manage, I can’t think of a more worthwhile way to use that financial freedom, than to give you this.”

“….Thank you, Sassenach.” He sounded absolutely gutted with earnest gratitude, like someone that had just been handed an infinite fortune with no caveat. “Truly.” 

“Well, thank me when and if I actually get admitted to medical school.” I groaned with that sudden, familiar wash of visceral anxiety. “If, if, if.”  

“When,” he insisted, as he always did. “WHEN.” 

We settled in, held tight together in a warm heap of love, letting sleep wash over us. 

“Somewhere wi’ a mountain?” Jamie murmured just before I slipped completely under. 

“I promise.”

[general-bear]

Ayy do all the character development questions but try to answer each for a different character

I will do my best! I don’t have 45 characters, so there will be repeats. 

Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with? // Ryan Kennedy: He has one sister, only a few years younger than him. They were close in childhood, but he left the house after a fight with his parents, and they haven’t spoken since. 

What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like? // Will Rogers: She knew her only for the first four years of his life, and now she’s only a vague memory that he can idealize.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like? // Nathan Rivers: The two hated each other. Everyone knew. The bruises were obvious, though Nathan tried to cover them up with long sleeves and shaggy hair. And when the man was found dead in his own home, gun in hand and bullet in head, Nathan showed no emotion at all. 

Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know? // Soren West: Seeing his childhood home burn down was incredible traumatic for him, and he became even more unstable than he already was. Most people in his life know about it. Few people talk about it, except for him. 

On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets? // Libby Malcolm: An old pocket knife and whatever she found lying around on one of her scavenges 

Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams? // Regina D’Arques: Running, but not away from something, towards something. She still doesn’t know what it is. 

Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares? // Liam Casey: Being stuck and being helpless seem to be a recurring theme. Some nights he’ll wake up crying. 

Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target? // Rosaleen Kennedy: The first time she fired a gun, her heart stopped for a moment. It was basic training for her, just shooting at a blank target sheet, but it was still terrifying. 

Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up? // Julian D’Arques: Granted, his family was far more wealthy after the war, but he has always lived a comfortable life as a lordling. 

Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?// Libby Malcolm: Less clothing. She doesn’t like to feel constrained by her clothing. 

In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?// Xavier Larkis: Surprising, not when he was fighting for his life again enemy ships and sea monsters, and not even when he saw a shipmate kill someone else. It was when he got the letter from his wife that she was with child. He was happy, and excited, but terrified. 

In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been? // Ace West: His first unaccompanied flight. He was incredibly nervous leading up to it, but once he was in the air, he felt peace wash over him, as if he was born to fly.  

Is your character bothered by the sight of blood? If so, in what way? // Taryn Iwamoto: At first, it bothered her, but as she saw more and more, it stopped getting to her. 

Does your character remember names or faces easier?  

Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not? // Tobias Larkin: Everything he does, he does for money. He doesn’t care who he kills, or who hires him, as long as he gets paid at the end of the day. 

Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success? // Rosaleen Kennedy: She has always valued success over anything. It was how she was raised.

What was your character’s favorite toy as a child? // Lily West: She loved her teddy bear. It was a little worn out, with a wrinkled ear from where she chewed it, and a patched tummy, but it was hers. 

Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others? // Ryan Kennedy: Wisdom over ambition. Ambition can be dangerous, but wisdom can get you places ambition can only dream of. 

What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before? // Liam casey: Sometimes he is passive aggressive and angr for no reason, and is generally bad a communicating problems. This has ended the few relationships he had before CtF pretty quickly. 

In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism? // Julian D’Arques: He loves to compare himself to others, but for the sake of making himself feel better. 

If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others? // Ian Steiner: He will make a big show of blaming others, but inwardly, he always blames himself. 

What does your character like in other people? // Alyona Mikailov: Kindness and humbleness, and from that, strength and loyalty. 

What does your character dislike in other people? // Nakeya Iqbal: She dislikes arrogance and stupidity more than anything. She’s incredibly smart, and having to slow down and explain things to other people irritates her. 

How quick is your character to trust someone else? // Miles: He’ll trust anyone. It’s gotten him into many sticky situations, of course, but he knows he’ll be able to solve anything. 

How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person? // Teddy (not the Irish one): He is the opposite of Miles, and is cautious of everyone and everything. This doesn’t seem to change when he gets to know someone, because there’s still a chance….

How does your character behave around children? // Cinderstripe: She’s excellent with the kits, the perfect mixture of stern and fun. Before and after she was a mother herself, she would often look after the litters while the queens took a break. 

How does your character normally deal with confrontation? // Sam West: He’ll just start crying. That usually ends it pretty quickly. 

How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation? // Rebecca D’Arques: She’s extremely slow, only using physical violence when someone she loves is in danger. 

What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?// Danny Burwise: He always wanted to be an explorer as a kid, taking huge ships past the edge of the world. As he grew older, he become more timid, and the dream became lost for a while until he became a cabin boy on The Mutineer. 

What does your character find repulsive or disgusting? // Matthew Tucker: He hates touching hair. Especially wet hair. It makes him want to vomit.  

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable. // Kilroy Wallace: He loves to be the center of attention, and is known for his love of telling stories to a wide-eyed audience. 

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most uncomfortable. // James Meredith: Pretty much any situation that involves being a leader and making decisions will make him uncomfortable. He’d rather be following orders than giving them. 

In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?// Regina D’Arques: She will be defensive, arguing that her way is the right way, and criticism be damned. 

Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method? // Shae Aubrey: She’ll keep trying different strategies until one of them works. And one of them has to work, right?

How does your character behave around people they like? // Will Rogers: He is loud, bold, and confident, and he’ll never stop talking, even when his friends have stopped paying attention. 

How does your character behave around people they dislike? // Elizabeth Harper: She’s rude, blunt, and a little snide. That being said, she dislikes the majority of people who cross her path, giving her a bad reputation. 

Is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status?// Tobias Larkin: He is quick to defend his honor, and has been a participant in many drunken fist fights as a result. 

Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat? // Li Zhang: She will always take it upon herself to fix any problem, remove any threat, even if it costs her dearly. 

Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)? // Bev Hopkins: She’s been bitten by a few animals in her time, once by a snake as a little girl, and then by her aunt’s dog as a young adult. The fingers on her left hand have never  quite recovered, and she is still wary of large dogs. 

How does your character treat people in service jobs? // Loyrs Rodverro: She believes that as long as someone is doing their job well, they should be left alone to do it. She can get a little impatient, however.

Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first?// Jordan Sweets: Hard work is the only way to get what she wants. That, and luck. Lots of luck. 

Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them? // Emmit: Tigris was almost like a mother to him, or at least a big sister. He loved her to death, especially whe she brough him sweets from the harbors they docked at. 

Has your character ever had a dependent figure who was not related to them? // Max Dunn: I would say that Skye Despereaux was like a younger brother to her, and protected him like he was one. Teased him, too. 

How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it? // Soren West: He can say it all the time without meaning it. Words are just words, after all. But if the words are true, then they get caught in his throat and he brushes it off with a laugh and a hurried change of subject. 

What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them? // Marius Labelle: Raised Catholic, he believes in the whole heaven/hell shtick. He is afraid of going to hell, though. He knows it’s likely he will. 

[junker-town]

The latest on NFL player protests, the anthem policy, and Colin Kaepernick

Catch up on what’s happening with the new rule and player activism heading into the 2018 NFL season.

A new NFL season is here, and that doesn’t just mean fun times with football like the NFL wants. It also means that the national movement started by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is center stage once again.

In protesting social injustice and police brutality against people of color by peacefully kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, Kaepernick has sparked a large conversation — and debate. In the two years since, that has led to Kaepernick’s collusion lawsuit against the NFL and a new anthem policy from the league that was soon halted following backlash.

There’s a lot to keep up with, and all of it is important to understand going into another season of play. Here is a look at how we got here, where things are now, and what to expect going forward.

How the protests got started

Kaepernick sat for two preseason games before anyone noticed. He was quick to elaborate on his decision to protest.

“I’m going to continue to stand with the people that are being oppressed. To me, this is something that has to change. When there’s significant change and I feel that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent, and this country is representing people the way that it’s supposed to, I’ll stand.”

Kaepernick eventually tweaked the protest after speaking with Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret and NFL long snapper. Boyer advised him that kneeling instead of sitting would be a good middle ground to try and get the narrative back on track, as critics said that sitting was disrespectful to the flag and the military, which wasn’t at all the case.

His teammate at the time, safety Eric Reid, was the first to join Kaepernick in kneeling. Like Kaepernick, Reid is currently out of a job and embroiled in a legal battle with the league.

How the movement grew

On the same day that Kaepernick started kneeling, Sept. 1, Jeremy Lane of the Seattle Seahawks sat during the anthem, becoming the first non-teammate of Kaepernick’s to do so. Then players from other sports joined in, including Megan Rapinoe and all of Garfield High School’s football players.

During the regular season opener, Brandon Marshall of the Denver Broncos took a knee. A few days later, players from the Seahawks, Miami Dolphins, Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots began to demonstrate during the playing of the anthem as well.

For more, here’s a look at which athletes joined the movement in that first year.

But lots of folks were mad, especially the president

The backlash against the protests was widespread — and misguided. President Donald Trump got involved, consistently trying to muddy the waters and change the narrative by telling his supporters that players were “disrespecting the flag.”

As SB Nation explained:

The outrage continued — fed by the president’s appetite for cheap political gain by criticizing players — even after public dialog with players, veterans, and others showed it wasn’t about the anthem, the flag, or the military. It was about the suppression of black voices that attempted to shake the status quo.

Trump went on to brag that his Twitter account is stopping NFL teams from signing Kaepernick.

What’s the latest with Kaepernick?

While Kaepernick has been active in the community — including completing his goal of donating $1 million to different charities — he’s remained in the news for other reasons, too.

Kaepernick’s collusion case moves forward

Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers, who were likely going to cut him anyway, in 2017. The talented quarterback became a free agent, and he still is today, despite proving he can still play.

He believes he’s being blacklisted by the NFL and filed a grievance against NFL owners for collusion as a result. He was joined a year later by Reid, who also remains a free agent.

The league requested the case be thrown out in summary judgment, but failed in its bid. Our own Tyler Tynes spoke with attorney Jaia Thomas about the decision and what it means going forward:

Thomas: However this case turns out is going to set a precedent. Eric has the same attorney as Colin. Whatever Colin’s attorney was able to produce, there’s a pretty good chance he will be able to produce the same type of evidence on behalf of Eric. If Colin’s case completely moves forward and finds success, we can with certainty almost say the same will happen with Eric. That being said, I think the NFL will have to start re-examining and re-evaluating the ways in which they treat players and penalize them for using their free speech and right to speak up.

Kaepernick becomes the face of Nike’s campaign

Before the 2018 season started, it was announced that Kaepernick would be the face of Nike’s 30th anniversary for the “Just Do It” campaign. Here’s the first ad:

Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. #JustDoIt pic.twitter.com/x5TnU7Z51i

— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) September 5, 2018

What’s happening with the NFL’s new anthem policy?

This offseason, the NFL owners passed a new rule that they tried and failed to sell as a “compromise.” It gave players two choices: they could either stand for the anthem before the games, or they can stay in the locker room for the anthem. If players decide to break policy, their teams get fined and then the team can decide what punishment (or non-punishment) to dish out to those players.

The NFL quickly suspended the new policy pending further discussions with the NFLPA in yet another damage control move. Here’s what that means for the players and the league.

Heading into the 2018 season, the policy — and enforcement of any discipline — remains on hold as the NFL and the NFLPA hammer out details.

Either way, the original message behind the protests, the one that the NFL, Donald Trump and countless others have tried to obscure with false equivalencies, is one that absolutely cannot be lost.

Are NFL players still protesting?

The 2018 preseason saw renewed protests in spite of the league’s attempts to quell activism. Eagles defensive backs Malcolm Jenkins and De’Vante Bausby raised their fists during the pregame anthem for their preseason opener against the Steelers; teammate Chris Long put his arm around Jenkins to unite two of the league’s loudest voices in the fight for equality. Several other players on the team wore T-shirts bringing attention to issues with both voter registration and incarceration rates.

Before we enjoy this game lets take some time to ponder that more than 60% of the prison population are people of color. The NFL is made up of 70% African Americans. What you witness on the field does not represent the reality of everyday America. We are the anomalies... pic.twitter.com/gCeNKuTl1d

— Malcolm Jenkins (@MalcolmJenkins) August 9, 2018

Later in the preseason, Jenkins waited in the tunnel during the anthem.

The defending champions weren’t the only ones to make a statement as the new season dawned. Dolphins receivers Kenny Stills and Albert Wilson knelt before their squad’s preseason opener. Jalen Ramsey, Telvin Smith, Leonard Fournette and T.J. Yeldon all declined to take the field for the anthem before Jacksonville’s first exhibition game.

And, as expected, President Trump had some very public feelings about that.

The Eagles will be in the spotlight again when the NFL regular season begins Thursday night. Philadelphia will play host to the Falcons in a primetime showdown that will likely stand as one of 2018’s most-watched games of the year. But despite a roster loaded with activists earning a national broadcast, the league was not expected to have a solution to its anthem policy woes before the season can officially kick off.

Tonight’s opener between #Eagles & #Falcons looms, and @NFLprguy says, "Dialogue continues among NFL and NFLPA and players” on a national anthem policy. The expectation is no final decision by tonight, I’m told. FYI, out of 2,880 players in the preseason, 2 took a knee and 1 sat.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 6, 2018

Before the season started, NBC told USA Today that it hasn’t decided whether it will show the anthem during its broadcasts. ESPN has already announced that it will not air the anthem during Monday Night Football.

[imagineonlyproductions-blog]

Why does everybody hate Jurassic World so much?

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was released two weeks ago. It currently sits at #1 in the box office and has grossed $274,000,000 so far. Rotten Tomatoes lists a critic score of 51% and an audience score of 58%. 

If you type in this film’s name on Youtube you will get a barrage of bad reviews, claiming this film to be indescribably worse than the original. I’ve noticed that some of the primary reasons are: (like the first) 

The characters are terrible and have no progression.

The plot is terrible and does nothing original.

The CGI is terrible.

I keep hearing people saying that Jurassic World needs to just end and they should never make another movie in this franchise. Most of the people saying these things are die-hard fans of the original film. 

Now, I’m not claiming that the original film isn’t a groundbreaking piece of cinema. I’m also not saying that this movie is Shakespeare. I’m simply trying to figure out what about these two new movies has every fan so outraged. I thought they were fine films and I would actually argue that the first Jurassic World does a better job of doing what Jurassic Park did in many ways. (I understand of course that I must now be crucified for that opinion)

I’m going to address the criticisms one by one, and hopefully explain why Jurassic World in particular isn’t so bad. 

1.  The characters are terrible and have no progression:

This is a case of ignoring character progression because you’ve already decided that you don’t like a film.

Zach and Gray are two brothers who are going to Jurassic World for the weekend to be looked after by their Aunt Claire. Their mother and father are getting a divorce, and they don’t want the boys to have to be around for the proceedings. 

Gray, the younger brother, loves dinosaurs. He isn’t stupid though because he can sense that something is going on with his parents. He knows about the divorce because he found the letters in the trash. Instead of telling anyone, he tries to be strong like his big brother Zach.

Zach is a teenager who is trying to be cool and tough despite having no idea what those words mean. He’s trying to act like his parents’ divorce isn’t bothering him, when in reality, he’s just as afraid as Gray. Unfortunately, he’s too cool for that.

Claire is obsessed with her career. He doesn’t like the idea of being a typical female stereotype, and as a result, she has distanced herself from everyone who makes her feel like she in dependent. Her sister expresses that she wishes Claire would visit more and she scolds Claire for leaving Zach and Gray with her assistant instead of being with her nephews. Claire used to date Owen, a raptor trainer and all around macho man. She is attracted to Owen, but she doesn’t like him very much anymore because he IS that typical macho man and expects her to just go with it. 

Owen....has very little character arc in this film.

By the end of the movie Claire learns that her family is ultimately very important, but she does it without giving up her agency. She buckles down and saves her nephews all while wearing a pair of high heels, a clear symbol of her intact femininity while performing heroic acts which would have been relegated to a man in most other films.

Zach realizes that he needs to be there for his brother during this hard time. He also learns that being emotional is ok and that trying to be “cool” isn’t going to keep him from being afraid like everyone else. 

Gray learns to trust his brother. He gains the strength to deal with his parents’ divorce and he knows now that he will never truly be alone.

Owen.... learns very little in this film.

2. The plot was terrible and it does nothing original.

Jurassic World is based off of the principle that Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum’s character in JP) expressed in Jurassic Park. Nature can’t be contained and we shouldn’t be playing God. 

The film shows how quickly the park developers swept everything under the rug from the first park and opened the second without REALLY fixing the problems. They continued with Hammond’s misguided idea that he could just fix the problems and start over while still attempting to control the uncontrollable. 

They treated a brand new dinosaur as a piece of property and not as a living being. They built a cage for this animal and didn’t even know how big it was going to get. The put the lives of thousands of people in danger for bigger thrills because they didn’t respect the power that they were wielding. This film speaks of animal rights and of preserving the flow of nature. 

(The idea for genetically modified dinosaurs was going to be Spielberg's fourth movie anyway) The idea of creating new dinosaurs for entertainment was one that wasn’t explored in the past three films but was done very well here. The Indominous Rex was terrifying and it was interesting to see what other abilities it had. 

The film does much of what the first did but adds MORE dinosaurs and MORE thrilling set pieces. 

3. The CGI is terrible:

This is a lie. Point-blank, period. This is a lie. OBJECTIVELY the CGI in any studio film of 2018 is better than the CGI of the 90s. Technology has improved in a million different ways. Lighting is more realistic. Shadows have deeper definition. Textures are rendered at a higher resolution. There are skin and muscle simulations going on inside of the bodies of every dinosaur, making them move even closer to how they would if they existed today.

The reason the original Jurassic Park had “better” CGI is the same reason why Avatar had amazing CGI. It was the first time you had seen anything like that, and nothing that you see every day in every movie will ever take you back to the moment when you saw a T-Rex walk across the big screen. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, but it gets in the way of reality. There is nothing wrong with loving the CGI in the original. That movie inspired me to be an animator. Facts are facts though. The new one looks more REALISTIC and you’re just not caught up in “Movie Magic” anymore because you know how it was done. (The gorilla in the original King Kong looks fake as hell but when people saw it in 1933, they didn’t know how it was done and they swore that they really created a giant ape to film.)

To wrap up, I don’t think that the movies are perfect, but from the standpoint that the first Jurassic Park was SOOOO great because it was new and had never been seen before, I feel that these movies do a better job. If I showed JW to a kid and then JP to them, I’m sure they would enjoy JW more. That’s the point. These are movies with scary dinosaurs. The first film was not a big deal for its amazing storytelling. (It changes things form the book that would have made the story so much better BTW)

I love Jurassic Park. I’m glad to see that they are making more of these movies. I watched the first film on VHS as a child and it blew me away. I know that these movies are blowing some kid’s mind right now, and that’s important in my book.

[flauntpage]

Your Friday Morning Roundup

The Phillies lost to the Dodgers 5-4. If you’ve been someone that hasn’t followed the Phillies since June, this shouldn’t be a surprise to you. The Phils lost to the best team in baseball, not a shock.

But dig deeper into that 61-92 record and you see the Phillies have actually been good since the All-Star break. They’ve gone 32-34 overall and 18-15 in their last 33. They went 29-58 in the first half.

During that stretch, the Phillies have lost their title as baseball’s worst team, which now belongs to the San Francisco Giants by a game. They’re close to leapfrogging the White Sox and Tigers as well, and are four-and-a-half games behind the Mets for fourth in the NL East.

A big reason for this surge has been the arrival of their highly-touted prospects. And throughout this Dodger series, they played a huge role in the team’s three wins.

Monday night, Aaron Altherr hit the first grand slam home run Clayton Kershaw ever gave up. Rhys Hoskins hit a bases-clearing three RBI double Tuesday night and batted in another run. Altherr was clutch once against the following game, thanks to a game-tying homer in the seventh, followed by a two RBI single.

Yesterday, Hoskins, who started at first base, and Nick Williams drove in all four runs the Phillies would score, while J.P. Crawford drew three walks.

We saw a glimpse of what the 2018 Opening Day lineup could be. No Tommy Joseph. No Maikel Franco. No Cameron Rupp. Cesar Hernandez started at second base, but that could change if Scott Kingery excels in Spring Training.

There’s still plenty of things for the Phillies to fix, especially their pitching. But it’s been a long time since the team was fun to watch. And thanks to the prospects, they’ll be fun to watch for the final nine games of the season.

That starts tonight with the team’s final road series of the season against the Atlanta Braves at 7:35. Ben Lively goes on the mound against Sean Newcomb.

The Roundup:

Sticking with the Phillies, Tommy Joseph knows his role has changed, and he’s been professional about it.

Reliever Jesen Therrien might be out for the entire 2018 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Ryan Lawrence has five candidates who could replace Larry Andersen on the Phillies radio team next season, including Jayson Stark:

Sometimes you put a list together and you feel really good about the names on it, but you’re searching for one last one to top it off. And then you realize that it’s probably the most obvious and best fit of the bunch. Broadcasting experience? Check. Stark worked at ESPN for nearly two decades. Baseball knowledge? Check. Stark is as plugged-in as anyone in baseball and has been for nearly 40 years working at the Philadelphia Inquirer and ESPN.com. Encyclopedia-like knowledge of the Phillies? Check. Stark is a former Phillies beat writer who wrote about baseball in Philadelphia and around the league while at the Inquirer for 21 years. He still lives in the area. Like Glanville, Stark was shockingly let go during ESPN’s layoffs in April. He should still be writing somewhere, surely, but maybe in 2018 he can be like Ken Rosenthal and write for one company while broadcasting for another.

Lawrence also interviewed Joey Davis, the area scout that signed Hoskins and a few other rookies.

The Phanatic got a date with Dodgers reporter Alanna Rizzo prior to yesterday’s game.

—

The Eagles are still trying to figure out their situation at safety. Rodney McLeod, Corey Graham, and Jaylen Watkins didn’t practice yesterday with hamstring injuries. Is new arrival Trae Elston ready to play on Sunday? Les Bowen has more:

Would defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz try some sort of four-linebacker look, with [Kamu] Grugier-Hill covering in the box? Is there any way to get Elston ready, even for one specific package?

“I really don’t know,” Elston said, when asked if the Eagles’ defense was similar to what he played in with the Bills. “I’m just trying to run fast, do it full speed.”

With Jalen Mills and Rasul Douglas as the probable starters at cornerback this week, and Sidney Jones waiting to play, are the Eagles grooming their next long-term starters at the position?

Or could they go and get Malcolm Butler from the Patriots? Albert Breer thinks it’s possible:

Who would be the trade partner? The Eagles make sense. And they have a versatile front seven piece that would fill a major need for the Patriots and has been tied to trade talks in the past: linebacker Mychal Kendricks.

Speaking of Jones, Elijah Qualls thinks he’ll be a top corner when he finally plays in the NFL:

DT Elijah Qualls was a terrific guest on Pro Football Report. He's convinced his college teammate, Sidney Jones will become an elite corner.

— Merrill Reese (@mreeseeagles) September 22, 2017

In what might be a historic running back class, the Eagles failed to get an impact running back. But everything will be alright.

We’ll have game predictions later today.

—

The Flyers fell to the Bruins 2-1 in overtime last night. Travis Sanheim scored the lone Flyers goal in the third period on a shorthanded opportunity, and Brian Elliott stopped all 18 shots he faced in two periods of work. The big worry was the power play units, going 0-for-9 in the game.

The team also reduced their training camp roster by 18 players. Notables include 2016 first round pick German Rubtsov heading back to Chicoutimi of the QMJHL, Philippe Myers going to Lehigh Valley’s training camp. The roster currently sits at 36 players.

But the toughest decisions have yet to come.

—

Chris B. Haynes has a small Joel Embiid update:

chris b haynes reporting on embiid, says he's expected to do some basketball activity during camp, no one has a timetable http://pic.twitter.com/SpCQwp59LE

— Drew Corrigan (@Dcorrigan50) September 21, 2017

One of the big questions surrounding the Sixers that doesn’t involve Embiid’s health is how Brett Brown will use Markelle Fultz, according to David Murphy:

“I feel like the city and the media has to recognize that he just turned 19 a few months ago, and we all get how unforgiving the NBA is,” Brown said, “and there are weaknesses obviously that we have to address in his game, and we really want to go hard at this defense, but I think when you ask what do we see at first glance, I see a person, a real person, I see somebody that is incredibly gifted and the game comes easy offensively, I see someone who will be challenged defensively, especially as it relates to NBA point guards, and then how does he navigate NBA seasons and the rhythm of an NBA season at 19 years old, we will all learn more about.”

The team will also give center Jahlil Okafor every chance to play while he’s being shopped.

A realistic worst-case scenario from the Sixers this season. And be sure to take a listen to Kevin Love’s latest podcast, featuring Tom Moore:

Episode 6 of the Sixers Science podcast is live, featuring the ever insightful @TomMoorePhilly https://t.co/trhYu03iPh

— Kevin Love (@KevinLove_76) September 21, 2017

The team will also hold their Blue x White scrimmage at the Palestra October 1.

Kyle Neubeck of Liberty Ballers is leaving his post as Managing Editor. But he also teased he’ll continue to write about Philly sports full-time somewhere soon.

Finally, Benjamin Simmons:

—

Temple got crushed by #21 South Florida 43-7 in Tampa. The Owls recorded 89 yards in the air and -4 rushing yards. Their defense gave up 408 total yards to the Bulls, including 312 on the ground.

Speaking of the Owls, even though Matt Rhule has yet to win a game as Baylor’s head coach, he’s still the right pick to lead the Bears. I wish he never left Temple.

Tim Reilly reminds you Joe Paterno may not have been the perfect head coach at Penn State.

—

In other sports news, last night’s Thursday Night Football game between the Rams and the 49ers was…entertaining?

First play INT✅ 10 TDs✅ 80 points✅ Muffed punt✅ Fumbled kickoff✅ Missed 2pt conversion✅ Onside kick✅ Game-sealing sack✅#LARvsSF

— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) September 22, 2017

This is some incredible football. Gotta be one of the highest effort games I've seen in a while.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 22, 2017

Amazing how all the people who complain about Thursday Night Football spend their Thursday nights tweeting about Thursday Night Football.

— Peter Schrager (@PSchrags) September 22, 2017

It was the highest-scoring TNF game in the history of the series.

Former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez had a severe form of CTE in his brain when he committed suicide in April.

Jose Baez, Hernandez’s lawyer, said Hernandez’s brain showed a level of damage that was seen in players with a median age of 67 years.

Baez said he had filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Patriots and the N.F.L. on behalf of Hernandez’s daughter, Avielle. The suit seeks unspecified damages for loss of parental support. The suit alleges that the Patriots and the league were “fully aware of the damage that could be inflicted from repetitive impact injuries and failed to disclose, treat or protect him from the dangers of such damage.”

The Giants offensive line, as explained by a New York radio host.

Andre Ward, the undefeated light heavyweight boxing champion that was considered as one of the best in the world, unexpectedly announced his retirement.

Golden State head coach Steve Kerr said the team will discuss if they will visit the White House when they all meet later in the fall.

Screw the NCAA:

Texas A&M distance runner Ryan Trahan says that he has been ruled ineligible and warned by his university for using his name, image and likeness as an athlete on his YouTube page to promote a small company that he started. NCAA bylaw 12.4.4 rules that an athlete “may establish his or her own business, provided the student-athlete’s name, photograph, appearance or athletics reputation are not used to promote the business.”

In addition to his running, Trahan has his own YouTube channel with 14,000 subscribers and nearly one million views where he shares tips and insight into his training. He also promotes Neptune water bottles, a company that co-founded with a friend in 2016. Trahan just started his freshman year at Texas A&M after a successful high school career.

Clemson kicker Greg Huegel is out for the year after tearing his ACL on the last play of practice.

From being a running back on the Steelers to being one of the main minds behind Ballers, Rashard Mendenhall has found his dream job.

An interesting read by Nick DePaula on the race for sneaker companies to sign Giannis Antetokounmpo to a deal:

To kick things off this week, Bucks teammate (and Adidas endorser) Thon Maker walked Antetokounmpo out to the parking lot of the team’s practice facility after a Tuesday morning workout. Awaiting him was a truck full of size 16 Adidas sneakers, including everything from pairs of the coveted Yeezy Boost series to Adidas Originals staples like the Stan Smith and running models like the UltraBoost.

With his current Nike endorsement deal set to expire on September 30, Antetokounmpo is assessing his options. Rather than take brand pitches at their headquarters, as some players do, he insisted on hosting the meetings in Milwaukee, in order to not disrupt his no-frills workout schedule leading up to his fifth season — a season in which he has MVP aspirations.

Loving these new Colorado State unis:

Colorado State will wear these special State Pride uniforms Nov. 11 vs. Boise State. Love the helmet look http://pic.twitter.com/u7HeVW9IQm

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) September 21, 2017

LaMelo Ball got roasted and it’s beautiful:

LaVar's gotta find this clown and whoop him for disrespecting LaMelo like this. http://pic.twitter.com/OkJxqGZzNS

— Thomas Duffy (@TJDhoops) September 21, 2017

The NHL might want to let their players go to the Olympics in 2022:

—

In the news, Philadelphia police have charged a man after a pipe bomb scare Wednesday in East Oak Lane.

Two men are on the run after stealing about $2,000 worth of cigarettes at a Wawa.

North Korea could test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.

Hurricane Maria left a devastating mark on Puerto Rico.

Your Friday Morning Roundup published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[moviesihaveseenbeforeiamdea-blog]

#901 Jurassic Park

Source

Released: June 11, 1993

Director: Steven Spielberg

Written by: Michael Crichton and David Koepp, based on Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel Jurassic Park

Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Hammond

Had I Seen it Before? Yes

Dinosaur Supervisor: Phil Tippett 

My confession for this is that I had never seen Jurassic Park from beginning to end before watching it for this entry. I’ve seen the entirety of the movie, but in pieces and usually edited for TV. Another movie I have seen like this is Black Hawk Down, but that’s not relevant to this discussion. 

Seeing Jurassic Park as a movie and simply a collection of scenes heightens the impact, because, duh, of course it does. (Coincidentally, a local theater in the area is screening Jurassic Park this Wednesday, I doubt I’ll go because I just watched this movie, but it would have been cool to see like that.)

Having only previously seen the movie in discrete chunks, the plot never made much sense to me, but I felt that I was partially at fault for that by not watching the move in the proper way, but, nope. This movie doesn’t make a goddamned lick of sense, for example:

Why do the vehicles reserved for the tour even allow their windows to be rolled down while passing an exhibit of the dilophosaurus, a dinosaur which, as we are told, can shoot poisonous goop as a hunting mechanism? 

Why can the doors of the vehicles unlock? 

How is this entire park run by Samuel L. Jackson and Neuman? 

How the fuck did Hammond find the initial capital to invest in and run a multi-billion dollar venture? 

And, furthermore, why were those investors totally cool with the “decade of research” and construction it took to make this park, but then suddenly start to get cold feet when the park was on the eve of opening? If those were real investors, they’d say fuck it and go ahead with the park anyway, damn the consequences. 

But any of those concerns take a flying leap off the suspension bridge of disbelief once the gang is packed into two jeeps on a broken-down tour while the rain pours in and the power cuts out, stranding them in the T. Rex exhibit without an electric fence to protect them. As the game warden pointed out earlier, these creatures are smart, problem-solving, and probe the weaknesses of the park’s restraints on them constantly (although it does seem like a plot mechanic to have the T. Rex show up at exactly the wrong moment, it’s one I’m willing to forgive).

But who gives a fuck.

Oh fuck yeah. (Source)

Jurassic Park as a movie is glorious, stupid fun, and there are innumerable classic scenes throughout the movie, but none of them hold a candle to the intensity and gravity of that initial T. Rex sequence. The darkness, the storm, the cuts to David Attenborough’s Dr. Hammond with Samuel L. Jackson’s Ray Arnold attempting to troubleshoot the park’s infrastructural sabotaging, the ominous thudding as the dinosaur approaches, the expendable lawyer whose name I don’t remember and don’t care about fleeing the car to hide in the bathrooms, THE REVEAL. It’s all too much, and Spielberg knows what to do with it. The patron saint of popcorn suspense, Spielberg has essentially remade Jaws with dinosaurs, ramping up the intensity and stupidity as he escalates the fun. The guy can direct his ass off. 

I’m not sure if Spielberg pioneered this technique, I doubt it, but something he uses often in his movies like Jurassic Park and Jaws is the presence of empty space in a shot to imply a threat. With the kids in the car, he’ll put Lex and Tim on one-third of the shot and leave the other two-thirds dominated by an empty window, looking out into the rain and nothingness. This isn’t an oversight of frame composition, because we know that there’s something out there, something big, and leaving so much room available in a shot doesn’t make us feel secure for seeing that there’s nothing in a sizable chunk of view, it puts us on the edge of our seats because dear god there’s a dinosaur out there, and that empty space isn’t reassurance so much as it is a threat to fill it with the Big Bad. 

Jurassic Park was probably the first movie I saw as a kid that featured “real” people (as opposed to animated ones) dying explicit deaths. The death sequences in Jurassic Park are by no means exploitative or excessive, but they’re more than an implication. The first death in the movie’s prologue is off-screen, but there’s no doubt what’s happening to the man (just as there’s no doubt what happens to the girl in the beginning of Jaws), but as the movie progresses, the deaths become more intense, even if most of them don’t feature the actual moment of execution. Nedry’s death by the dilophosaurus is karmic justice and same with the lawyer being devoured on-screen by the T. Rex. There’s the warden’s encirclement by the Velociraptors, an ironic and foreshadowed death, and there’s Ray Arnold’s dismemberment by those same Raptors, purposefully kept off-screen so that when Laura Dern’s Ellie Settler discovers his severed arm in the maintenance shed, it’s shocking to us as well. These were deaths constructed to provoke a level of horror in us that’s perfectly aligned with the aims of the blockbuster.

Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, at a time when someone thought Jeff Goldblum could plausibly be marketed as a sex icon (Source)

Which brings me to a point raised in this article at Bright Lights Film Journal by Allen Vanneman, an article that details the meta-commentary Jurassic Park seems to be making under Spielberg’s direction. Vanneman writes:

Jurassic Park is a very meta film, a film that is almost about itself. Impresario Steven Spielberg is bringing dinosaurs to life for us just as impresario John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is bringing them to life in the film. Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton depicted Hammond as a “dark Walt Disney,” and probably saw the real Walt Disney as pretty dark, depicting an “Adult Disney”-style theme park run amok in WestWorld way back in 1973. Spielberg, on the other hand, clearly aspired to be the “Disney of Today,” the creator of America’s dreams. In the film, we sometimes get Crichton’s Hammond – genial showman on the outside, heartless, money-grubbing egomaniac on the inside – and part Spielberg’s Hammond – creator of dreams. 

Vanneman makes an earlier point that Spielberg uses Jurassic Park as a way of commenting on the inherent fear that celebrities and entertainers and showmen of all sorts have about their audiences (and one that is addressed in some way with Birdman, which I watched previously to this). The artist is supposed to be of a higher caliber in vision and achievement than the audiences who justify the creation of his art, but that same artist is terrified of the ability of the audience to turn on him, to make his efforts irrelevant by their indifference, or to ridicule him with their disbelief or disagreement with his ultimate point. With Dr. Hammond, Spielberg is showing what the possibilities are if the showman gets away from himself and creates a system in which the audience pays for the privilege of being at his mercy. 

Dr. Hammond tells Dr. Settler in a revealing scene about his start at a flea circus, and how disappointed he was with the illusion of it all, and how his ultimate ambition was to shatter that illusion between audience and creation. Ellie points out that no matter what he thinks, the dinosaurs of the park are still an illusion because they are out of their proper time and context, being used as attractions millions of years after their extinction rather than treated as wild animals capable of anything. 

The movie never reaches anything close to something that could be mistaken as intellectual, but it tries, and Spielberg seems to have his fun in trying, because, the joke of it all is that Spielberg is less interested in examining Dr. Hammond than he is in being Dr. Hammond. And because Spielberg can deliver with a level of competence that Hammond never reaches, we can forgive his egotism. 

David Attenborough and Samuel L. Jackson as Dr. Hammond and Ray Arnold (Source)

It’s easy to trust a director like Spielberg with making an ultimately bullshit dichotomy to spice up an otherwise well-done Big Movie because Spielberg knows how to direct characters into archetypal performances that audiences want to root for, and the story never gets far enough up its ass that it forgets it’s a movie made famous by dinosaur puppets. 

And Spielberg is also a very moderate director. Something I hated about Jurassic World was the way that Colin Trevorrow has made more or less the same movie as Jurassic Park, but with everything bigger, stupider, more meta, and gratuitous. I went to that movie high as shit, and while I was stoned it was a lot of fun, but you can’t be high forever and Jurassic World can only keep up the illusion that it’s going anywhere for so long, and by the time I was mostly sobered up and watching a scene in which an InGen soldier is firing off a bazooka at a super-T. Rex that can make itself invisible my friend burst out into laughter at a scene that, in hindsight, I’m not sure found itself funny. 

To highlight what, to me, is the clearest distinction between the two movies, I’m going to compare the death sequences of the lawyer in Jurassic Park, and Bryce Dallas Howard’s assistant in Jurassic World.

The lawyer’s death is one of those that carries a moralistic judgment in Park, as I would argue most of them do (save maybe for Mr. Arnold, who’s killed off purely for scares--his only possible sin being to travel alone). The lawyer is in the jeep with the two children but abandons them as it becomes clear the T. Rex is approaching them. He flees to the bathroom to hide, where he is discovered by the dinosaur led there inadvertently by Dr. Malcolm (who, if he hadn’t been knocked out in the scene, would probably spout off some bullshit about chaotology). You can see it here.

Compare that to the assistant’s death in Jurassic World. The assistant, IMDb tells me she is named Zara, is attempting to guide the children through the park in the wake of a dinosaur onslaught released by an improbable chain of events. The Pterosaurs are flying everywhere, and Zara is doing her best to stay with the children and protect them. That doesn’t stop Trevorrow from saying fuck it, let’s off the bitch, and gives her one of the most horrific death sequences in the movie. 

Why? What’s the point? Watch that sequence and tell me how it makes you feel, because, years later, I still feel upset seeing it. It is so nightmarish and over-the-top, nearly pornographic in its filming of a person’s suffering in an otherwise dumb movie. I can’t tell if it’s thoughtlessness or some form of sadism from the director, but it’s such a bummer. What the hell did Zara do to deserve that? She was a little snotty to the kids in the beginning and inattentive to the point where the kids wandered off on their own and found themselves in danger, but it was a passive failure of being overworked and probably underpaid. She didn’t mean to let those kids get away, and in the scene where she dies, she is actively trying to save them. The lawyer in Jurassic Park abandons the children in their time of need and is rewarded justly. Zara is slaughtered because someone in the production wanted more spectacle, to outdo the original in every way, which is the only point of Jurassic World, really, in the end. 

That’s that. Jurassic Park holds up well in the twenty-four years since its release. The CGI isn’t good, but the practical effects are wonderful. Dr. Malcolm is a more insufferable character now than he was in his debut (mostly because of his mansplaining to Dr. Settler about “chaotology”), but Dr. Grant is still the hero this movie always wanted him to be. I sometimes think about how maybe I’m taking too many of the movies I want to watch out of contention early in this project, and I’ll certainly miss Jurassic Park years from now when I’m bogged down in endless, multi-hour foreign-language films, but I have no regrets now about seeing this movie. It’s a classic, and deservedly so. 

Final thoughts:

Dr. Ian Malcolm is by far the most ridiculous character in this movie. From his profession as a chaotologist, to his insistence on wearing a black leather jacket on top of an already all-black outfit, to his mansplaining of chaotology (again, ridiculous) to an incredulous Ellie Settler, to that absolutely shameless shot of him, chest-exposed and sweaty, breathing heavily while in repose on a table.   

Dr. Grant was truly ahead of his time by siding with the birds in the dinosaur: birds or reptiles? debate. 

And it’s weird how Grant takes the side of the birds but then they later explain how they splice the dinosaur DNA with frog DNA. Maybe that’s all a set-up for the reproductive evolution they weave into the plot later--which doesn’t really do anything except prove that Dr. Malcolm was right and Dr. Hammond is, at his heart, a fool. 

Also, where are all of the geneticists and other park employees during this crisis? Do they even give an offhand, dismissive “fuck you, audience” explanation for why an island full of rogue dinosaurs is only an issue for less than a dozen people? If they did, I missed it. 

Dr. Grant to Dr. Malcolm? “Are you married?” “Occasionally.”

All of Laura Dern’s outfits can now be bought on UrbanOutfitters for an average of $180 each. (That second link comes from an UrbanOutfitters blog for god’s sake.)