movies: everything everywhere all at once

I'm not sure I've ever done this is a review before. And if I have, it wouldn't have been very often.

But, stop reading this. Right now. And instead, go and watch Everything Everywhere All At Once. Find somewhere it's playing in theatres, look it up on stream services. 

Just go and watch it. Immediately. Consider that the short version of my review.

Okay, so now it should just be those of us who have seen the movie left. 

Hi, how you doing? Good? Excellent. Let's get into it, shall we.

First off. Holy fucking shit. This movie is absolutely amazing.

The delightfully named duo of writer/directors, the Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) have absolutely hit it out of the park with this movie.

I love Michelle Yeoh at the best of times, but the role of Evelyn Wang is quite possibly the best performance (performances?) she's ever given in a movie.

In fact, this movie is filled with outstanding performances... Ke Huy Quan (as Waymond Wang), yes, Data from Goonies and Short Round from the second Indiana Jones movies... I did freak out slightly when I realised who he was, who manages to match Yeoh beat for beat throughout the story, Stephanie Hsu (as their daughter Joy) who absolutely crushes everything she's given and Jamie Lee Curtis (as a very dowdy IRS agent) who is chewing ALL of the scenery in the best possible way... not to mention James Hong (as Evelyn's dad) aka Po's Dad from Kung Fu Panda and... basically 450 other projects... who is just a treasure, and still acting in his 90's.

Honestly, though, even the small roles are excellent. And I want to specifically call out Tallie Medel as Becky, Harry Shum Jr as Chad and Jenny Slate as... Dog Mom. Plus a number of the stunt performers from Shang Chi.

The only... microscopically minor complaint I have is that I wish they'd used some of those additional characters in the same way that they used the main cast. Repeated them in different contexts. I get why they didn't... but for me it would have tied things together a little more. But, honestly, it's barely even a complaint, it's more that it would have been an additional bonus.

The place where this movie shines... no, wait... this movie doesn't shine. This movie fucking GLOWS. The place where it glows the brightest is the script. This is a smart movie. This is a layered movie. This is a simple story masquerading as a complex idea. And it's a complex idea presented as a simple story.

It's one of those movies that you watch for the first time and pretty much need to just sit and go... "well... fuck" for about a week and just let it wash over you. And then watch it again. And every time you watch it, you'll pick out some other tiny detail you hadn't noticed before. Or you'll get a reference you didn't get before. Or just soak in the sheer brilliance of this movie.

There are already tiny facts I didn't pick up the first time through that I've seen mentioned in other places. And yes, of course I immediately smacked my forehead and went "of fucking course!".

What's interesting is that this movie is, at it's core, how you do the core story in Turning Red correctly. That movie did not stick the landing at all. It went in entirely the wrong direction, for me at least. This movie is that exact same story (more or less). But done right. Yes, of course, the two audiences are completely different. It's still basically the same kind of story, set within the same cultural framework.

It's just very hard for me not to compare them in my head (even discounting the fact that James Hong is in both movies).

Putting that to one side, one of the things that I love most about this movie is that it makes small references and you chuckle and think "oh that's silly" or "what the fuck is this now?" and then the Daniels bring that small thing back later in a way that's emotionally significant or ties into the core of the movie and it's themes or is the conclusion and expansion of a throwaway joke you never expected them to turn into a full-on part of the movie.

It's also very weird to say that one of the most emotional and impactful parts of character development in this movie occurs between two rocks at the top of the cliff. But it's true.

Also, the other major one involves googly eyes.

That's the thing about this movie, the attention to detail. I specifically want to shout out production designer, Jason Kisvarday, art director, Amelia Brooke, set decorator, Kelsi Ephraim and costume designer, Shirley Kurata. And, honestly, the entire art department and hair, make-up and costume departments. 

Because everything (everywhere, all at once... sorry, I couldn't resist) about this movie is beautiful and specific and everything about the world feels thought out and placed with purpose and intent. And, like the story, things are layered into the background (or, honestly, the foreground) in ways that you don't expect to be relevant later... but holy fuck, they absolutely are.

Also, Kurata... I feel like after this movie, there should be directors breaking down your door (metaphorically speaking) to get you to be the costume designer on their movies. The costumes in this movie... are... art. And they're also completely mundane, when they need to be mundane. And, in one specific case, they're one of the most beautiful champagne coloured gowns (by Elie Saab) I've ever seen, worn by Yeoh.

But there are a set of costumes on one particular character that are just... not only the absolute most and entirely to much, but at the same time are complete and total perfection and help inform the character in such a beautiful and appropriate way.

This movie has a lot of practical effects. Not least of all because there were only seven people, plus the directors, doing the VFX. And none of them were trained in VFX. But they use the effects they do have wonderfully, and do a lot of in-camera effects or prosthetics and save their CG for times when they absolutely need it to be CG.

Coming back around, the thing that makes this movie exception is that it's a beautiful, simple story about a family, told in a meaningful way... against a backdrop that happens to be completely bananas.

And it made me cry. Significantly.

Also, if you haven't seen this movie and you didn't stop reading when I told you to, it's all your own fault (even though, obviously, I don't do spoilers, or at least not major ones)... but absolutely go and watch it now.

yani's rating: 5 googly eyes out of 5

photo saturday: whip it good redux

It seems like I'm in the mood to redo old characters...

So today's DnD Character Colouring Book is a revisit of my favourite trashfire character, Deyman. Whipmaster Demyan if you're nasty. And I assure you, as far as he's concerned, you're all very nasty indeed.

Of course, this all happened because Hero Forge dropped some new whips. And while he doesn't wield one himself (not proficient and all that), he does carry a whip. So... that had to happen.

Plus I was never completely in love with the old version. It was a compromise in order to get the look that I wanted.

This time I just cheated it with Photoshop.

The collar beneath the breastplate (and the head attached to it, to be honest), is taken from a completely different piece of Hero Forge clothing, because, stupidly, the breastplates aren't counted as "top layer" clothing, so they can only go UNDER other things.

The mesh sleeve is from yet a third piece of clothing. Just made transparent and with a mesh texture over the top. And yes, he only has one mesh sleeve... because shield arm.

Also yes, I know he's extra. He's my sweet baby edgelord. This is him being lowkey.

Although I haven't bothered creating them, the other versions of his outfit exist in my head... the rank before this one was all black and the rank above this would have the red parts become white. And also, in my head, he has a very different ceremonial outfit that is all white and very transparent in places. And that he very probably hates with a vengeance.

Since he's not that kind of boy.

Anyway...

Sometimes, following a soup recipe leads to excellent results. Thus was the case with the Tomato, Barley & Chorizo Soup I made this week based on the recipe on the back of the pearl barley packet. And it turned out really well. It's definitely one that I will return to, and maybe play around with, but overall it's a solid recipe.

I did a little trip to Officeworks again this week... because, you know, I can't stay away from that place. Also, I need to buy some more printer ink, or at the very least get my printer out and see what's what with it.

I had planned on going out to trawl the world for more jeans on Wednesday. But it basically rained the whole day, and fuck that.

Thursday night's DnD was good... but, honestly, we were all a little bit punchy and dissolved into giggles on more than one occasion. But then that happens when you're fighting two long, thick, veiny... purple worms. And essentially doing a Colonialism. Not with the worms... obviously.

Friday was Chiro Day. A week late, but better late than never.

I also did a little running around in town, picked up some stuff, was unsurprised to see that the only jeans that existed in the Target in town were the fucking same as the ones I already bought. I did manage to get home before it started hammering down with rain, so bonus points there.

Then Fluffy came down slightly early in order for us to have time to watch a movie before we went to DnD. And you can bet your bottom dollar there will be more on that later.

Friday night's DnD was excellent. They didn't DO a lot, technically speaking. As in, they went to one major attraction, a couple of carnival games and triggered some plot. But once again, I was very proud of them as they tried to work out what was going on.

And I definitely had an "aww bless" moment when it twigged for all of them why the Witchlight carnival, run by two men called Mr Witch and Mr Light was called the Witch-Light carnival. Bless.

It's also comforting that I can rely on Mr's characters to "sneak off on their own" no matter what game we're playing. And I definitely won't ever be using that against him.

I am very excited to see what they do next.

Today wasn't much of anything. We did the supermarket, I'm making some conglomeration of beef soup or beef stew. Something in the beef oeuvre. And after we came back here it started raining really heavily, so we didn't end up doing much of anything. And Ma shuffled off home.

Current mood:

movies: turning red

So... Turning Red is... fine.

The animation is lovely. The big furry red panda is sufficiently floofy, and I did get distracted more than once by close up shots of knitted textures. Because it just looks fucking amazing. As do pretty much all modern Pixar and Disney movies.

And I also need to say that I didn't hate the movie. It didn't infuriate me to the point of apoplexy like, for example, Soul. This won't be a long giant rant. The movie was, overall, fine.

It just isn't for me.

Which is perfectly valid.

I'm also not sure who the intended audience of this movie is. Yes, yes, yes... clearly the intended audience is 11-14 year old girls. 

But to me, this movie feels focused in a way no other Pixar movie has been so narrowly focused. At it's core, I would suggest that this movie is actually for the 13 year old versions of the women who wrote and directed it. Because this movie is the most on-the-nose metaphor for teenage girls and puberty I've ever seen.

I hope it works for the people it's being aimed at. I hope the movie works for people in general. I'm just not one of those people.

It's good to see Pixar not just doing the same old same old... in a world of Disney remakes, sequels nobody wants or asked for, weaponised nostalgia and the like, it's good to see them taking a chance on a different kind of movie, giving different kinds of storytellers the opportunity to flex and tell their stories.

But the downside of that is movies that may not be universal and speak to everyone. I mean, maybe you get lucky and they are that thing. But sometimes you won't. And that's okay too.

My main issue with this movie is that I didn't actually LIKE any of the characters. Except maybe Priya. Because Priya has no fucks to give, and will also very definitely grow up to become a lesbian. But I disliked the main character quite a bit. Which is bad... because she's your main character.

I literally spent the first... twenty minutes of this movie staring at it with a raised eyebrow because the overwhelming emotion being inspired the movie was "WTF is happening and who the fuck are these people". And I realised that I needed to consciously lower my eyebrow before my face seized up.

Storywise it feels like it's pretty well worn territory, and it's a storyline that, personally, infuriates the living fuck out of me. Not because it's a bad storyline, but because it's at the same time both a well worn trope that I'm kind of sick of, but also a shitty real-life scenario that I don't really want to see in my media because it makes me mad.

And that's "immigrant family puts overly harsh expectations on child from that family and cause stress to the child as a result", combined with "if you people just had a real conversation we wouldn't be here". And with a little "repressing young women's sexuality" thrown in as a garnish.

Again, not BAD. Fairly realistic, relatively speaking, it's definitely an experience that people have had, but also not something I'm interested in watching. Because I just want to slap the people involved. Maybe it's also because it's a trope that gets trotted out in a lot of gay media as well... replacing "immigrant" with "straight". So, it's, as the kids say, somewhat triggering. But in a way that just turns me off and distances me from the story.

Also, for me, there's a bunch of ideas here that only get partially explored. I suspect some of that is probably because parts of the story are based on the real life experiences of the women who wrote and directed it, and that's their lived experience. But parts of this story seem... superfluous. Or not well explored. In a way that I'm not used to seeing from a Pixar movie. 

Generally if something is in a Pixar movie, it's there for a clear reason. It has definitive set up and pay off. This movie has that... but things don't get set up and paid off in ways that work for me. Like I said before though, that's potentially the cost of telling different types of stories.

But at the end of the day, I recognise that this movie isn't aimed at me, it's not a story that I have an affinity with and, therefore, it's not FOR me. And that's fine. A movie designed for 13 year old girls doesn't actually need to appeal to a man in his late 40's.

yani's rating: 2 boy bands out of 5

photo saturday: faerie folk

Today's DnD Character Colouring Book is... essentially the equivalent of me doodling in the back of my DM notebook. But doodling with Hero Forge. And a smattering of Photoshop.

These aren't characters per say... this is more me exploring the idea of fairy characters and pixies and sprites and potential NPCs, but they won't show up exactly like this. Like I said... doodling in the back of my notebook.

I do like how they both turned out. Especially Seafoam. She does have the most Photoshop fuckery... and I may have redone her like a billion times as I changed my mind about her overall colourscheme. But it was worth it... it's perhaps not the aesthetic of a character I'd actually play, but she sure is purdy.

Mustardseed is much more "whole entire newest Hero Forge outfit" plus wings.

Anyway.

This week was all over the place.

At the start of the week I got a Kickstarter backer reward in the mail. I haven't backed anything since... 2017. But this particular item I backed in 2012. Yep, that's right. This Kickstarter took ten years to be finished and send out rewards. Weirdly enough, it was ten years this week that the Kickstarter was fully funded.

At least they actually followed through... I've had other Kickstarters that funded, took the money and then disappeared into the aether. I'm looking at you D&D Documentary and Smart Phone Linked Watch. And probably some others, those are the ones that I remember tho.

I also went shopping for jeans.

I got a pair of jeans. The experience was not enjoyable. The resulting jeans are problematic in a number of ways.

I will need to go shopping for jeans again.

<flip_the_table.gif>

Don't ask. Just... don't.

Anyway.

Thursday night's DnD session was good. It was also, once again, one long combat session.

We'll see how next week goes.

There was no Friday night DnD... there was also not Friday Chiro Day. For the same reason. Yes, pandemical reasons. Both my chiro, Mr and Mrs are currently in isolation. Good times. Or... you know... something.

So instead Fluffy and I decided to watch movies and hang out anyway. And I made blue bread. Well. I tried to make blue bread. But I didn't put enough food colouring in, so it ended up kinda weirdly turquoise. It was still just... bread. Because food colouring.

It was an experiment. It was okay.

We watched an old version of Death on the Nile, because fuck the new version. And then we watched Turning Red... more on that later.

Today wasn't much of anything.

First up we had to go and do our civic duty and write down a bunch of numbers so that some other bunch of pointless twats can potentially replace the current bunch of pointless twats. We did however get a democracy sausage out of it, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Something something supermarket. Something something unpacking.

And we didn't really do a whole lot of anything after that. Lack of enthusiasm basically.

So there's that.

Current mood:

photo saturday: lady killer

I think this is the first time that I've started one version of DnD Character Colouring Book, decided I hated the whole thing and started over. So, there's that about that.

Instead, I give you Mirth. Because I fucking love a tiefling "virtue" name. And for a brief moment I wanted to work out all possible things I could do with that jester shirt I've also used in like three or four other designs.

But I decided that Mirth was part of a female group of bounty hunters, who all wear the same costume, just in different colours.

It was also me playing around with the idea of a subclass I wouldn't normally be interested in.

And that's really all I have to say about Lady Mirth.

Moving on.

This week was potato and leek soup... and it was okay. Once again, if I put carrot in a blended, basically white, soup, then it goes a weird colour. Doesn't change how it tastes, but, as they say, we first eat with our eyes.

Which, stopping and thinking about it, and taking it literally, is a terrifying phrase.

Chunks of this week were taken up with doing last minute prep for Friday's DnD game... which included having to print a bunch more things that I either hadn't thought of, wanted to update or had missed out previously.

Then on Wednesday night, my internet shat itself. So much so that I called my ISP and while waiting for them to call me back (because that's what we do these days... we wait for some random person in another country to call us back... urgh) I kind of gave up and was going to watch movies. But, of course as soon as I reheated some soup, the nice lady called me.

And we did the "I already did this... okay, now do this" dance for a while to no avail.

She was as helpful as she could be under the circumstances, and escalated the job as appropriate to the NBN people.

But, of course... because Life has a sick sense of humour, as soon as I got off the phone with her... the internet started working perfectly again.

Don't know if it was something she did at her end, whether it was a temporary problem that fixed itself, I couldn't tell you.

It reoccurred on Thursday around the middle of the day, but I had a phone call from the ISP very shortly afterwards saying "hey, the NBN say they poked the problem at their end and it should be good now"... so maybe that minor outage was them doing that. Don't know.

It seems like it's... fixed. Fingers crossed, wood touched, salt thrown, smudge burned... all that stuff.

My ISP has been... I want to say "overly" solicitous... but honestly, I feel like it's the correct amount of solicitous... so I spoke to them Wednesday night. I got a call, as I said, in the middle of the day Thursday, another call mid afternoon Friday and a text message this morning.

Part of me wanted to be annoyed until I realised, no... that is exactly what you do want when there's a problem, you want them to be checking in on it. I guess my frustration, such as it is, just stems from "overseas call centres" in general.

Moving on.

Thursday night DnD was... relatively calm given the last game.

Was it because we spent the entire session in combat? Maybe. Was it because a certain player wasn't playing themselves but were playing an enemy NPC because of choices in the previous game? Maybe. Was it because we haven't played in about a month? Maybe.

I don't necessarily know why... but it was much more reasonable.

Do I still feel like I need a break? Maybe. I did decide that maybe I'll just see the book out, since we're only two chapters/adventures away from the end... plus we still haven't finished the current adventure. We'll see. It will also depend on what the group intends to do next... and how much they annoy me between now and then.

Which brings us to our main event. The one that consumed by brain the entire fucking week.

Friday night DnD. The true start of The Wild Beyond The Witchlight. And me as DM.

I felt less rusty this week. Did I screw things up? Absolutely. Did it fuck up the game? Not in the least.

And I need to say something, that out of context is going to sound super patronising, but I mean it in the most complimentary version of this... I'm so proud of my players. We played the game last week, they didn't know they were going have their characters effected the way they were. I then gave them additional information about how the rest of the world now treats their character, and they very much took it to heart and made that important to their character.

Because Fluffy's character had been separated from the others since childhood, his character had a different set of experiences, but he also had information that they didn't that he could then impart to them. And vice versa. I gave Mr and Mrs specific information about what happened after he left the town.

And I just sat back and let them interact at the start of the game. They literally went off to one side right by the entrance to the carnival and had a character debrief for at least 10 or 15 minutes. And mostly I could just sit back and watch them do my job of providing each other with information.

Also they reacted to certain things in ways I wasn't expecting... or in a much larger way than I thought they might. Which I then definitely fed back into the adventure.

It's also fascinating to me when an NPC voice comes out of fucking nowhere. I had an idea of what I wanted to do with that character, but it wasn't until I started doing it at the table that it really clicked in.

I think they might be at the carnival for a while... which isn't bad at all. I wasn't completely sure how long they'd be there, but I think it could be at least a couple more sessions, which is great, given they're enjoying themselves.

It's also fun to watch them spin theories and have no clue what's coming.

No clue at all... <morticia_addams_teacup.gif>

Moving on.

Today was... not much of anything.

We did the supermarket. We came back here. We futzed around. Ma went home.

And that's about it.

Current mood:

photo saturday: good rogue boy

This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is redo of a redo... I first debuted Mr Rook back in October last year... at the same point I had found out I was going to have to move... good time, good times.

At a later point, Mr Rook got a makeover to turn him into... basically a shirtless ass-kicking monk. Because I like monks, I do... but then I fell in love with a lot of the elements of the design of Rook and moved him up to be on the list of "potential future playable characters", and I knew that I didn't want to play a monk, but really wanted to play a rogue.

And then the jester outfit got added... previously seen on Brother Jinx... and one thing let to another and Mr Rook came out looking like the right kind of trouble. So here he is... in his scary oni/samurai mask and his Soulknife blade.

And I gave him an updated backstory, and honestly, he was fairly high on the list of characters I was intending to play next... of course, right after that I made a completely separate monk character who is also on the list... because of course I did.

But given that I'm running our Friday games for the foreseeable future and our Thursday games seem cursed, plus I really need to take a break as previously mentioned, it will be a while before I end up playing somebody new.

Which of course means that I'll probably create/redesign a billion different characters before then.

C'est la vie.

Anyway...

This week's soup was one of those rare entities that actually got better as the week went on. I'm not entirely sure why... it was just a basic vegetable soup. It was good though.

A lot of this week was spent in prep for the Friday game... getting documents and handouts and printouts ready to go.

Thursday night DnD was cancelled again, because, clearly that game is actively cursed right now, which turned out to be excellent, because I went to Officeworks in the middle of the day and my entire living room/kitchen space was covered from one end to the other with a bazillion bits of paper as I cut, trimmed, sorted, tea stained and baked various bits of paper, then put things in folders and whatnot. Time well spent honestly.

Friday night was my first time DMing in a while. Fuck I'm rusty. I also wouldn't say that I'm stressed out about running my first full adventure that isn't supposed to be wrapped up in about four hours... but, you know, it's equal parts exciting and weird.

I also have so many future plans... none of which I can talk about here because one of my players occasionally reads the blog (yes, you... *waves*), but I have a cannon stuffed with character backstory and I'm not going to be afraid to use it.

*cue evil laughter here*

But the party seems like it's going to be a fun one. A half-elf, an emerald dragonborn and a fairy. Fun times.

I do need to get slightly better at time management though, because we ended up playing until after midnight. Whoops.

Anyway.

Today wasn't much of anything. We did the supermarket thing, we came back here. We watched some stuff on the YubTubs... and Ma went home. So there's that.

Current mood: