I’ve seen griping about Thor Ragnarok and let me say this: so much of it WORKED. So much of it got down to the basis of what Thor should have been in the MCU.
1. Thor is FINALLY damn charming and likable. Sure he’s been the “hero” in the rest of the MCU, but he was hard for me to like. In this movie he’s funny and charming and KIND and arrogant but with a sense of humor. He’s very much a crown prince with a major sense of duty, but he’s so often gently put in his place by circumstances when he gets out of line and acknowledges that and he’s FUNNY. He’s got a cheeky sense of humor, and can be just as sarcastic as Loki. He’s also just so sure about people too. Take into account the fact that he literally wills Bruce, Valkyrie AND Loki into helping him. He knows Bruce is at his core a hero who will help those in need. He knows Valkyrie really wants redemption. He knows Loki is capable of so much MORE than just being a little shit. He sees the hero at the core of those around him and like any good leader, enthusiastically points that out.
2. And speaking of Thor and Loki, this movie finally settles their relationship. No angst, just an acknowledgement on each side that yes they love each other, but they will NEVER see eye to eye about anything and both are so much themselves at the core, one basically a little shit and the other very noble. But rather than wallow in that, the two have figured out how to relate to each other. Thor just recognizes that Loki will always be Loki. He’s God of Mischief. He almost can’t help himself in just doing stuff that causes issues.
3. Loki’s character finally makes sense. He’s not a big bad here or even an angsty antihero. He’s simply weasely and manipulative, but at his core he’s a warrior and hero almost in spite of himself. Thor’s opinion of him matters in the end. And you can tell Loki LIKES a good fight no matter how much of a negotiator he is. In the end he throws himself right into the fray with as much style and competence as the heroes. He’s presented not as someone who murdered his adoptive father (and as someone who couldn’t when given the opportunity), just as the son who dropped him at the old folks home. Asgard isn’t a crumbling ruin when Thor shows back up. Loki has basically been living out his fantasy as a wanton but nonthreatening ruler who likes the arts and is trying to build his own myth (it’s telling that the “play” he’s so enthusiastic about is more about Odin and Thor valuing and thinking he was wonderful more than anything else). Even Odin doesn’t hold it against his son for leaving him in a retirement home. He doesn’t even acknowledge it, just immediately treats him just the same as Thor without missing a beat and Loki responds both with shame and respect. Odin even makes sure Loki knows how proud Freya would be of his accomplishments (as poorly used as they are). Thor and Loki are treated as equal here. Loki also gets his final say in pointing out Thor finally understands how he felt in being lied to (and beat up by the Hulk). Loki is finally able to give in to the fact that there IS a streak of heroism at his core. Sure we all know he can’t resist causing trouble (we’re all well aware he stole the Tessaract. AGAIN.) but you believe it truly isn’t malicious now. He’s just a jackass. And someone who desperately wants people to think he’s important.
Basically Thor Ragnarok treated the Norse gods in the MCU how it made more sense to treat them. Thor as a charming, funny, well intentioned hero. Loki as a shifty, troublesome, ultimately reluctant hero himself. And it WORKS.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name’s Korg. I’m kind of like the leader in here.
Thor: Ragnarok dir. Taika Waititi
It has been estimated that in salutes, royal and military compliments, exchanges of courteous hubbub, signals of etiquette, roadstead and citadel formalities, rising and setting of the sun saluted daily by all fortresses and all vessels of war, the opening and closing of gates, etc., etc., the civilized world, in every part of the globe, fires off daily one hundred and fifty useless cannon shots. At six francs per shot, that amounts to nine hundred thousand francs a day, or three hundred million a year, gone up in smoke. This is only one item. Meanwhile, the poor are dying of hunger.
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (via handatthelevelofyoureye)
… I have no idea what a franc was really worth back then so I don’t know how outraged I should be but I suspect the answer is “quite a bit, really”.
(via pilferingapples)
If you’d like some perspective on their value—Feuilly earns three francs a day; from what I’ve read, there were workers who earned rather less. Marius lives on seven hundred a year. Bahorel, who is said to have a “prodigious allowance,” has three thousand a year.
The government is spending three hundred million a year on ritual cannon salutes.
(via midshipmankennedy)
As I read it this is about governmentS, plural, though? “the civilized world, in every part of the globe”. Not sure who all Hugo would have counted as Civilized, since he’s drawing that line, but that does spread out the outlay a bit. Still, yes, obvious rageness.
(via pilferingapples)
That’s a lowball estimate even for France; I’m having trouble tracking down accurate numbers on account of the July Monarchy was bad at government and the Second Republic was bad at everything, but even at the time of the June Rebellion there were more than 150 cannon-equipped warships in La Royale. If they were all launching ball at the sun as it advanced and retreated every day, then the problem was worse than Hugo thought it was.
…The problem was worse than Victor Muthatruckin’ Hugo thought it was.
(via texasuberalles)
WAITWHAT
I so hope you’re wrong because otherwise that’s like learning Upton Sinclair downplayed the hygiene problems in the meatpacking industry.
(via pilferingapples)
Oh gosh really?
(via apaladinagain)
DELETED CLIPS FROM THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY.
Some things in this video that make it worth watching:
- Legolas and Arwen saying goodbye to each other as the Fellowship leaves Rivendell, by awkwardly touching each other’s faces.
- Homesick (heartbreaking) Merry and Pippin.
- Aragorn angsting at Gandalf, over whether Sauron can really be defeated.
- Shot of some orcs about to attack Lothlorien.
- Wounded Merry being hugged by Pippin in the middle of a battlefield.
- Oh look, a really fucking big army of orcs.
- A two-second shot of young Aragorn and Arwen being adorable in Lothlorien, where they first met.
- Eomer being sexy as fuck (and kind of confused-looking? Or maybe that’s just his face), riding through a forest somewhere.
- Legolas walking through a forest, which is not interesting unless you know this is the epilogue, and it’s supposed to be Ithilien.
But then where’s his dwarf?- “If we do not trust to the strength of men, then we trust to the victory of Sauron.”
- Eowyn. Is fucking awesome. And fights orcs in the caves under Helm’s Deep.
- Oh yeah, you know that Aragorn angstiness earlier, about Sauron? Turns out that in the original cut, that wasn’t a troll he was fighting at the gates of Mordor. It was literally Sauron. In the glowing, heavily-armored flesh.
- Legolas being repetitive (of course).
- Some Hobbits in suspenders.
- Aragorn doing a L’Oreal commercial in the snow.
- More stuff from the Council of Elrond. Apparently Sauron forged the Ring with some of his own blood inside it. Ew.
- Elrond does the English version of the “One Ring to Rule them All” rhyme. Yikes.
- Galadriel’s only appearance in the video, being ethereal as shit.
- Arwen in her Helm’s Deep costume and hairdo. I’m so glad that never actually became a thing.
- Oh wait I lied. Galadriel being even more ethereal. I didn’t think it was possible.
- Eeew. Holy shit. Faramir’s vision of Frodo becoming a creature like Gollum.
- Gimli’s epilogue scene! His magnifying glass reminds me of Balin.
- Eowyn being a motherfucking badass, orc-killing and yelling at the other women to run.
- Aragorn getting his ass personally kicked by Sauron.
- Aaaand a perfect ending: Some more Shieldmaiden kickassery by Eowyn.
/faints about everything but especially Eowyn fighting at Helm’s Deep
(Source: http://apaladinagain.tumblr.com/)
Wait. Can we please talk about this please? The entire end battle of this movie. For most of the movie, Mulan has felt out of place. She doesn’t know where she fits in. Covering herself in femininity doesn’t work, like, at all. The scene of the matchmaker…I don’t even have to explain to show you how much that is not her. But then she runs away and poses as a man. She tries her hardest to blend in and be a guy, but at the same time, covering herself in the masculine just doesn’t work. She’s still awkward and out of place. The men eventually embrace her as one of their own, see her as a guy, but they see her as a strange guy, a very effeminate man. But this scene, this final part of the movie, she has finally found her place. She is short haired (masculine) and wearing a woman’s outfit. She has found her place as a tomboy, somewhere in the middle of extremes.
But to continue on and dissect this final battle, Mulan is facing Shan Yu. Shan Yu is huge and muscled, where Mulan is smaller, slimmer, but no doubt she is toned from all the training she’s done. Still, Shan Yu has his big ass sword and all she finds she is equipped with is the fan she and the other men used to sneak into the castle. She is equipped with a traditionally feminine object and Shan Yu is equipped with a traditionally masculine object. She uses that fan to disarm him, then uses the sword to trap him. Not only is this badass and clever, she uses an object she was uncomfortable with in the beginning to take a weapon she was also uncomfortable with earlier on in the movie and uses both of them to defeat a man twice as big as her with a much longer and much more extensive history of fighting and battles than she has. She, at this point, has learned to embrace both of the aspects of herself and use this to her advantage. She finally realizes by this time that she is not the traditional, overly feminine daughter her society wants her to be, but she isn’t the other extreme, either, the man’s man, lets-scratch-our-butts-and-fight-for-no-reason type seen when she first comes into the camp. She is a little bit of both, and realizing this and embracing it allows her to be more sure of herself and fully embrace who she is, making her happier, but also more confident (do I even need to point out how she stepped up as leader and showed the men a way to sneak into the palace? Oops, I already did), and a better fighter. She’s just all around awesome and this move she does when she disarms Shan Yu always makes me feel enormously proud of her and how far she’s come.
Why I love Mulan!
Also why I wish we’d get more images of her (pins, dolls, etc.) from THIS part of the movie. We get so many in her impress-the-matchmaker gown, and a number (at least of Disney pins) in her warrior garb as Ping.
THIS is the Mulan I want lots of pins of!
This scene is everything.
One colour that I am very particular about is obviously the red because all the reds in the movie, which are very very few, all lead to the same past, to the ghosts, to the crime and the passion and the secrets of Crimson Peak.
Red is a really brutal colour because its very voracious. Even the most subtle red burns and obliterates everything else. I was trying to make that red the past. To have that past seep through the floor, seep through the snow and reveal its true nature. Crime never stays hidden in classic romance.
I felt it was important for the ghost to be rather unique in appearance, and I chose to colour-code them in a way that has never been done before. The ghosts are buried in the clay, like the bog people in The Mummy, and I thought it would be interesting to treat them in the same colour as the clay under the house which is a bright crimson. The house is built over clay mines, and the clay is a bright red. They are visually coded and the only red in the entire movie. Everyone who has a bit of red has something to do with the ghosts. The rest of the movie does not have that colour at all.
For the record, if I don’t make it out of here, don’t put me down for mummification
The Mummy (1999) dir. Stephen Sommers
Something that always gives me witchy vibes is that feeling of autumn before it’s there. Like when it’s still in the 70s to 80s, but you can smell it in the air. You can feel it in the depths of the woods.
Posting this at fuck o’clock in the morning because I worked a swing, but you know what we’ll reblog later. Here’s Casey sans glamour, looking heinous.
Click through to full view. Tumblr’s resizing is jank.
Goldnwulf 