By sketch-inventor

IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a VPN whenever visiting Blorptube, or anywhere else on the internet, for that matter. Protect your privacy.

For this Friday Movie Night, first up is Aquarius (2016), a Brazilian drama about a sixty-something woman who becomes the last bastion in an old apartment building targeted for demolition by some ruthless landlords. She does everything in her power to maintain her tenants’ rights and derail the development plans as moneyed interests try just as hard to force her out. This is considered one of the best Brazilian films of the 2010s, and arguably the magnum opus of director Kleber Mendonca Filho. We previously watched his anti-Anglo acid-western Bacurau (2019).

After that is Living in Oblivion (1995), a wacky movie-marking comedy about a beleaguered indie director (Steve Buscemi) desperately trying to keep his production from going off the rails, in the face of about a million different obstacles, including prima donnas, bad food, insufferable crew members, and more. This is the best-known and best-regarded work of director Tom DiCillo. Great reviews for this, so let’s check it out.

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Blorptube, right here:

https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Aquarius: https://letterboxd.com/film/aquarius/
• Living in Oblivion: https://letterboxd.com/film/living-in-oblivion/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Aquarius: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5221584/parentalguide/
• Living in Oblivion: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113677/parentalguide/

CWs for Aquarius:

• Nudity.
• Sex
• Profanity.
• Smoking.
• Drug use.

CWs for Living in Oblivion:

• Nudity.
• Sex.
• Fistfighting.
• Mention of sexual assault. Not depicted.
• Profanity.
• Smoking.
• Alcohol.
• Vomiting.
• Anxiety attacks.
• Meltdown.

Links to movies:

• Aquarius: https://tankie.tube/w/aHjzVrrCi1nXqzYeCqHBm8
• Living in Oblivion: https://tankie.tube/w/hk1btHLKUyMGpU5tTdybcf

It always hurts a little when one of the fav movies of your childhood doesn't hit as good as it used to. I love Spider-Man (2002) but this movie makes me realize just how much better the sequel is in every way.

Without thinking too much about it, the first thing that broke my immersion immediately was seeing these older people play teenagers, I did find out later that even Tom Holland was 21 years old when he did Homecoming but that doesn't distort the fact that those actors in the later film just look so much more like kids. To see Tobey Maguire, Kristen Dunst and James Franco go through family life and school crushes just didn't engage me on a personal level

The emotional punches however were just as good as I had imagined them in my mind, the Uncle Ben speech and the nasty course of events that lead to his death are so beautifully done here. I don't remember the equivalent of this scene in The Amazing Spider-Man but I'm glad the MCU movies skipped over it because this is the definitive Uncle Ben death for me as well Peter learning to overcome his selfish teenage needs when he feels guilty about his Uncle's death.

This movie and the later sequel and Spider-Man 3 do one thing really well: subversion inside the movie. Things never go as well as the characters want them to go and watching three actor's convey that embarrassment and shame reveals so much about their characters. Mary Jane trying to hide that she's working but immediately getting found out, Peter looking at Harry when Harry tells the same scientific facts to M.J that he had told him and that were brushed off as boring. It's all charming and endearing in a way

This movie is also insane for some reason? Like the amount of times we see Peter doing web stuff without a suit and doing stuff without a mask is crazy and it became harder and harder for me to believe people in the movie didn't notice anything amiss.

The effects looks goofy today, especially whenever Peter/Spider-Man leaps up but it still manages to contain some excellent looking action-sequences and some great web-slinging shots especially towards the ending of the film.

Two things I really enjoyed this time were Norman Osborn's struggle with his evil persona combined with Willem Dafoe bringing this character to life and the music of the film. Danny Elfman did a great job and he does a greater job in the sequel as well.

I think most of my faults with the film and me not loving it as much as my nostalgia wanted me to is because of the loose plot structure of the film, it doesn't feel as tighter as SP2

But maybe it's just me comparing it to the sequel too much.

Anyway, I would give it a 7.5/10 fun movie

CW: self-harm, psychological issues

AKA how off the rails can your show go?

I know I'm a little late to the party since the show ended like a year ago but Evil is an American show that ran for 4 seasons on CBS and Paramount+ from 2019-2024.

The show starts out as a grounded procedural about a team of investigators (2 skeptics and 1 priest) working for the catholic church who analyze how psychological, physiological and environmental conditions might convince people that they or someone they love is possessed by a demon. There is nothing supernatural in the first season of the show and every demon sighting is explained with trauma, dreams and hallucinations.

SPOILERS BELOW

I kinda hated the show by the end but at the same time I have some respect for just how ridiculous they managed to turn everything.

We'll be streaming here: https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine

Thanks to @tithonis@hexbear.net for suggesting/finding “Can Dialectics Break Bricks?”!

Remember to use a VPN if you don't want IP info being shared with others. See you then!

"THERE ARE NO BLACK PEOPLE IN RIVENDELL, IT'S UNREALISTIC"

To be honest, I absolutely would expect the cast to be way more diverse if the movies were shot today. It's shocking how white those movies are- I'm pretty sure the haradrim are the only on-screen POC in the entire trilogy. The Hobbit movies tried to correct for this by having POC extras in the crowd scenes in Laketown, and some of them may have even had a few lines. Still no actual characters though

It's kinda funny that the terrible Dungeons and Dragons movie with Jeremy Irons that came out a year before Fellowship had an elf portrayed by a black actor as one of the main characters

IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a VPN whenever visiting Blorptube, or anywhere else on the internet, for that matter. Protect your privacy.

For this Special Thursday Cinema Night, first up is Nostalgia (1983), a Soviet/Italian psychological drama from one of the USSR’s most renowned filmmakers, Andrei Tarkovsky. A Russian poet goes to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer, and things get strange and meditative from there, as he meets a man who insists that he knows how to save the world. Journeys into the mind follow, in Tarkovsky’s usual meditative style. This is considered one of the best Soviet films of all time, being currently ranked #173 on the Letterboxd Top 250.

After that is Superman (2025), the newest cape film from DC Studios, and the beginning of a new cinematic universe, this time helmed by Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) director James Gunn. Superman clashes with Lex Luthor once again as his archnemesis (and some superpowered henchmen) tries to orchestrate a war overseas. You know what to expect. A camrip has just appeared, and its quality looks acceptable. Reviews are good and it has a high score on Letterboxd, so let’s give it a whirl.

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Blorptube, right here:

https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Nostalgia: https://letterboxd.com/film/nostalgia-1983/
• Superman: https://letterboxd.com/film/superman-2025/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Nostalgia: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/103970
• Superman: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/1481952

CWs for Nostalgia:

• Domestic violence.
• Drug use.
• Someone is burned alive.
• Mental hospital scene.
• Self-harm.
• Suicide.
• Ableism.
• Sad ending.

CWs for Superman:

• Someone leaves without saying goodbye.
• Child abandonment.
• Gaslighting.
• Cruelty to animals.
• Bullying.
• Someone is physically restrained.
• Someone’s mouth is covered.
• Hand damage.
• Dislocations.
• Someone struggles to breathe.
• Choking.
• Body horror.
• Asphyxiation.
• Unconsciousness.
• Broken bones.
• Tooth damage.
• Torture.
• Death by falling.
• Eye mutilation.
• Infant abduction.
• Death of non-human.
• Death of parent.
• Jump scares.
• Natural bodies of water.
• Vomiting.
• Spitting.
• Audio gore.
• Incarceration.
• Hospital scene.
• Self-harm.
• Unstable reality.
• Meltdown.
• Anxiety attacks.
• Jump scares.
• Crying baby.
• Screaming.
• Profanity.
• Rude gestures.
• Flashing lights.
• Babies.
• Misgendering.
• Hate speech.
• Discussion of existentialism.
• Blood and gore.
• Gun violence.

Links to movies:

• Nostalgia: https://tankie.tube/w/bRDAQN8L48vZdh7dquMWqK
• Superman: https://tankie.tube/w/m5dCi5NhzwZdTQFWrtPgWx

A clean shaven white guy goody two-shoes who speaks perfect english, bulletproof and have literal superpower and save the planet on regular basis against other illegal aliens apparently still just a stinky illegal alien in the eyes of chuds

Join us!

blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine

Note that you need a Hexbear account to use Blorptube. You may wish to use a VPN as well. Also, don't use a cartoon from the 1980s as medical advice, not that I was expecting you to.

Also, if you use an anime tracker like Anilist or MAL: Once Upon a Time... Life is listed in a number of anime databases due to being a Japanese co-production.

• https://myanimelist.net/anime/3624/Seimei_no_Kagaku__Micro_Patrol
• https://anilist.co/anime/3624/Once-Upon-a-Time-Life/

What are we watching?

Episode titles: "The Tiny Platelets" — "The Heart" — "Breathing" — "The Brain" — "The Neurons"

Series description: Once Upon a Time... Life teaches about the human body and its various systems using the same characters from the other Once Upon a Time... seasons. The "good guys" (such as Pierrot and Mercedes from Space) represent the cells of the body's defense mechanisms, and the "bad guys" (including the "red-nose guys" as one of our regulars calls them) represent the viruses and bacteria.

We'll be watching the English dub, which this time around has pretty decent audio mixing, though we curiously can't figure out who the heck actually did the voices. They've got British accents if nothing else.

Content warnings

If you've got like trypophobia or don't like looking at landscapes made of cartoon human flesh, then this show might be a problem for you. Children get serious illnesses; a character dies of old age at some point I believe; there is some nudity in the opening; the immune system is presented as cops; and some cells are very occasionally presented as caricatures of e.g. "cowboys and Indians".

IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a VPN whenever visiting Blorptube, or anywhere else on the internet, for that matter. Protect your privacy.

For this Wednesday Super Slop Night, first up is Kill Boksoon (2023), a Korean action-thriller about a typical middle-class mom, who Is secretly one of the world’s most effective assassins, having achieved a 100% success rate on her targets. Her boss gives her a particularly difficult job that puts her responsibilities at work and home in conflict. Can moms still rock? I guess we’ll find out. It is the best-known work to date of director Byun Sung-hyun, who does not have any other major hits to his name.

After that is Bee Movie (2007), a Dreamworks animation about Jerry Seinfled as a bee who decides to sue humanity to protest the exploitation of his species. You may better know this film as the sources of many ironic memes, playing on the absurdity of the film’s existence, in which it represents a whole category of pop-cultural detritus. Let’s check it out. Directors Simon J. Smith and Steve Hickner also helmed The Prince of Egypt (1998) and, uhh, Penguins of Madagascar (2014).

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Blorptube, right here:

https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Kill Boksoon: https://letterboxd.com/film/kill-boksoon/
• Bee Movie: https://letterboxd.com/film/bee-movie/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Kill Boksoon: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/996687
• Bee Movie: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/8860

CWs for Kill Boksoon:

• Domestic violence.
• Abused becomes the abuser.
• Child abuse.
• Someone is physically restrained.
• Cutting of flesh.
• Someone struggles to breathe.
• Achilles tendon injury.
• Hanging.
• Finger mutilation.
• Death by falling.
• Eye mutilation.
• Blood and gore.
• Death of parent.
• Razors.
• Mannequins.
• Spitting.
• Audio gore.
• Anxiety attacks.
• Shaky cam.
• Profanity.
• Nudity.
• Sex.
• Gun violence.

CWs for Bee Movie:

• Gaslighting.
• Alcohol abuse.
• Deaths of animals.
• Animal abuse.
• Animal corpses.
• Sad animal.
• Spiders.
• Bugs.
• Someone is drugged.
• Someone is burned alive.
• Amputation.
• Squashed head.
• Unconsciousness.
• Torture.
• Stabbing.
• Kidnapping.
• Cheating.
• Spitting.
• Needles.
• Hospital scenes.
• Self-harm.
• Meltdown.
• Suicidal ideation.
• Claustrophobia.
• Screaming.
• “Man in dress” jokes.
• Misgendering.
• Fat jokes.
• Hate speech.
• Age-gap romance.
• Bestiality. Bee-human romance.
• Incest. All bees have the same mom.
• Plane crash.
• Someone is hit by a car.

Links to movies:

• Kill Boksoon: https://tankie.tube/w/h5ka1A48vfo95FtkoZQAuV
• Bee Movie: https://tankie.tube/w/bKZGrVh2KEHyx8oGjHHBCj