Practical F/X Vs. CGI In Willow

If every word of this is true, it has nothing to do with whether or not she’s a victim. She was falsely accused of fraudulently soliciting good reviews through sex (something that was so easily disproven it’s insane the accusation lasted more than a hot minute), and has spent years facing an endless barrage of rape and murder assaults, in ways that are quite public and easy to verify... but which are also infuriatingly anonymous and in a legally murky situation where the perpetrators can’t be punished. Not only she, but her family members have been harassed and persecuted for years on end. And this was insidiously camouflaged under cries for “ethics in video game journalism” and similar malarkey to draw in a massive crowd of those ignorant of the true context to unknowingly perpetuate these horrors. This is an organized mob torturing a woman (and other women) largely because she’s a woman. There’s no way to look at the evidence and not come to that conclusion.

It doesn’t matter if all the above is completely true, and she was a ridiculously unprofessional model when she was 20ish, and even if she spun some wild stories to excuse that. If true, it doesn’t reflect well on her, but that is completely irrelevant to the torturous hell that’s been rained down on her for the last several years. A victim is a victim, regardless of their human flaws.

Still think Zoe Quinn is an innocent victim?

The following was writen by Mallorie Nasrallah. Please take the time to read it-

“Alright, story time. I’ve been basically silent on this issue, I am not sure my contributions are relevant, and I have feared being ostracized and ridiculed. I can accept the latter, but I really hate to waste people’s time. In 2007 I lived in New Hampshire, and was working as a photographer with a number of soft core "alt” erotica / porn sites. I traveled frequently to work with models affiliated with the websites I was affiliated with. A model working under the name Locke Valentine - this is the woman currently known as Zoe Quinn - modeled for two websites I was affiliated with - she as a model, I as a photographer. One of those websites is still in business, the other - unfortunately the one we communicated via - is no more. Locke / Zoe was living in Albany, NY at the time. We expressed a desire to collaborate, and set a date for three photoshoots. In fall of 2007 (according to my EXIF data 10/25/2007) I packed up my equipment and drove the 220 miles to Albany, for a weekend of work with Zoe. By time I arrived in Albany, Zoe had cancelled one of the three shoots we had planned. She lived in a tiny apartment with her boyfriend / spouse / lover (I did not ask personal questions) and her roommate. I had been assured I could over night with them, and that they had room to accommodate a guest, and room to shoot in. They had neither. We ended up doing an impromptu shoot in the extremely crowded apartment, in the middle of the night, to try to save the shoot. I was not proud of it, but I knew with a bit of editing, it had potential. While we tried to plan a shoot for the next day Zoe, and Co. chatted with me. She claimed to have stabbed a man - attempted rapist - in the face, who had grabbed her. She relayed to me no less than three other accounts of alleged violent assault. I will not share the details here, I feel that would be fundamentally indecent. I was alarmed at this, and I admit, by the time she made the claim that she stabbed a man in the face with a knife* and ran away, I was skeptical as well. Two claims involved alleged workplace incidents, and were her prime explanation for why she could not hold a job. I was mildly disconcerted, because true or false, these stories have good cause to make one uneasy. She also claimed to have reported nothing to police, or management at her work. That was not all we discussed, we talked about modeling, the websites, and erotica/porn in general. It was what we both did for a living, and candid conversation on the subject was not unusual. The next day I had to drive everyone to the location of our shoot, which was her roommate’s place of employment. An arcade. This is the location where the photo shown here was taken. I was irritated that after driving 220 miles, and having to carry all my equipment to a shoot, I was also deliberately given the false impression that Zoe, and Co. would have their own transport. I was also irritated that Zoe could provide neither her own wardrobe for the shoot - it is normal for the model to use her personal items in these sorts of shoots - nor her own food while on site. Keep in mind, we both are paid by a site, once the photos are sold, everything I spent came out of my own pocket. Otherwise the shoot was unremarkable, it went far better than the one the night before, and we all had a basically good time. We tried for some more photos that afternoon in a forested area Zoe directed me to, but we had neither enough light, or privacy to shoot anything substantial or of value. I returned home, spent countless hours editing hundreds of photos. It was a terrible experience, but so be it. When I was ready to send the photos off to Deviant Nation - the site we worked for - I wrote to her to let her know. It was only a few days, a week at most, since I had left Albany, but I ALWAYS get a model’s final approval before I send photos off. As far as I know I am the only photographer working in that specific industry who had that strict policy. Zoe informed me that her roommate, who had been involved in the shoots, either by being in the apartment, or smuggling us in to her place of work turned out to be a, “ mentally unbalanced cunt,” (her words not mine) among other things, and that it was unacceptable to use ANY of the photos we had taken that weekend. I was pretty upset about this, and sent her several messages asking if perhaps I could talk to the roommate, have her sign a waiver, or something, despite the fact that neither Zoe, nor I, had any legal obligation to ask the roommate’s permission for ANYTHING. Zoe insisted that she was a crazy, evil bitch, and refused to provide me with any sort of contact information. Finally, weeks later, a handful of other models I had worked with on the site messaged me to inform me that Zoe had written them and told them that I forced her to look at, “mutilated vagina,” pictures, which she said, had horrified her, and she had basically sent me away then and there. The models she told this to knew me, and thankfully came to me with these nonsense claims. We had in fact discussed cosmetic surgery, while talking about modeling, and she had looked up Before/After Breast Implant images. The conversation moved on to Labiaplasty, and we looked at a few of those images as well. So, there is an inch of truth, in the really awful lie she told about me. There was never any force involved, and she was the one controlling the computer the whole time. This took place in her home, on her computer, with her boyfriend and roommate both in the room. I decided it wasn’t worth the fight. I was eventually contacted by the roommate, who told me a very different story to the one Zoe had, and I let the issue drop. I was never paid for the images, because I respected her wishes and never published them. I still have the images in archive on my computer, because I archive everything. I was never reimbursed for the gas, wardrobe, or food I purchased on the trip. To someone starting their career, that was quite a dig to my wallet. 7 years later, Zoe is still BY FAR the worst client I have ever had. What does this story have to do with GamerGate? When I realized Locke was Zoe, I was disgusted to see she was still playing the same games. Stealing, cheating, lying and claiming to be victimized by anyone and everyone. Maybe she did stab some guy in the face, and maybe in the first week at every new job she had, some guy tried to extort sex from her. Maybe that doesn’t establish an MO on her part. But I know, I did nothing wrong to that woman, and I did not deserve to be lied about. I did not deserve to have my time and my money wasted, and even now, I wonder if opening my mouth about this means she will think of some new horse shit to spread about me to try to ruin my career. And that does seem to be her modus operandi. If this were a courtroom, I would call myself some sort of character witness, and I’ll let you all make of this what you will. Share it if you feel like it, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and watch her try to stomp out all the fires she has started by shitting on any more people’s careers. ‪#‎gamergate‬ ‪#‎zoequinn‬ *Edit Upon reading though archived emails, I discovered I can confirm and prove that she claimed to have killed the man she stabbed. (screenshot of email, irrelevant details redacted. https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/…/10714582_101522745870…)“

You can see the original post here- https://www.facebook.com/mallorie.nasrallah/posts/10152274324055882:0

Gotta be honest, Columbus’s undeniable dickery aside, I see 200-year-old monument destroyed and my entire feeling is

I know it’s not hard to point out reactionaries hypocrisy when it comes to like safe spaces or hug boxes or whatever but genuinely how much of an echo chamber do you have to exist in for you to think this is a reasonable thing to say

just ran across this perfect 2000-year-old portrait of a pet who knows what he did.

"Dog Mosaic," Ptolemaic period, 2nd century BCE, floor of a house in Alexandria, Egypt. 3.25x3.25m. (Pitcher is probably gold.)

i feel so bad for nikola tesla like imagine spending years beefing with a guy who has conned the public into believing he's some sort of supergenius when in reality it's his overworked employees developing all of his world-changing inventions and you end up dying broke and starving and alone and then 100 years later another guy cons the public into believing he's some sort of supergenius when in reality it's his overworked employees developing all of his world-changing inventions and he's doing it all IN YOUR NAME. he must be rolling in his grave like a fucking rotisserie chicken

While I kinda hate to add a giant block of text to Phil's beautiful explanation, if you want a more complex answer, here it is:

This is the box office chart on its opening weekend, new releases in bold:

1. The Expendables, $34 million

2. Eat Pray Love, $22 million

3. The Other Guys, $17 million

4. Inception, $11 million

5. Scott Pilgrim, $10 million

Different films attract different demographics, and a lot of Scott Pilgrim's were sucked away by its competition. Scott Pilgrim is a wacky, video game- and comic-book inspired romantic action comedy full of wild visual tricks, starring Michael Cera. Strangely, that doesn't appeal to everyone, but a lot of it is down to the other films.

The Expendables sounded like a spectacular idea, what with Stallone, Statham, Schwarzenegger, Willis, etc. in a violent, R-rated romp blessed with exceptional marketing; given the choice, older males flocked to that rather than the sillier, more romantic Scott Pilgram. (If you want the demographics, 61% of the audience was male, 60% over 25) Even if the movie ultimately stopped just short of delivering the goods, it had that first weekend in the bag.

Eat Pray Love was an adaptation of an incredibly popular book starring Julia Roberts, returning to the romantic comedy roots that made her so popular to begin with. In a choice between A) a romantic comedy that centered on a beloved actress, tackled relatable issues like depression and self-worth, and subtly indulged in a lot of fantasies that appeal to older women, and B) a flashy, video-game inspired fantasy about Michael Cera trying to win a girl's heart through fighting and modern indie rock The appeal for older women was naturally to Eat Pray Love. (in fact, 72% of its audience was women, 56% over 35)

As for teenager guys, the primary audience, a lot of them were showing up for the second weekend of the rather funny The Other Guys, which teamed Will Farrel with Mark Wahlberg, or finally catching up to (or watching for the second time) Inception, which was a word-of-mouth smash that, whatever its intellectual merits, was at the least a phenomenal action flick.

Finally, by the third weekend of August, most teen guys are a bit worn out from the deluge of movies targeting them through the summer and busy going back to school anyway; business really dies down around then.

On a cleaner weekend, it might have been an easier sell, but its wild genre-bending just didn't appeal to any individual audience as much as anything else.

And with the summer over, it's really hard for a non-drama release in the middle of August to catch on. There are exceptions (Superbad, Inglourious Basterds, District 9), but they're relatively rare. And with five wide releases on its second weekend, it didn't have much of a chance. For all that, $10 million does still seem a little on the low side, which suggests that the marketing couldn't figure out how to scale the cliffs it was facing.

The last piece of the puzzle is the film's quality - for all its dazzling visuals, originality, and clever comedy, it stops short of really connecting emotionally for most people, and that, more than anything, is what gets word-of-mouth going.

Which, as noted, is just too bad, because not only was it a good flick, but it should have been what launched Edgar Wright into the mainstream.

So why did the Scott Pilgrim movie flop?

Because not enough people bought tickets to see it. Which is sad, as it was pretty good.

i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

What should people from Eastern Europe do, should we prepare for war?

Is World war 3 coming now?

Taking these two questions together. I don't think it's the Third World War, though it's definitely a much more localized armageddon for Ukraine.

I'd improve cybersecurity and other methods to stop Russia's hybrid warfare doctrine, increase commitment to regular forces, improve dialogue and coordination with fellow allies to increase a deterrent effect. Help the Ukranian refugees how you can. Vote out the cowards and Putinites that are elected and shun the rest. Correct revisionist falsehoods that permeated Putin's speech from the Ukranian independent identity to Putin's excuses about NATO enlargement to the "denazification of Ukraine" pretext, flimsy even for an autocrat.

Thanks for the question, Anon and Eastern European Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

Imagine hearing about a play that ran for one night only.

Everything you know about it is second-hand at best. If you’re lucky, you might be able to talk to someone who saw it. If you’re really lucky, they’ll even be telling the truth. More likely, everything that comes to you is of the “I know a guy whose second cousin’s former roomate was in the audience” variety.

With a bit of digging, maybe you can get your hands on some of the props and costumes, though there’s nothing to tell you how they were used. Maybe even a few pages of the script - though as any student of theatre can tell you, what it says in the script and what actually went down on stage are often two very different things.

Now: imagine writing fanfic based on this play you’ve never seen and never will, without so much as a decent plot summary to guide you.

If that sounds reasonable to you, congratulations: you may have what it takes to be an historian.

Obligatory Oscar Predictions (now with gratuitous gifs!)

I’ll be belatedly posting my reviews of various movies including a top ten list over the next few weeks, but if I’m going to turn this into a consistent (mostly) movie review blog, I may as well start with the obvious.

BEST PICTURE

There are about a half-dozen that seem to be locks at this point -- Three Billboards, The Shape of Water, Dunkirk, The Post, Lady Bird, and Get Out. (if one is missing tomorrow morning, expect it to be the last, but I doubt it) 

First off, let’s pour one out for 2017, a year so bizarre and awesome that a fantasy about a mute woman having an affair with a fish-monster and a horror-comedy are front-runners. That’s like if the 1987 Best Picture nominees had been The Last Emperor, Hope and Glory, Broadcast News, Evil Dead II, and The Witches of Eastwick.

The remaining 3 or 4 slots are where it gets trickier.

Now, the Academy obviously isn’t cool enough to go for Wonder Woman, Logan, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and The Last Jedi. That said, if they do go for one of the critically beloved blockbusters, I’d bank on the first one, with Logan being an extremely dark horse. 

The remaining probable options are: Call Me By Your Name, I Tonya, The Darkest Hour, The Big Sick, Mudbound and Molly’s Game. All should get screenplay nominations and at least one acting nod; the question is just which of them are going to carry over to the big prize. 

The Big Sick mostly has the problem that there’s already three comedy slots taken between Three Billboards, Lady Bird, and Get  Out; they don’t typically go for one comedy, let alone a whole slate. Still, it was widely embraced enough that it certainly will have some momentum.

Call Me By Your Name is a good bet simply on the cynical account of being the serious gay romance of the year. I suspect its support will be better than for The Danish Girl but not as strong as Moonlight simply on account of it being much better than the former but not as great as the latter; that said, it’s lovingly crafted enough to push over the line, I suspect.

I, Tonya is probably a lock for Actress, and seems like the sort of film to get an extra boost on the power of that incredible lead performance; it helps that it’s a really good film that scores very strongly on feminist scales in a year where that’s going to be the groundswell in the Academy.

The Darkest Hour is trickier to guess; similarly, it’s a film built around one astounding performance, but isn’t nearly as strong as I, Tonya outside of Oldman Oldmaning the hell out of his best role in years.

Molly’s Game falls in the same category; Chastain is sensational, and I’m surprised Idris Elba doesn’t have more buzz and Costner doesn’t have any, but the movie itself is good, not great. Aaron Sorkin truly has a way with words, but as director, he’s a little too in love with his words, and too often doesn’t trust his visual telling of the story to carry it when he can dilute the impact with a 500 word speech explaining the images.

Finally, Mudbound has the severe disadvantage of Netflix’s hostility toward theaters and the traditional film business, which I suspect keeps them from really effectively campaigning. Although it’ll probably get noticed somewhere, the big prize will likely elude it.

FINAL CHOICE FOR BEST PICTURE: 

(in decreasing order of likeliness)

Three Billboards

The Shape of Water

Dunkirk

The Post

Lady Bird

Get Out

Call Me By Your Name

I, Tonya

The Big Sick

Wonder Woman

BEST DIRECTOR

The picture pool largely shows who’s in line, with the bottom three films unlikely to show up here. McDonough and Del Toro are locks, and Greta Gerwig probably is, as well. Christopher Nolan seems like he should be a lock, but you would have thought so for The Dark Knight and Inception, too; has the director’s branch has gotten over whatever their Nolan-hate? Conversely, Spielberg would normally seem to be a lock, but he has so many nominations over the years that he might seem too obvious a choice; would they be voting because he did such a great job, or just because he’s frickin’ Spielberg? (in this case, definitely the former; his work in The Post is masterful) Then there’s the question of whether Jordan Peele has even more momentum than he seems to have, and if Luca Guadagnino manages a spoiler. Peele and Nolan getting DGA nods suggests they have the strongest support among the directors; I’ll chose them, but won’t be shocked to see wither Spielberg or Gaudagnino on there. (call Patty Jenkins the one-in-a-million longshot)

Martin McDonough - Three Billboards

Guillermo Del Toro - The Shape of Water

Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird

Christopher Nolan - Dunkirk

Jordan Peele - Get Out

BEST ACTOR

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Timothy Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Tom Hanks, The Post

POSSIBLE SPOILERS: Denzel - Roman J Israel Esq. (though nobody seemed to like anything else about the movie); James Franco - The Disaster Artist (reports of his long-known douchey, misogynist behavior may keep him down, but then again, Casey Affleck); Hugh Jackman - either The Greatest Shomwan or Logan (having both in the mix probably kills his chances, and with The Greatest Showman embraced by audiences but loathed by critics, and Logan being a superhero movie released way back in Spring, it’s a hell of a longshot either way. I just really want him to get it for Logan.)

BEST ACTRESS

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Meryl Streep, The Post

SPOILERS: Jessica Chastain, Molly’s Game (honestly a tossup between her and Streep); Jude Dench, Victoria and Abdul (minor, barely seen film, but it’s Dench); Michelle Williams, All the Money in the World; Diane Kruger, In the Fade

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

Armie Hammer, Call Me By Your Name

Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards

SPOILERS: Richard Jenkins or, less likely, Michael Shannon, The Shape of Water; Michael Stuhlberg, Call Me By Your Name; Idris Elba, Molly’s Game; Patrick Stewart, Logan (I will mention Logan every chance I get in an effort to will nominations into existence) 

(and yes, that gif is from Iron Man 2)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Allison Janey, I, Tonya

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound

Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Holly Hunter, The Big Sick

SPOILERS: Hong Chau, Downsizing (but everyone seems to have hated the movie otherwise); Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread; Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip (if there’s an out of nowhere nod); Kristin Scott Thomas, The Darkest Hour; Michelle Pfieffer, mother!; Dafne Keene, Logan (see above)

OTHER VARIOUS NOTES

Murder on the Orient Express was one of my favorite films this year, but it seems to have been largely forgotten by the various awards communities. Still, it should at least get nominations for Costume Design and Production Design, and just possibly Cinematography. Tragically, there is no category for “Best Mustache”, a category this film would not only win but fill all the nominations.

The Shape of Water, apparently, is not even being considered for best makeup for reasons that I can’t possibly fathom. It will be one of the films that really cleans up in the tech categories, though.

Star Wars, Wonder Woman, Beauty and the Beast, and Dunkirk will dominate the technical awards. War For the Planet of the Apes, the best in the series since the original in ‘68 and one of the highlights of the year, will be ghettoed into just Visual Effects.