GANJA AND HESS was the only American film screened during Critic’s Week at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where it was named one of the 10 Best American Film of the Decade. It opened at Manhattan’s Playboy Theater a few weeks later. “The first time I saw the movie was at the opening-night screening in New York,” Clark reveals. “There was a splashy party afterward -- and being the lead actress, I was pretty much the star of the party! Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. It was wonderful.” The bubble burst the next day, however, when almost every New York critic panned the film. “When I read the reviews, I thought, ‘They didn’t get it,’” Clark remembers. “Many critics believe that black people make very straightforward, literal movies -- so Bill was really an enigma to them. They just did not understand what he had done.”
Gunn’s unique cinematic treatment of African-American spirituality and vampirism was also lost on the film’s distributor, Kelly-Jordan Enterprises. After a one-week run in Manhattan, the 110-minute version was pulled from circulation and replaced by a 76-minute bastardization called BLOOD COUPLE, with new credits listing “E.H. Novikov” (a pseudonym for film doctor Fima Noveck) as director. For nearly 25 years, it was this version that viewers were subjected to, both in theaters and on video, under such misleading titles as DOUBLE POSSESSION, BLACK EVIL, BLACK VAMPIRE, and BLACKOUT: THE MOMENT OF TERROR. "It never found much of an audience," Clark says, "but a number of industry people saw it, especially in New York, so I was offered some other movies."
Temple of shock, January 20 2011, Slinking Through the Seventies: An Interview with Marlene Clark, an expanded and revised interview by Chris Poggiali that originally appeared in Fangoria #191 (April 2000)
btw, if you liked my post analysing just the magnet "holsters" in Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, I'm eventually gonna post more outfit description/analysis! just cuz I've already been writing some longer descriptions for a while now - that's one of my fave things to research and write about, since it can be good art reference for my own drawings, and especially since I can go through the episodes looking for anything new to write down or connect :)
Also, thank you so much for the replies on my post! LOVING the reactions I'm seeing on it, I didn't expect this to do numbers at all but I'm pleased people enjoy reading me ramble about details in a show I like haha xD I don't usually get replies on my other fandom posts, so this is very surprising, even here. I'm touched!
Replies below! :)
@ranarenee - I already replied to you on the original post, but I genuinely just wanted to feature this comment cuz I'm glad ppl are having a positive reaction to this post xD
I also think it was probably a bit easier to animate them! in addition, because it provides an interesting change of technology in the world of Usagi Chronicles, it means that it might have become more interesting to design this hypothetical descendant-world. I'm sure they might have also just thought it was an interesting and unique element of what they were making, but from Art Director Khang Le and Stan Sakai's CBCC interview, and the SDCC@ Home 2021 panel I remember it was mentioned a few times how many clever things they found to make the production spending smaller on the more trivial things.... so the magnetic holsters feels like a thing that might have hit many birds with one stone, so-to-speak. You have the easier drawing of boards and maybe a few things made lighter for the 3D crew (no extra models or rope to animate, for example), but you also have a pleasing design element to give the main fighters in the cast - Usagi, Gen and Chizu - as well as other characters who would happen to wear weapons on their person aside from Karasu-Tengu. Like mentioned in the post, Kitsune is an interesting exception here, because of course, she's based on UY Kitsune who is also not a direct fighter or anything, but also, the world of SR appears to be at peace of some sort, and it's mentioned several times that there were wars at some point, so not many ordinary citizens of Neo would even have these unless they wanted to use or carry weapons every day. Kitsune wants to blend in with this ordinary citizenry and does so quite well.
I just thought of this today and I guess my post sort of mentioned it, but this existence of the magnets also seems to imply some hierarchy of income or money flow. Kitsune doesn't have any because she doesn't need them and she wouldn't spend money she doesn't have on them anyway. Chizu is Lady Fuwa's favourite student despite how she treats her - and gets the best undercover gear, so like Gen and Usagi, custom magnets. I suspect also that Chizu deliberately somehow got herself assigned to the temple-job (headcanon for now), or perhaps hoped it would be something like that, because she didn't want to get any of the more victim-heavy missions the Neko Ninja do. Gen obviously has spent his own money on the holsters and they are there out of pure practicality - can't be a bounty-hunter without wepons, can you? So the magnets seem more like they're ordinary but custom for the outfit. And Usagi, as discussed before, possibly inherited them because of the clan mon adorning the inlay of the magnet.
@kinokothere - thank you!! I will probably continue making posts like this even if I have no audience! why I made this blog at first was to collect my SRTUC fandom theories and drawings under a more organized platform compared to twitter, where this specific fan-account started. I now write almost explusively about SRTUC so you can bet I have way fewer notes than if I wrote about shipping or something else popular for example xD
Thank you @0yasumi-0-ya-su-mi! it's a fun little world-building detail that I really liked when I started wtaching and I hope other fans also include it more in their work x3
@umhuhwellthen x3 thank you!! i love seeing reactiong tags like this one!
This is probably the only comedy based on a true story that I’ve seen in recent memory - maybe because real life just hasn’t been that funny lately. The premise is simple - a group of childhood friends (Jon Hamm, Ed Helms, Hannibal Buress, Jake Johnson) have been playing the same game of tag for 30 years. Once adulthood responsibilities forced them all to go their separate ways, they continued to play the game only throughout the month of May each year - and this year, they’ve all gotten together to go after their buddy, Jerry (Jeremy Renner) who has never, ever been tagged. It’s one of those too-wacky-to-be-anything-but-real-life stories and with a comedy ensemble like this, it should be a slam dunk. Is it worth tagging in for? Well...
Much like the real life it’s based on, the movie is a little uneven - sometimes for the good, sometimes not. As an action comedy, it’s definitely visually entertaining, but in its efforts to keep a youthful spirit alive, some jokes feel immature to the point of excess.
Some thoughts:
I had heard from a few sources that this was the funniest movie to be released so far in 2018, and I was definitely looking forward to it based on the trailers. Unfortunately, I fell victim to one of the classic blunders: expectations. Turns out, the comedy mostly comes from every single time Hannibal Buress opens his mouth. Other than that, mostly crickets.
When the boys get close enough to Jerry to attempt to tag him, the film uses a high-frame slowed-down effect in each of the action scenes (much like the action scenes in the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films) which also provides some interesting visuals and comedy, especially through the characters’ voice-over narration. These scenes are definitely the most interesting to watch.
I appreciate the world-building that the filmmakers put great thought into. Ed Helms’ childhood home has a rundown basement with a pool table and a shitty couch and a refrigerator from the 70s, and you can feel all the memories pooled down there. They have a local bar where they clearly used to be regulars, the Sandpiper, and it’s every nondescript hometown bar I’ve ever been in. Even more than the friendship between these guys, which does feel pretty sweet and genuine, the world AROUND them feels absolutely real and authentic, and the years of connection between these people becomes crystal clear.
Rashida Jones plays the thankless role of a girl whom both Jon Hamm and Jake Johnson have been in love with forever, and like, I’m not a shallow person, I’m really not. But who doesn’t pick Jon Hamm? Jake Johnson is literally so much of a stoner that he can’t tell reality from fiction, he smokes 20-year-old weed, and he has no job, no ambition, and no prospects. I get the fixer-upper thing, I do, but COME ON. All that........vs Jon Hamm.
Let’s talk about the lowest of the low points. The boys track down Jerry at his wedding (which they weren’t invited to because Jerry didn’t want to get tagged). Jerry’s pregnant fiancee is understandably distraught when the boys corner Jerry at his AA meeting (also the fact that Jerry is a recovering alcoholic and none of his friends knew never comes up again which, ok) on the morning of their wedding. She gets so worked up that Jerry can’t escape and get ready for the wedding that she starts to feel pelvic pain - it looks like she’s having a miscarriage. OH WAIT jk jk after like, a lot of talking about it, turns out she was faking it. No pregnancy, no miscarriage. I could understand if there was one somewhat tasteless joke about it, but it turns into a whole big thing. Like, an extended 10 minute long bit. It goes past tasteless into “ummm this is getting kind of fucked up” territory. It was one of those moments where I knew, I knew it in my bones, that joke would not have become what it did if there had been more women involved in the writing of the film.
Also there’s a super weird part where Ed Helms’ mom keeps hitting on Jake Johnson for no discernible reason.
But then there’s a shift at the end that’s really heartwarming and sweet and feels like the core of what this friendship has been about for 30 years. I’m still not sure if it redeems all the things that precede it though.
Jeremy Renner looks fantastic, and is flying through the air like a falcon who’s doing parkour. Thank god someone gave him a way to showcase his skill since Marvel’s been sleepin on him since 2011.
I wanted to love this, I did. But I probably could have watched The Avengers followed by a Hannibal Buress stand-up special and had roughly the same experience. This is a game I’d really rather not be a part of - so uh...you’re it.
Plot: One month every year, five highly competitive friends hit the ground running for a no-holds-barred game of tag -- risking their necks, their jobs and their relationships to take one another down. This time, the game coincides with the wedding of the only undefeated player. What should be an easy target soon becomes an all-out war as he knows they're coming to get him.
2018 has generally been a solid year for comedies unless they came out on Netflix (that’s right, I’m looking at you When We First Met and Game Over, Man!). Both Game Night and Blockers were unexpectedly funnier than their trailers promised to be, and Mom & Dad was hilarious for all the wrong reasons. So I was generally optimistic for Tag, especially since it is actually based of a true story of these guys who played the same game of tag for 30 years. Having seen the film now though I got to say I am a bit disappointed. To be honest, you’d be best off going on YouTube and watching the documentary about the real tag guys, as the film itself, though does offer a few chuckles, is generally forgettable and mediocre. There is a fun movie in here somewhere, it’s just that the writers never use the potential they have. The beginning of the film is actually really enjoyable, with Ed Helms’ character getting a job as a janitor at Jon Hamm’s company just so that he can tag him, and then followed by a similarly amusing sequence between Helms and Jake Johnson as one chases the other, and if only the film stayed true to just having these guys come up with creative ways of tagging each other, just like the real life personas of theirs did, this movie would have been a blast, but instead the movie decides to focus on all these guys wanting to tag just this one guy, played by Jeremy Renner, thus very much limiting the story from going truly bonkers and fun. There are even flashbacks to the guys’ tags from previous years like the tag during childbirth or at a funeral, which already makes you feel sad knowing what this film could have been.
The movie is by no means terrible, it’s just super mediocre and forgettable. It’s a fairly passable 1 and a half hours of your time, and you’ll enjoy it just for the cast alone, with Jon Hamm and especially Hannibal Buress being the stand-outs. Everything that Buress said in his monotone dead-pan careless delivery made even the more poorly written jokes of his funny. It is a shame though that the female roles are given hardly any attention. Isla Fisher gets the most among the women to do, but her character is basically the same as the one she played in Wedding Crashers, whilst Annabelle Wallis’ character’s purpose in the film is very minor, and both Rashida Jones and Leslie Bibb are hardly in the feature.
The film ends on an expected nice sentimental note, and though it was to watch at the time, it doesn’t really change the fact that Tag will be forgotten about minutes after you viewed it. As I said, watch the documentary of the ‘true life heroes’ instead. Also, ending on a positive note, apparently Jeremy Renner’s arms have been CGI’d in this film following him breaking them in the first few days of shooting, and I have to say, it was hardly noticeable in the final product. Definitely better than Superman’s moustache in Justice League!
Overall score: 5/10
TOP MOVIE QUOTE: “What’s going on?” “Off the record?” “Alright.” “No idea.”
I went to see Tag again to ensure I was in my right mind the first time. Yes, this comedy, based around a children’s playground game really is that funny. A picture that will endure the ages? Probably not, and it isn’t as good as Game Night from earlier this year, but it's a blast while it lasts.
Based on a true story, best friends Hoagie (Ed Helms), Bob (Jon Hamm), Chilli (Jake Johnson), Kevin (Hannibal Buress), and Jerry (Jeremy Renner) have been playing the same game of tag for thirty years. Every May, they do whatever it takes to make each other 'it' but despite the others’ best efforts, Jerry has never been tagged. When they learn he's getting married, and that this will be his last year playing, his friends decide the wedding will be the perfect opportunity (and their last chance) to get him.
It sounds as if the boys are about to ruin Jerry's wedding, but that's because you don't understand the stakes. Much of the film's comedy comes from how seriously everybody takes the game. They’re dressing up in costumes, hiding in bushes, setting up traps, carefully planning their schedules to ambush their target, etc. These friends take Tag to a level children only dream of, which is hilarious... particularly when their efforts fall flat and they wind up injuring themselves. Even when you think you've seen it all, you haven't seen how far Jerry will go to avoid being tagged. His end of May wedding? it REALLY feels like a dare.
That’s only partially what this vulgar, R-Rated comedy is about. Throughout the story, the friends catch up on what's happened since they last saw each other, joke around, and reminisce about the good times. You or I may not play with them, but we all have that one thing, that ritual, game or activity that forms a bond between longtime friends. If you're not in the circle, you just don't get it. That's what Tag is really about. If Jerry quits, it means firstly that he is better than them, which is embarrassing enough, but also that there won't be anything to keep them together anymore. It'd be a shame too, as these actors play off each other very well. You can feel their friendship even in the nasty remarks they toss at each other.
When they're not taking things way too far (it happens more than once), every character (even the sides) are so emotionally invested in their traditional game, it becomes contagious. And.. sometimes you just want to see people get unexpectedly but deservedly hit on the head. You'll be hard-pressed to keep yourself from wanting to join into this game of Tag. If you do, stick around for the end credits, which feature an amusing music video by the leads. (Theatrical version on the big screen, June 20, 2018)
Elegy by Jorum Studio is a fragrance for women and men. Elegy was launched in 2021. The nose behind this fragrance is Euan McCall. Top notes
Elegy is an aromatic déjà vu where perfumed flowers swirl over elegantly powdered skin. There are beautiful contrasts woven throughout Elegy, expressing the soaring joys and deep sorrow that life entails.
Notes: Bergamot, Lavender, Petitgrain, Heather Absolute, Rose Absolute, Jasmine Absolute / Orange Flower Absolute, Geranium Bourbon, Ambrette Seed, Benzoin, Cedar Absolute, Patchouli Absolute, Hay Absolute, Oakmoss Absolute, Musk, Labdanum Absolute, Ambergris
Elegy is one of the perfumes in Jorum Studio's Mainline Sample Set, and the third fragrance I've tested from that specific set. If you love powdery floral scents, this one's for you.
When a tip from a clairvoyant leads 23-year old Neal Orris to a rural Connecticut barn housing his deceased father’s secret obsession,
23-year-old Neal Orris is desperately searching for a getaway ticket from his dead end job and the decaying Virginia town where he grew up when a tip from a clairvoyant leads him to a barn housing his deceased father’s secret obsession, a pristine 1964 Shelby Cobra Roadster. His first stop is the tobacco farm where his best friend, Ike, is employed, and the two never look back. Aiming for the Palm Springs race tracks and prize winnings that would keep them afloat, their journey is a blur of seedy motels and stiff drinks, cool swimming pools and hot debutantes, burnt rubber and cigarette smoke. Each stop finds the friends inventing new pseudonyms and personas for themselves, their innocent game hurtling them into the throes of decadence and desolation.
Notes: Lemon, Orris, Tobacco Flowers, Leather, Hay Fields & Asphalt
The Cobra and the Canary was our second blind buy of the year, and the fragrance that successfully brought me out of reviewing retirement.
Imaginary Authors announced at the beginning of March that they would discontinue the perfume at the end of the month. A quick glance at the description revealed notes of leather, asphalt, a new-car smell, and lemon, which was enough to pique interest.
Finding a factory-sealed bottle at a discount price, along with a usable coupon, sealed the deal for a blind buy. It was purchased with my husband in mind, but despite the detailed description, we found the perfume quite unisex.
TL;DR - aged leather & sun-dried hay & gorse yellow
⚜️ The Cobra and The Canary, by Imaginary Authors (discontinued!)
