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Rise of Skywalker
(Ana) During quarantine, I found out that Kissmate had never seen the Star Wars prequels (which was a disappointment to him because he wanted to hate them properly) nor had he seen the "unaltered" original trilogy (noooo!) nor had he seen the newest Star Wars except The Force Awakens. I had the pleasure of conducting a 9-movie marathon with him, and there was much love and hate. Kissmate decide to live-tweet Rise of Skywalker to cheer folks up during a difficult week.
(Kissmate) Since we're in a hellscape right now, I figured a ragewatch of "The Rise of Skywalker" (2019) would be appropriate. I know this is a BAD one. "Ruined the franchise" kind of bad. "Pandered to the racist/extremist/fascist fanboys and no one else" brand of terrible. So I'm already prepared to hate the SHIT of this. A bit of background: We did a marathon of all the main 8 movies before this. All three SHITTY prequals, all three of the original cut of the original trilogy, and both newer Rey movies (which I ADORED!). I could not be more prepared for this.
Shut Up!
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[Utena Content Note: Abuse, Sexual Assault, Stalking]
Links: Froborr's excellent posts and color symbolism guide are here. I'm watching the subtitled episodes contained in the blu-ray collection here.
Revolutionary Girl Utena, Episode 25: "Their Eternal Apocalypse"
Third arc!!! Streetlights and a car. ["The car is sex," I tell Kissmate.] Touga and Akio ride together and Akio offers to let him take the wheel. At the Chairman's apartment, Wakaba arrives looking for Utena and ready to help: the girls are moving in. Akio says he wanted his sister to live with him but couldn't separate her from her friends. Wakaba falls all over herself demonstrating her friendship with Anthy in order to justify coming up to visit the pretty Akio. Anthy giggles and Akio stares at her in a worrying manner. [Kissmate: "That was horrifying."]
Student Council! Saionji is back... somehow! I mean, Mikage got him accepted back so either we go with my theory that the events still happened but the memories faded, or the events didn't happen and Saionji came back via a different route. He says he's through with the duels while baseball is played in the background. "Strike!" when he says he can't trust the letters from the End of the World, and Juri notes he was fooled by a false letter. Miki says he's verified the latest letter: he passed through the gate to the arena and found a gondola in the spiral staircase. Confetti appears when Saionji refuses to fight anymore just because someone tells him to. They're playing a game they don't understand and the only way to win is to stop?
Shut Up!
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Sleepy Hollow
Doing another round of #Kissmatewatches! For those who want to join, tonight's entertainment is "Sleepy Hollow" from 1999, directed by Tim Burton. I have seen this before, but not in YEARS, so this should feel new enough to me! We already owned the DVD from awhile back, so here's to seeing if it's worth staying on the shelf!
A will is signed and sealed. Old VanGarrett notices a spoopky pumpkin scarecrow. The driver of the carriage is beheaded, leaving Old VG to run through a cornfield, coming across the scarecrow again. Then is beheaded from behind. Already feels fun and campy!
NYC 1799. Ichabod Crane has found a body in the river. It seems Crane wants fair treatment of prisoners and autopsies of bodies and- CHRISTOPHER LEE! How did I get him twice?! And the way the wings in the background make him look like a dark angel just- *MWUA!* *ahem* The judge lets Crane take his fancy detective work to Sleepy Hollow so he can find the killer who has lopped off three heads in a fortnight. It's a test to see if science and logic is better than traditional cruelty. This trope feels... hollow. I guess I've seen the "lone genius" trope for so long that it no longer packs a punch, especially when there's nothing showing the good of the "traditional" side, just the bad. It's written so we're already on Crane's side before we know him. It's cheap.
Shut Up!
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[Utena Content Note: Abuse, Sexual Assault, Stalking]
Links: Froborr's excellent posts and color symbolism guide are here. I'm watching the subtitled episodes contained in the blu-ray collection here.
Revolutionary Girl Utena, Episode 24: "The Secret Nanami Diary"
Now that the entire arc has been undone, it's time for a recap episode...of sorts.
Tsuwabuki begins the day prepping Nanami for her day. She at least thanks him this time. A runaway horse lunges for her and Tsuwabuki pushes her out of the way. He tells us he has a secret nobody knows. In the hospital, Tsuwabuki watches the shadows of Utena, Nanami, and Anthy talk about him. (Anthy asks if he's dead and Kissmate loses his shit laughing.) The heartbeat monitor starts beating faster as the girls find his diary and begin reading it.
He's always watched over Nanami. We see a flashback of Keiko slapping Anthy for hurting Saionji. Nanami saves Anthy and we see Tsuwabuki recording the incident. He says he knows Nanami's image and her true face, recording how she "rules the school from the shadows". We see new information about the curry incident, and how the boys and the elephants ate the curry and... switched bodies before then spending the entire episode chasing Nanami and Tsuwabuki.
Shut Up!
