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nerdsofafeather_feed) wrote2025-12-17 12:00 amIt’s the end of an era and My Hero Academia sticks the landing in the final season
It’s hard to believe the iconic anime My Hero Academia has come to an end. After multiple feature films and eight seasons of escalating battles, emotional struggles, physical loss, and societal betrayals, the series has wrapped up with a satisfying conclusion that doesn’t hesitate to lean into the imperfections of the characters and the reality of loss, while still leaving viewers with a profound sense of hopefulness. The long-running series follows the adventures of Izuku (Deku) Midoriya, a determined boy whose dream of being a hero inspires a diverse range of heroes, antagonists, and ordinary people, while he battles his own inner demons. MHA started out as a traditional underdog shonen anime with bright animation, fantastical character designs, and a feel-good plot. It seemed to be the kind of comfort adventure anime to enjoy without a lot of emotional exhaustion or complexity. Soon retail stores and cosplayers were diving into the show’s colorful palette and fun costumes. But early on, MHA began to dig deeper into its characters’ psyches and into the problems of families and of society as a whole. In between the energetic fight scenes and inspiring training montages, the show dealt with child abuse, domestic violence, racism, and mistrust of the government. After eight seasons and a significant last episode time skip, the characters grow from optimistic children into mature, flawed, emotionally complex adults. The last episode delivered an unexpectedly thoughtful and quietly powerful ending, one which embraced both imperfection and hope in its final message that everyone can (and needs to be) a hero on some level. This full-circle moment from the first episode of the first season was a powerful way to end the saga and answer the question of what it really means to be a hero.
[Spoilers for earlier seasons] My Hero Academia is the story of a near-future version of Earth, where a genetic mutation eventually causes most humans to be born with some variation of special powers (“quirks”). Those with particularly strong powers are sent to academies to be trained as licensed superheroes (simply called “heroes”). The protagonist, Izuku Midoriya (a.k.a. Deku), is one of the few children born with no special power (quirk) at all. Not even a minor one. But he idolizes the ridiculously brash and popular number one ranked hero, Toshinori (a.k.a. All-Might), and dreams of somehow becoming a hero to fight the violent superpowered villains who plague the country. After a dangerous act of bravery, Izuku is secretly gifted a transferable superpower from All-Might, who can no longer fully maintain it due to a critical injury. Izuku now has the potential for super strength, super speed, and super agility. He enrolls in UA, the top hero academy, where he trains his body to accommodate and control the enormous and dangerous power he’s been gifted. While at UA, he builds bonds with his teachers and friendships with his fellow students, who have a range of powers, personalities, and complicated backstories. But the idealistic setup is upended when a group of superpowered villains directly attack the children at the school, leading to a long term-battle over the next seven seasons that exposes upsetting truths and pits the young heroes not just against the villains but also against society itself and their own personal traumas.
MHA starts out as a kid-friendly, colorful, inspiring hero adventure with a simplistic plot: heroes versus villains and natural disasters. In fact, the main antagonists are a criminal group simply known unironically as “The League of Villains.” But, like all good shonen, the story quickly takes an intense turn. Deku’s powerful but stoic classmate Shoto is a victim of child abuse with a disturbing backstory which involves domestic violence by his father, the number two rank hero, against his mother, who is also a hero. Deku also encounters a child, Eri, who appears to be kidnapped and abused, and he struggles to help her in the face of societal denials that anything is wrong. When the heroes lose a major battle, much of society turns against them and against Deku in particular. The country begins to question the usefulness and trustworthiness of heroes and the government. Viewers see how easily people can be manipulated when fear and distrust take over. The fantastical character design of some of the heroes turns into an exploration of racism, as Deku learns about the bigotry faced by his classmates who are heteromorphs, those whose quirks create unusual physical features. We also see Deku’s journey to physical and emotional resilience while holding on to his core values. And we see Deku’s childhood friend and antagonist Bakugo progress from a loudmouth bully to becoming a true hero who is willing to sacrifice everything.
Building on all this, the final season dives into lots of climactic emotional intensity and plenty of powerful moments, including the final critical battles against the two main villains, with Deku versus the tragic and tortured Tomura, and Bakugo versus the sociopathic All For One. The final storytelling is elevated, showing the full heroic redemption arc of former antagonist Bakugo. We also see Deku’s maturity as he faces devastating physical damage and a high cost for his choices. The animation and music are powerful, and the character design of the two final heroes is symbolic, making them look more serious, mature, and less cartoonish in a way that reflects their inner development and the intensity of this final fight for their lives. The entire UA class gets in on the action, and the final battles also provide an opportunity for cameos from prior side characters from the MHA feature films or from earlier seasons. So many familiar faces cheering on the heroes is a nice way to signal the end of the larger story.
Unfortunately, a drawback of the series has been the two-dimensional treatment of the main villain All For One. However, in the final season, through a flashback, we finally learn the full backstory of All For One (a.k.a. Zen) and his peaceful younger brother Yoichi, the original owner of Deku's transferrable power. We see how their desperate childhood led to abuse, violence, and to Zen’s obsession with power and control over Yoichi. That twisted love and obsession ultimately fueled a decades-long battle between the brothers that reshaped the fate of the heroes and the country. There is a nice symmetry in the brutal Zen having the power to take while the kindhearted Yoichi has the power to give, with those opposite concepts defining “evil” versus “good” in the series.
For a show that started out playfully, the ultimate story arc and messaging became surprisingly insightful, particularly in this final season. The perpetually optimistic Deku had dark moments in prior seasons and eventually became an outcast vigilante. In season 8, Deku again experiences significant loss, and he is forced to make peace with an imperfect reality. In an intriguing scene, Deku talks with Spinner, an incarcerated villain, who calls Deku a murderer. Instead of arguing or crying about it, Deku calmly admits that he is indeed a killer when needed. The two have an odd conversation that acknowledges their significantly different worldviews but sparks inspiration in both of them.
The final season emphasizes the need for a cross-section of people to create the world we want to live in. Not just physically powerful fighters, but also engineers, teachers, people of different abilities, and ordinary members of society, because, as the final season shows us, physical power may be flashy and fun, but it is fleeting. Eight seasons ago, MHA began with a tearful Deku asking the cliched question, Can I be a hero? In a key moment in the final episode, two random characters, an aged grandmother and an abused boy, have an interaction that answers that question: Not only can ordinary people be heroes, but they need to be. Not in flashy ways, but in small, ordinary acts of compassion and courage. In the final season, many of the former heroes have suffered irreparable injuries and are gone from the traditional arena. But in that full-circle moment with two random people, we see the way small acts of kindness or courage can literally change the world. A major theme of the show is to go beyond our comfort level to do the right thing. Hopefully, it will help all of us to better understand what it truly means to be a hero.
Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.
Highlights:
POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-12-17 03:41 am
John Wick didn’t have to go so hard. It could have just been about what it says it’s about: A retired bad guy named John Wick (Keanu Reeves), who left the life for the simple pleasures of marriage, embarks on a path of revenge against those who defiled the memory and final gift of his wife. Simple! Easy! It could be a character piece, really, a sort of latter-day companion to films like Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey or even Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.
Had it gone that route, maybe we’d be talking about how the film was a dramatic breakthrough for Reeves, whose quiet and mournful face speaks few words but makes them count, and how the story is a metaphor for, oh, I don’t know, how the struggle for personal peace in this world is a struggle against what makes us all so regrettably human. Yeah. Something like that.
John Wick could have been one of those solemn respected-but-neglected indie movies that makes, like, $6 million in the theaters and then get buried in the carousel of whatever streaming service it lands on, and no one would ever much think of it again. And you know what? That would have been fine. Just fine.
But, no. Not John Wick. John Wick did what it said it was about, for about fifteen minutes, and then it goes fully, completely, absolutely apeshit bonkers. John Wick a retired bad guy? No. Not good enough. He is the retired bad guy, the bad guy who is such a myth and legend that all the other bad guys lose bladder control at the mere mention of his name. John Wick handy with gun? Motherfucker, he can kill you and two of your closest friends with a single No. 2 pencil. John Wick a part of the mob? The mob wishes. He’s an A-lister in a whole clandestine world of assassins, who have their own special hotels and pay for everything with gold coins.
Also: He looks like Keanu Reeves. That shit’s just unfair.
None of the side trappings of John Wick make any sort of sense, and they make even less sense as the series of films this one started goes along. The assassination service industry as represented in these films is ridiculously outsized; there can’t possibly be that much demand, and if there was, then a whole list of really prominent people would be dead already (and not just the people you wish were dead, but also all the people that all the people you hate wish were dead too). An entire hotel that caters only to assassins? That in later movies we see is actually a chain, like a Murder Marriot? The old-fashioned assassin telephone exchange, staffed entirely by tattooed ladies dressed like sassy 50s diner waitresses? I mean, I don’t get me wrong, I love all of it, it is totally a scene. But you have to know I have questions.
These questions don’t get answers. Indeed, these questions don’t have answers. We will never get a coherent explanation of the Economics of the Wickiverse, no matter how many YouTube videos might get made on the subject. This universe is not designed to make sense, except in one highly-focused way: To put John Wick in the center of it, and make him fight his way out, and to let us watch, intently, as he does.
Make no mistake: It’s the gun-fu that makes these movies go. John Wick’s director is Chad Stahelski, who made his cinematic bones as a stunt coordinator on dozens of films, and was also Keanu Reeves’ stunt double on The Matrix, which is where, if memory serves, the two of them first connected. The film’s producer and co-creator, David Leitch, has a similar and often overlapping stunt pedigree with Stahelski. Given this, it was never going to be in the cards that John Wick was actually going to be a quiet character drama. It was always going to be an all-shooting, all-punching, all-stabbing fight-fest from the word go, with just barely enough character development in those first few minutes to make it all make sense — or, if not make sense, at least give you the ostensible reasons why John Wick shoots the ever-living hell out of New York City, and most of the bad dudes in it.
It has to be said that Keanu Reeves is so very perfectly cast. There is these days a bit of a Cult of Keanu, and not without reason: Reeves is by every indication a genuinely stand-up guy, the sort of fellow who will give his bonuses for the Matrix movies to its crew so that they know how much he appreciates them, who dates and seems to be in love with an age-appropriate partner, who is willing to make fun of himself and not take himself too seriously, and who quietly donates millions to charity, and so on. He’s a good man, not just a good meme. He is all of these things (at least, apparently)! But he is not an actor with a huge amount of range. In that range: Excellent! Out of that range: a bit bogus, alas.
What he is, however, is a presence. Let him just be on a screen, and you can’t take your eyes off him.
Which is what John Wick does. The movie rarely asks him to speak more than one sentence at a time, one perfectly serviceable monologue excepted. All the rest of the time he is either glowering mournfully, or balletically slaughtering an entire stunt crew. Reeves 100% put in the work for the John Wick films; the internet is replete with videos of him practicing with live ammunition and being a hell of a shot. These films look like they actually hurt, and even though Reeves has a stunt double for this film (Jackson Spidell, take a bow, that is, if you can still move), he’s still pretty clearly getting banged up a bit as things go along. His character is described as an unstoppable force, and Reeves’ presence can absolutely sell that. This is not an action film where you feel the lead actor would wilt at an ingrown toenail, or where you can see the cut where the star is replaced by the stunt double. The cut is there, sure; Reeves makes it feel like it is not.
Reeves’ career was revitalized by John Wick; between the Matrix movies and this was a bit of a career fallow period, where things either didn’t quite work at the time (Constantine, which needed home viewing to buff its reputation) or were just, uhhhh, kind of quirky and seen by dozens. If Reeves’ ever worried about this I didn’t hear about it; he seems a little too copacetic to get worked up about such things. But as someone who’s enjoyed his screen presence since the days of Parenthood and, of course, the Bill and Ted movies, it was nice to see him ride yet another wave of popularity. It seems like everyone else in the world basically feels the same way.
There are four John Wick films, each more unhinged than the one before (and rumors of a fifth, even if it would make no sense whatsoever to do it, other than the usual “for money”). As stunt-filled gunstravaganzas, they are all state of the art, and as good as it gets. But it’s this first one that’s the one I like to rewatch. It’s tight, it’s fast, it knows what it’s about, and it doesn’t get too far up its own ass about its mythos and means. It’s a guy, getting back at another a guy, for messing up his peace. And blasting a few dozen others guys on the way to do that.
Hey, sometimes it’s like that. And John Wick really is the best version of that. As I said, this movie didn’t have to go so hard. But I’m pretty happy it did.
— JS
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-16 02:12 pm
galacticjourney_feed) wrote2025-12-16 05:00 pmBy Jessica Holmes My first mistake was hoping this serial would eventually get good. My second was my terrible habit of procrastinating on writing about things I don’t really like. Or things I do like. My third was giving this serial enough thought (over the course of said procrastination) that I came to the conclusion … Continue reading [December, 16, 1970] Mistakes Were Made (Timeslip: The Time Of The Ice Box [Parts 4-6])
The post [December, 16, 1970] Mistakes Were Made (<i>Timeslip</i>: The Time Of The Ice Box [Parts 4-6]) appeared first on Galactic Journey.
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-12-16 02:38 pm
Someone commented on my last post that one thing that helps them feel like a home is a home is putting books into bookshelves, and I must say they were totally right! A beautifully arranged and well stocked bookshelf makes a world of difference, and I thought now would be a perfect time to show off some books I got recently. (Also, thank you to everyone that commented such supp0rtive, nice messages! It really helped a lot and I appreciate all of you.)
When I was in San Francisco last month, I stopped by Pegasus Books, a bookstore that sells tons of used and new books, as well as lots of book adjacent goods like notebooks, puzzles, and greetings cards.
Though I was tempted to go wild, I knew whatever I bought I had to put in my suitcase, and by the time I made that realization I had already picked up two very bulky and heavy books, so I started to consider my choices more carefully.
That being said, here’s the books I ended up with:
And for the non-books:
Not pictured is a small, floral embroidered notebook I picked up for a friend, and a soft-bound notebook with “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” that I also sent to a friend (with an accompanying Great Wave notecard from that box of Hokusai notecards!). Also not pictured is the book I bought for The Prisoners Literature Project, an organization that believes everyone has the right to read, and you can buy books for incarcerated people at Pegasus Books! I don’t remember the name of what I bought, but it was just a paperback of forty classic short stories. Variety is the spice of life, after all.
So let’s talk about what is pictured. The only new book I bought was Something From Nothing, which is a book that literally just released last month and was something on my birthday and Christmas list. It’s a book that focuses on using pantry staples and making good, home cooked meals from simple ingredients. I figured I could use it since I’m about to cooking at home a lot more often than I have in the past.
Next up is The Foreign Cinema Cookbook: Recipes and Stories Under the Stars. I had no idea what The Foreign Cinema is, but it was the sheer size and heftiness of this book that caught my eye. It’s definitely poking into coffee-table-book size, and it was only eighteen dollars despite the inside of the book saying it was $40.
I ended up looking up the Foreign Cinema and finding out that it’s a restaurant in the area that also screens movies that opened in 1999! The book is written by the owners who are also the chefs, and has 125 of their signature recipes from the movie-focused restaurant. I love how beautiful this book is, it has some seriously stunning photos and extremely intriguing recipes in it. It was a steal, for sure.
Palestine on a Plate was prominently displayed right in front of the cookbook section, and there were actually two copies of it. I can honestly say I have never had Palestinian food, and even worse than that I realized I probably couldn’t name any dishes the country is known for. I feel like there’s no better time to invest in and learn about Palestinian culture, food, and history. It’s also a beautifully photographed book with absolutely incredible sounding recipes. I am looking forward to making recipes from such a rich and incredible culture.
If you’re curious about the non-books, I honestly can’t tell you why I was so interested in chili pepper notecards. I just thought the art was so cool and fun, and I’m always in the market for more cards to send to people (I say that as I have neglected my pen pals for uhh two years now). The pickleball notebook is actually for my cousin who loves pickleball, but don’t tell her because it’s supposed to be a Christmas gift! As for the Hokusai print notecards, again I always want more cards with cool art, and honestly I just think he has such an awesome style.
So there you have it! I’m not even remotely surprised that basically the only thing I left with was cookbooks and notecards. If I ever walk into a bookstore and don’t buy a cookbook, just know I’ve been replaced by a robot or alien.
Have you been to Pegasus Books before? Have you heard of Foreign Cinema? Do you like Hokusai art? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-16 08:51 amnerdsofafeather_feed) wrote2025-12-16 12:00 amThe Disco Space Opera (a.k.a. You Sexy Thing) universe continues with more relationship-based SF, this time at an amazing space station
The crew of the You Sexy Thing has been through a lot in the previous two books, often self-inflicted. Like when Talon decided to make a clone of Thorn, the twin brother he misses so dearly. Or the often untrustworthy plans of archaeologist (and thief) Jezli. Or the drama-inducing hijinks orchestrated by the You Sexy Thing herself.
But now money is tight (again), and the best chance for the ship and crew to get money for needed repairs and just remain flightworthy is to visit the very expensive Coralind Station. The group mind find some peace in the gardens there, a chance to make some money with a restaurant, and get themselves back on their feet. Tubal Last, their enemy, is still out there, and is up to something—after all, The Devil’s Gun didn’t work when fired last time against him. But this time, the plan is for a peaceful rest at the station.
Things, once again, will not quite go to plan.
This is the story of Rumor Has It, the third book in Cat Rambo’s space opera universe.
The magic and secret sauce of Rambo’s work is her work on characters, first and foremost. Given that this is a crew that has been fused together by a variety of circumstances and adventures, it’s not a unified whole, but rather much more like a trail mix of a variety of ingredients, some of whom do not always get along with each other; and there are also centrifugal forces threatening to rearrange or break up our set of characters. In the main, all the action and drama is driven by the constraints and circumstances forced upon the crew and by letting them bounce off of it and each other. While seeing Niko have to navigate the bureaucracy of the bank is fun, it in is moments like the conflict between Thorn and the clone of his brother, who calls himself Rebbe, where the real strength of the series lies. Given that the ship is parked at the station and various groups go out into it, we get a variety of these types of character moments and dramas and scenes between members of this found family as they try to make their way.
And this is where I want to bring up the whole idea of Found Family. This is where Rambo excels, this group of misfits that the “Ten Minute Admiral” has indeed cobbled together (with some losses as well as additions) over the course of three books. They squabble, fight, protect and love each other with all the drama and verve of the archetypal found family in space that we need and deserve.¹
And one further joy, speaking of love and relationships, is the gleeful and unapologetic queernormness of the characters, both aboard the You Sexy Thing and in the characters they meet. This is the space opera found family where you can much more easily find someone to identify with, given the panoply and diversity of relationships, genders, and identities we get on the ship (and the ship itself as a sentient character to boot). And with Rebbe, as mentioned above, we get the whole interrogation of finding and forging an identity, especially when others already have strong opinions on what that identity should be, whether Rebbe likes it or not (he does, in fact, not).
Hand in hand with these strong characters is the rich worldbuilding of Coralind Station, a lush place with a large number of gardens of various kinds where, again, much of the plot and character drama takes place. Why have a character blow up in a sterile white 2001: A Space Odyssey space when you can instead have it happen in a lovely, flowering garden? Or a garden devoted to water features? Or any number of a hundred types of garden. We get descriptions and scenes set in a few of these, and mentions of a bunch of more, and a strong implication that the rest of the ones unmentioned are as scenic and amazing as the places we do see. Rambo expertly has a playground of the imagination and describes what we see and what we might see in a way that the reader can imagine more beyond the boundaries of the actual novel.
So, food. Readers of Rambo’s previous two novels will not be surprised that her focus on food has returned. The plot revolves around yet another pop-up restaurant and trying to adapt to their most challenging and biggest stage yet. And even amid restaurant shenanigans, sharing food is a bonding event throughout the book that helps develop the characters and the world in an engaging and immersive way. The preparing and sharing of food is shown as an act of intimacy, of love, and it is something more science fiction could stand to do, even today, decades removed from food pills.
One last thing I want to mention, something I wish more writers and publishers would embrace for series like this, is keeping the reader up to date. It had been a while between my reading of Devil’s Gunand this volume, Rumor Has It, and while some things were crystal clear in my mind, other details were somewhat less so. Fortunately, the author provides a recap of the plot in the first two books, as well as “Where are they now?” descriptions of the characters. I found this enormously helpful in getting myself settled into the Disco Space Opera verse and rolling right into their latest adventure.
So the obvious question is: Could you in fact start here if you didn’t want to start with the series? I suppose in theory you could; besides that opening forematter, the author does a lot of good in folding in previous plot and character beats into the present narrative. But such a reader would miss some things—like just why Tubal Last is such a threat, or the character development that the ship as well as the other characters have undergone to get to this point when they visit the station. I think it’s doable but not ideal (I’d point you toward You Sexy Thing and let you take it from there).
The series by its nature is episodic and (so far) continuing. Given the denouement of this book and how things are shaken up (yes, yet again), I look forward to more novels in the Disco Space Opera verse.
Highlights:
Reference: Rambo, Cat. Rumor Has It [Tor, 2024].
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.
¹ So I keep seeing a certain ’90s television show (with a movie) that keeps getting brought up again and again as the model for Found Family on a spacecraft among the stars. And I am here to tell you, friends, that the You Sexy Thing is a far, far more relevant, queer-friendly, diverse, and interesting found family to use for your comp than that show. You can’t take the skies from Niko Larsen and her crew.
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ladybusiness2025-12-15 09:54 pmscalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-12-16 12:54 am
For more than two weeks, I had it on my schedule to write about This is Spinal Tap today, December 15, 2025. The day before this, director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Singer were (allegedly) murdered in their home. I sat in my office a lot of the day trying to decide whether to keep this on the schedule, whether to delay it, or whether to remove it from the list of comfort watches entirely, to be replaced by some other movie. I can’t pretend that Reiner’s death isn’t on my mind right now. I can’t pretend that it doesn’t make me terribly sad. I can’t pretend that a vast number of other people feel similarly, not even counting those who knew and loved him personally.
Here’s the thing. A day like this is exactly the day for a comfort watch, a movie that can give you joy at the lowest of times. This is Spinal Tap offers a lot of joy. It is one of the funniest movies ever made, a movie that can make you laugh until you cry, and also, make you laugh even if you have been crying. It is a film for a moment like this, when one feels bereft and out to sea and nothing makes sense.
So, you know what, fuck it. Whaddya say, let’s boogie.
Rob Reiner, it should be noted, was a master of comfort watch genre. When Harry Met Sally? Total romantic comfort watch. The American President? Total political comfort watch (although harder to get into at the moment, given the state of the White House). Stand By Me? Absolute “coming of age” comfort watch. And, of course, The Princess Bride, arguably the Greatest Comfort Watch of All Time, as I have essayed elsewhere. There’s probably no other single filmmaker whose entire canon is so damn rewatchable. This is not a skill that necessarily wins awards (Reiner was nominated for the Oscar only once, for A Few Good Men, a true legal comfort watch), but it is a skill that endears a filmmaker to their audience and peers. Rob Reiner is beloved, by fans and colleagues, like few modern filmmakers are.
It all had to start somewhere, cinematically speaking, and Spinal Tap was where it began, Reiner’s first feature film as director. It was not the first “mockumentary” ever made, or even the first rock-themed mockumentary: Eric Idle’s All You Need is Cash, which followed a Beatles knockoff band called The Rutles, for one, precedes it by six years. But it’s the one that really seemed to stick in the public consciousness. Riffing off the Beatles is one thing; that’s a known quantity. Spinal Tap, now. No one quite knew what they were getting into with this one.
The premise: Filmmaker Marty DiBergi (Reiner himself) documents the 1982 US tour of Spinal Tap, a British hard rock band, whose new album, Smell the Glove, is on the verge of release. The band consists of singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), plus touring keyboardist Viv Savage (David Kaff) and drummer Mick Shrimpton (RJ Parnell), to whom one should not get too attached. As the film starts, there’s a big launch party and a mostly successful concert, and everything seems to be going well. And then…
Well, and then everything that can goes wrong starts to go wrong, and in truly awful ways: Cover art controversies, dropped tour dates, venue navigation issues, technical problems involving Stonehenge, the list goes on. The band and their manager Ian (Tony Hendra) try to weather this all while DiBergi gets it on film, interspersed with archival footage and interview scenes in which the band are asked to explain, among other things, what’s happened to all those drummers over the years.
The movie is famously almost entirely improvised, mostly Reiner, McKean, Guest and Shearer but also, one assumes, by the supporting cast as well, who are (generally) not saying as many funny things, but are certainly giving the band members things to play off of. What are not improvised are the songs, both the “in concert” and archival numbers, in which the members of the band, their actors all also actual musicians, are playing their parts. The “live” song as the full-fledged Spinal Tap are indeed loud and ridiculous, in a way that’s only a smidge off from actual early 80s hard rock and heavy metal. But for my money the real gold is in the archival bits, where Spinal Tap, with earlier members and earlier names, surf through whichever rock genres are of the moment, from Merseybeat to psychedelia.
In one beautiful bit, David and Nigel talk about the the first song they ever wrote together, and even sing a bit of it, a little snippet of skiffle called “All the Way Home.” It is, unreservedly, lovely, and the best song in the film. In that one moment, we learn something really important about David and Nigel (and by extension, the band): They in fact have the capacity to be really good musicians, and have had that capacity right from the start. But then rock n’ roll kind of got in the way.
Spinal Tap is about a lot of mostly small things, but what it is mostly about is the relationship of David and Nigel (with Derek, who in another life would be a weird mead-swilling druid lurking in a valley, there for non-sequitur pseudo-philosophy). David and Nigel are two blokes who knew each other since childhood, trying to stay friends when everything is falling apart around them. Hilariously so, sure, which is great for us. But for them, it’s their lives, and while other things are played for laughs, the way these two feel about each other is the film’s unexpectedly serious emotional core. You might not notice that, the first two or three or eleven times you watch the movie. But look for it the next time you watch it. It’s there.
This film is beloved of cinema fans and lovers of comedy, but the people who really seem to love it are musicians, particularly of the 70s and 80s rock era, many of whom experienced in real life the various mishaps Spinal Tap have fictionally. Ozzy Osbourne is legendarily supposed have thought the film was an actual documentary the first time he watched it, and honestly, if anyone was like to have these sort of touring misfortunes befall him, it would be Ozzy.
Far from being offended that McKean, Guest and Shearer were taking the piss at rock, hard rock musicians embraced the trio and the band — in 1985, in the midst of the “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and “We Are The World” era of charity singles, heavy metal and hard rock bands came together as Hear N’ Aid to make their own charity single, “Stars.” Who was there alongside members of Dio, Judas Priest, Motley Crue and Quiet Riot? Why, Spinal Tap, of course!
For a fictional band, Spinal Tap has been prolific, with four albums in total, two of which are independent of a film. There were few actual tours in there as well, with McKean, Guest and Shearer playing their respective characters to much acclaim. There have been other successful fictional bands, from the Monkees to Huntr/x, but no one else has so successfully made the leap into being beloved after being portrayed as so, well, stupid. Spinal Tap is the best proof out there that hard rock and heavy metal fans are in on the joke, and love it.
Four decades (and one year) after This is Spinal Tap, Reiner, McKean, Guest and Shearer reunited for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which was about the hapless-yet-storied band reuniting for one last (contractually obliged) show. We know now that this is the last feature film Reiner would ever make, although there is apparently a Spinal Tap concert film film completed as well (Spinal Tap at Stonehenge: The Final Finale). Either way, Reiner’s film career is bookended by this fabulous, ridiculous band, doing their thing to the delight, confusion and hearing damage of fans.
It’s bittersweet and also unexpectedly lovely. How many of us get to go back to where we began? How many of us truly get to come full circle in our careers? Rob Reiner, who created some of the best, most entertaining and enduring films in his era of Hollywood, has done what David and Nigel sang first and best. He has come, truly, all the way home.
— JS
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-15 02:02 pm
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-12-15 04:42 pmI don’t have much to add about Rob Reiner and wife Michelle Singer’s shocking death that other people haven’t said better, likewise any more to add about his career and political activism. It’s clear he was a good man and a very good filmmaker. What I will say is that very few people, much less filmmakers, had the sort of career run that he had as a director between 1984 and 1992: This is Spinal Tap. The Sure Thing. Stand by Me. The Princess Bride. When Harry Met Sally. Misery. A Few Good Men.
I mean, come on. With the exception of The Sure Thing, every single one of those is a stone classic, and The Sure Thing is still pretty good! It made a star out of John Cusack! There are things we still say because Rob Reiner directed the film those words were in: “This one goes to 11.” “As you wish.” “You can’t handle the truth,” and so on. You could go a whole day talking to people by only quoting Rob Reiner films and you could absolutely get away with it. No disrespect to Stephen King, Aaron Sorkin, William Goldman, Nora Ephron, etc who wrote the words, obviously. It’s Reiner who gave those words the platform to become immortal.
It’s odd and in retrospect a little enraging that in that entire run of films, Reiner was nominated for an Oscar only once, as a producer on A Few Good Men, and not ever since then. One sole Oscar nomination, not only for his own work, but for the work his production company had a hand in. Of course others were nominated because they were in or worked on his films and Kathy Bates even won, for Misery. But for Reiner himself, that one single nomination. It’s a reminder that what wins awards, and what stays in people’s hearts and minds, are sometimes very different things when it comes to movies.
If you want to know who Rob Reiner was as a filmmaker, here he is:
The beloved man who comes to you at a low point, spins you a tale, and then, when it’s done and you say to him that you would be happy to hear another story sometime, says “as you wish.” Rob Reiner’s work was and is beloved and it will last because of it.
He did good. He’s going to be missed. He is missed. This hurts.
— JS
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-15 09:33 amWhich 2025 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
1 (4.5%)
Extremophile by Ian Green
0 (0.0%)
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
1 (4.5%)
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
14 (63.6%)
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
14 (63.6%)
Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by Maud Woolf
0 (0.0%)
nerdsofafeather_feed) wrote2025-12-15 12:00 amImagine Pinky and the Brain, minus the comedy, plus lots and lots of gore
Rats are fast learners, can survive on almost any food, can adapt to almost every climate, can squeeze into almost any space, and reproduce amazingly fast. The number of rats in the world is around the same as the total human population.
Fear the day they organize.
In the novel Wrath, written as a collaboration between a PhD geneticist and a veteran horror author, a cutting-edge biotech company has—sigh—disrupted the fancy pet market. After launching a series of transgenic novelties such as pretty glowing fish, chattier parrots, and ponies that are more pleasant to ride (not to mention a few off-the-books critters for the US Army), its newest creation is sure to catapult it to financial superstardom: a breed of rats with human genes for intelligence. Rat voices are too high-pitched for the human ear, so these smart rats come with a tablet app for them to type their thoughts. It’s the perfect companion for anyone who ever wished their pet could talk back.
Somehow the genius techbro didn’t expect the smart rat to form an opinion on the ethics of animal experimentation.
It’s become difficult to write a compelling techbro without resorting to the same tics of personality that we all know and hate. Our fancy pet salesman Noah is interchangeable with every other techbro you’ve met: a proud workaholic with a short temper, a monumental ego and no tether to the real world. If he sets a launch date for a new product, it absolutely must be met, quality control be damned. In several flashbacks (which could have been placed at better locations in the novel to improve its pacing), we learn about his scary, violent childhood and the small town life he left behind to dedicate himself to making piles and piles of money. Now he has everything, but he feels chronically dissatisfied because he never learned to connect to other people, and he simply doesn’t register the humanity of anyone on a lower income bracket. He spent his youth grinding his way to the top of the food chain, and now sits there alone.
His accomplice in the fancy pet business is Sienna, a genetic engineer who believes in the mission of improving animals with almost religious zeal. She has invented a practically flawless technique of gene editing that gives much more predictable results than CRISPR, so whereas Noah is the public face that gives carefully tested speeches to move the masses toward needing more transgenic pets, Sienna is the brains of the operation. Unfortunately, her backstory is rather uninspired: her obsession with curing her infertility strained her marriage to its breaking point, and now she makes creatures in the lab to replace the children she can’t have. It’s tiresome that in the 21st century, in a novel that isn’t about motherhood, the only prominent female character is defined entirely by her desire for motherhood. More attention could have been given to her world-saving ambitions, which are only mentioned in a mocking tone.
Another point of view we follow is that of Prez, an experienced rat catcher who ends up employed as chief of security at Noah’s lab and always has relevant rat-related trivia to contribute when the story needs to explain a concept to the reader.
And then we have a lucky random passerby: Dallas, a boy whose miscalibrated hearing aids allow him to hear the transgenic rats’ high-pitched pleas for help. After finding himself in the right place at the right time, he rescues the star specimen that Noah was planning to showcase at a huge event, with two main consequences: Noah’s company suffers a costly public humiliation, and the smart rat gets a quick tour of how badly we’ve been treating other species. When this rat makes contact with the millions of fellow rats that inhabit New York, humankind’s thus far uncontested supremacy will topple.
The novel is practically divided in two parts, before and after Dallas rescues this rat. In the first part, we follow Noah’s despotic rule over his tiny kingdom, peppered with too many flashbacks that flesh out characterization at the cost of an awkward narrative rhythm. In the second part, we’re introduced to the rat as another narrator, a voice whose quickly growing intelligence is skillfully conveyed via increasingly complex sentences. The eventual revenge of ratkind takes up a lengthy portion of the book, and it generously splatters the page with countless slit throats, torn ears, ripped fingers, gouged eyes, and furry wave after furry wave of unrelenting, methodical, sharp-toothed hatred.
The way the conflict resolves feels a bit too convenient, almost frictionless, but it doesn’t erase the effect on the reader’s mind of the horrible images of a New York overrun with gray blankets of rats filling the streets and mutilating any human body they find. Next time you meet a rat in the city, maybe try to not give it a reason to hold a grudge against you. Who knows what secret conversations they’re having in the sewers.
Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.
Reference: Moalem, Shäron and Kraus, Daniel. Wrath [Union Square & Co., 2022].
POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.
scalziwhatever_feed) wrote2025-12-15 12:57 am
As mentioned several times before, I used to be a professional film critic, leaving the job in early 1996 to take a job at America Online, which at the time was the new hotness in the exciting field of online services (it’s been a while, yes). When I left the reviewing job, I went from watching six or seven movies a week to… none. I had a serious movie-watching detox for several months, during which time I focused on my new job, read some books, appeared on Oprah, and did all those other sorts of things people do when they’re not watching movies. What film finally got my ass back in a theater chair months later? Twister. It was a good call for a re-entry back into the world of cinema.
Not because it was a great film — it’s fine! — or a classic film — it’s really not! — but because it was a “B+” sort of film, a summer entertainment that had lots of fun action, an occasional bit of better-than-average acting, cool state-of-the-art-at-the-time special effects, and some memorable scenes (“we got cows!”). It’s unapologetically a popcorn movie, with lots of butter and maybe, just maybe, a dash of fancy salt. It looked good on big screens, but it also looked good on small screens, where it was, famously, the first major studio film release in that revolutionary new format: The DVD.
The story is easy to follow, too. Weather scientist Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) is about to lead her seriously rag-tag team of University of Oklahoma grad students on a quest to map the interior of a tornado, when her soon-to-be ex-husband Bill (Bill Paxton), shows up in his new truck, with his new fiancée (Jami Gertz, taking on what used to be called the Ralph Bellamy role), with divorce papers for the apparently avoidant Jo to sign. But before that can happen, Bill gets rodeo-ed into helping Jo’s scrappy team of storm chasers do their science, and from there the tornadoes, and the stakes, keep getting bigger. It’s science!
Well, mostly. The screenplay was written by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin (then husband and wife), and has a lot of Crichton’s special blend of “science until science gets in the way of drama” (see: Jurassic Park, Congo, Coma, etc). It all feels kinda plausible if you don’t know much about meteorology, which is, honestly, nearly all of us. Crichton has Jo’s scrappy band of poor grad students go up against another team of storm chasers, led by an oily Cary Elwes, who have corporate backing and are just storm chasing for the money, although how there’s big money in storm chasing is never really explained (the nearly 30-years-later sequel, Twisters, explains how: By having the storm chasers be online influencer types. That avenue was not open to Mr. Elwes’ character. AOL was not that good). Nevertheless it’s enough for a second-order conflict.
The first order conflict is Jo versus the twisters; they are not just her academic interest but also her white whale, for reasons that are essayed in the first few moments of the film. The film never sells this point especially well — it’s more interested in doing a “will they or won’t they” bit of push and pull between Jo and Bill (you don’t really have to wonder how this is going to go, I already explained to you why poor Jaime Gertz is in this movie) — but it does give the film an excuse to keep putting Jo and Bill in situations involving strong winds that normal not-obsessed people would actively avoid.
Of course, if Jo and Bill avoided tornados, we wouldn’t have much of a movie. So in they go, and the good news for them (and us) was CGI in 1996 was just barely at the point where it could make twisters, and all the damage they do, look real, and really terrifying, onscreen (that and the absolutely monster sound design, which is often overlooked as a special effect but which really is key here. Both the VFX and the sound were nominated for Oscars). The twister effects are good enough that they still stand up pretty well three decades later. It’s not every bit of mid-90s CGI that doesn’t distract today’s viewer.
Speaking of special effects, this movie is weirdly overweighted with actors who went on to awards glory. Helen Hunt you probably know won an Oscar a couple of years later, but then, out there in Jo’s motley crew of grad students, is not only future Best Actor Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman but also Todd Field, who as a director, producer and screenwriter has been nominated for the Oscar six times. Jeremy Davies has a primetime Emmy for acting, Alan Ruck and Jami Gertz have Emmy nominations. So did Bill Paxton, God rest his soul. This is movie is friggin’ stacked, and nearly everyone in the film is just being kind of a goofball. It’s lovely, really.
(This movie was also the high water mark for director Jan De Bont, who did Speed before this movie, and then, rather disastrously, Speed 2 right after it. He was also the cinematographer of some notable action films, including Die Hard, The Hunt For Red October and Basic Instinct. I mean, Speed 2, we all make mistakes, but otherwise, a pretty nifty career.)
There’s nothing in Twister that will change anyone’s life, but as a movie you can just put on and dip in and out of while you’re setting up the Christmas tree or wrapping gifts or keeping one eye on Instagram or, I don’t know, polishing your silverware, it’s hard to beat. I put it on when I’m signing signature sheets for books. When you’re signing these sheets you want to be distracted enough that you’re not bored by the repetitive activity, but not so distracted that you mess up the pages. Twister is perfect for this. I can sign my name a thousand times, easy, with Jo and Bill getting buffeted by high winds pleasantly at the edge of my consciousness. This may or may not qualify as high praise to you, but trust me, I appreciate it.
Also, the film’s soundtrack has one of Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen’s best and most slept-upon songs:
Don’t look at me like that. I said what I said.
In any event: Twisters was a fun, no-pressure return to movies for me in ’96, and a fun, no-pressure movie to enjoy on the regular since then. It’s the very definition of a comfort watch. On this side of the screen. On their side, it’s a little windy. That’s a them problem.
— JS
galacticjourney_feed) wrote2025-12-14 05:00 pmThere are a lot of books in this month's Galactoscope, and not all of them are brilliant… but enough of them are that you must read to the end to learn what should be on your December reading list! by Victoria Silverwolf From the F File Two new novels by authors with last names that … Continue reading [December 14, 1970] Vector for Seven, The Gates of Time, etc. (December 1970 Galactoscope)
The post [December 14, 1970] <i>Vector for Seven</i>, <i>The Gates of Time</i>, etc. (December 1970 Galactoscope) appeared first on Galactic Journey.
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-14 09:05 amjames_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-12-14 08:46 am
