kate

fam dams

A visit from my aunt, her dog Buddy, and now you know too much about our one bathroom in the house situation. 

"Ice Chase"

Did you delete ice skating from your mind as well, Sherlock?

Imagine buying your child a 3DS for Christmas and finding pornography on it... That's what happened to one parent, according to WAVY News 10. On Christmas morning Tom Mayhew's 8-year-old son decided to snap some pictures with his new 3DS. When he went to go look at the photos he'd taken he found a dozen pornographic images saved on the system.

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Every year I do a little Pushing Daisies marathon, and every year I say to myself ‘I have to draw Ned and Chuck together !’. And every year I forget. Well not this year ! Enjoy my ultimate otp :D

Moving back up from third to second place, Disney’s Frozen grossed a spectacular $28.8 million (estimated), pushing the film’s domestic total to $248.4M and all but guaranteeing that it will surpass the $300 million mark in the United States. The film also stands a solid chance of beating The Lion King’s $311.5M total to become the highest-grossing Disney film of all time in the US. Frozen exhibited mid-week strength, too, with a powerful Monday-Thursday frame of $27.5M.

These number are anything but normal for a film in its fifth week of wide release. Box Office Mojo offered some context: Frozen’s weekend performance was the third highest-earning 5th weekend of all time, behind only Avatar ($42.8M) and Titanic ($30M). Overseas, Frozen performed solidly with $50.5M for the weekend, lifting its global total to $243.5M. Worldwide, Frozen has racked up $491.9M in ticket sales.

Thanks to the holiday period, Fox’s Walking with Dinosaurs held steady with $7.1 million (est) in its second weekend, which is almost the exact same total from its opening weekend. The underperforming CG pic has scored $20.8M domestically and $33.4M internationally for a worldwide total of $54.2M. Faring better in its second weekend, the Walt Disney biopic Saving Mr. Banks earned $14M (est), which was 50% stronger than its debut weekend. Its domestic total is $37.8M; Banks hasn’t debuted in a substantial number of foreign territories yet.

Next year looks like it might be a vintage year for fans of cartoony indie-produced games. Not only can we look forward to Cloudface, we can also anticipate Cuphead, a game that will be “hand drawn and inked in the 1930s style.” The developer Studio MDHR has the classic animation look pegged, from lush watercolor backgrounds to authentic pie-cut eyed, rubbery characters who look straight out of a Fleischer/Iwerks short. This is how they describes the game:

Cuphead is a classic run and gun that centers around 1-on-1 fights (2-on-1 in two player mode). With Cuphead, we aim to evolve the genre by adding new features such as: super arts, infinite lives, a playable world map and hidden secrets. In addition to that, we will have refined controls, additional boss patterns on harder modes and balanced weapons to equip (that you don’t lose!). We plan to release 10-15 bosses per episode and end up with over 30 bosses. If all goes as planned, we will defeat the current “Guinness World Record for Most Boss Battles in a Run and Gun Game”[25 total].

Studio MDHR is developing the game for PCs. After the PC version is released, they plan to port to Mac/Linux platforms and “hopefully consoles (PS4, XBoxOne).”

(Thanks, Corey Siskavard)

blueskycuteprincess:

Japan-Happiness Charge Precure Mcdonald’s Card

The Hälssen & Lyon Tea Calendar | Posted by CJWHO.com


The Hälssen & Lyon Tea Calendar | Posted by CJWHO.com


The Hälssen & Lyon Tea Calendar | Posted by CJWHO.com


The Hälssen & Lyon Tea Calendar | Posted by CJWHO.com


The Hälssen & Lyon Tea Calendar | Posted by CJWHO.com


The Hälssen & Lyon Tea Calendar | Posted by CJWHO.com


The Hälssen & Lyon Tea Calendar | Posted by CJWHO.com


The Hälssen & Lyon Tea Calendar | Posted by CJWHO.com

summertimesnow:

I need

oooh

arseniccupcakes:

pastelm00n:

On Wednesday, EVA Air’s “Hello Kitty Hand-in-Hand” jet — a 312-seat Boeing 777 tricked out in the most Kitty-tastic fashion imaginable — touched down at LAX for the first time. Yahoo Travel got a chance to peek inside this magical mystical plane, and we can tell you, traveling Sanrio-style is the only way to fly the friendly skies.

somebody buy me a ticket

signsoflove:

Card Captor Sakura mobile game

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is a terrible movie. Much, much worse than you remember.

Most of the fault lies at Kevin Costner’s feet (and we’ll get to his lackluster performance in a moment), but the whole production is a splotchy mess. It’s nonsensical when it’s not racist, and that’s only when it’s not dull as dishwater—which, granted, is most of the time. All of the actors (with one shining exception) are utterly without charm. There are far too many subplots that don’t go anywhere. And everything is performed with an early 90s earnestness that ends up being super dour.

[Read More]

Just as The Adventures of Robin Hood set the Robin Hood story in a setting of race-based class divisions, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves establishes bitter religious divisions and strongly held superstitions. Robin’s constant companion, Azeem the Moor, encounters religious and racial intolerance wherever he goes. The Sheriff of Nottingham executed Robin’s father on the charge of devil worship. The Sheriff’s soldiers refuse to enter Sherwood because they believe it’s haunted. Nominally, this is to set up Robin Hood as a symbol of Enlightenment, moving past superstition and towards a future where all people are treated as equals, regardless of race, sex, or religion.

But the film undercuts its progressive messaging with horrific moments of sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, and classism. Azeem is the only good Muslim we see. Robin’s Islamic captors at the beginning of the film are barbaric caricatures of human beings, cruel and ugly. The evil Sheriff actual is a devil worshipper and his witch can see the future, so maybe the soldiers’ superstitions are rational. And then, for no reason, the film makers decide to be racist against the Celts by depicting them as basically orcs with crows on their heads.

At least when the film is being offensive, something is happening. Most of the time, nothing at all happens. Robin spends a lot of time broodily walking through the countryside, or broodily training his “merry” men, or broodily taking care of his old blind servant, or just broodily brooding. The scenery is pretty, but boring. The music is pretty, but boring. (Or it’s a power ballad, and the less said about it, the better). I’m glad I invented a drinking game, because I could not have gotten through this film sober.

The plot’s pretty straightforward, as long as you ignore all the meaningless subplots. Robin returns from the Crusades to find the Sheriff has murdered his father and seized his lands; Robin takes them over a gang of thieves to lead them against the Sheriff, which gets a lot of the gang killed or captured; Robin then leads a jailbreak attempt to free them, rescues Marian from a forced marriage, and kills the Sheriff. If I tried to recount all the stupid, stupid subplots, we’ll be here all day.

Robin Hood

Straight up, Costner is a terrible Robin Hood. It’s not that he can’t do an English accent (though he cannot). As we see in the Disney version, the characters don’t actually have to sound like they’re from 12th century England for us to accept that they are. But Costner’s delivery is flat across the board. It doesn’t matter if he’s bravely accepting punishment for his friend’s crime, or mourning his father, or charming Marian, or declaring revenge against the Sheriff; he says everything in the same flat, bored voice, like he’s reading his lines off cue cards for the first time and isn’t bothering with a second take. There are little moments of joy, like when he doesn’t understand how a telescope works, or when Azeem yells at him to “move faster,” but those moments are few and far between.

Not that Costner was given a lot to work with. This version of Robin is the worst, most self-centered version of any I’ve seen. Flynn’s Robin Hood was defined by his generosity. He turned outlaw in order to protect the poor of England, and keeps not a thing for himself. In comparison, Costner’s Robin Hood becomes an outlaw to get revenge and to get his lands back. Little John tells Robin his gold cross could feed the Merry Men for a month, and Robin clings to it more tightly. It’s easy to imagine Flynn (or Disney’s fox) carelessly tossing the cross to Little John, because what does he care about material good in the face of crushing poverty?

Costner’s Robin is also caught up in overbearing daddy issues. Brian Blessed(!) plays Daddy Loxley in an all too brief cameo as the perfect noble; kind, generous, surprisingly progressive in terms religious tolerance, class divisions, and opposition to the Crusades (Lord Grantham wishes he were so modern). Robin’s constant worry that he can’t live up to his father’s perfect example is joyless and smells of wankery.

The Merry Men

Robin’s the worst, but the Merry Men aren’t much better.

Foremost among them is Azeem, played by Morgan Freeman, the Moor who followed Robin back to England like a lost puppy. And, again, while I appreciate the impulse to add some racial diversity to an otherwise lily-white story, Azeem is a magical negro, a brilliant man who possesses all of the knowledge of the Arab world (telescopes, gun powder, good birthing practices), but who subordinates his story to that of Robin’s in order to teach white people not to be racist. Worse, he basically enslaves himself to Robin because of that hoary cliché, the “life debt.”

But if Azeem is Robin’s right-hand man, then what’s a Little John or a Will Scarlett to do?

Little John becomes the original leader of the Merry Men, who Robin Hood supplants with basically one line of dialogue. He does little in the movie but worry. He worries about his wife. He worries about his son. And then about his wife giving birth to a new son. And even though he robs people on a river bridge, he apparently can’t swim (or tell he’s in only a foot of water).

Will Scarlett... uh boy, Will Scarlett. Look, Costner is the main reason the film is terrible, but only because he’s in so much of it. On a per minute basis, Christian Slater’s Will Scarlett is so, so much worse. His acting is worse. His accent is worse. And his role is nothing but capital D Drama. He’s resentful of Robin’s noble upbringing, openly rebellious against Robin simply taking over the Merry Men, constantly complains, seems to betray the Merry Men to the Sheriff, then, in the worst twist in the film, turns out to be Robin’s half brother, the bastard his father sired with a common woman after Robin’s mother died. (Told you Daddy Loxley was progressive). So, no, Will doesn’t have a legitimate complaint, just the same daddy issues Robin has. And. I. Can’t. Care.

That leaves Friar Tuck, played by comedian Michael McShane. This Tuck is NOT the greatest swordsman in England. He’s just a drunk who holds some pretty violently anti-Muslim views, which of course melt away the moment Azeem successfully delivers Little John’s child. It’s not clear why the Merry Men invite him to stay, rather than just taking his ale and sending him humiliated on his way back to London. But he does get to push the evil greedy Bishop out a window and then perform Robin and Marian’s marriage in, as he says, “God’s only church,” so... I don’t know what I’m supposed to learn from this.

And then there’s Duncan, Robin’s old, blind servant. Duncan lives to suffer. First he’s beaten, blinded, and left for dead. Then he’s carted around Sherwood by Robin for a bit, before being beaten again, and then he dies, but not before leading the Sheriff to Robin’s secret hideout. Goodbye Duncan, you died as you lived, in misery.

There are about a dozen other Merry Men, but they are all miserable failures as thieves. Robin is the prince of some truly terrible thieves.

Marian

As with Azeem, there’s an attempt to make Maid Marian progressive that is completely undercut by what actually happens. She’s introduced as a knife wielding ninja, but Robin immediately defeats her. After that, she spends the rest of the movie as a damsel in distress, constantly under implied or immediate threat of rape. Her attempt to warn Robin about the Sheriff’s plot to take over the country gets her nurse arrested, Duncan killed, the Merry Men’s Ewok village burned, and herself press-ganged into marriage. She’s basically useless.

The Bad Guys

Okay, and now we come to the one bright spot in the entire movie, Alan Rickman, as the ridiculous Sheriff of Nottingham. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves makes the... let’s say idiotic decision to eliminate Prince John completely and give his ambition of ruling England to the Sheriff. Never mind that this makes no sense (how does a lowly village sheriff have the authority, military might, and financial resources to support a coup?). Never mind that it’s unnecessary (the Sheriff could abuse the poor, steal Robin’s lands, and try to rape/marry Marian just because he wants to). And yet Alan Rickman fucking makes it work.

Of course, Rickman makes it work by playing the Sheriff for pure camp value. His Sheriff is a lascivious lout who Scrooge McDuck dives into a pile of gold coins, who keeps statues of himself and half-dressed women around his castle, who beats and kills his own men on a whim, who schedules sexual romps 15 minutes apart, who cancels Christmas, and who, in a set-up for the film’s most memorable line, threatens to cut out Robin’s heart with a spoon. Rickman’s Sheriff is an out and out supervillain, introduced in an ornate mask and white cloak. Rickman is a joy to watch.

Rickman is also fighting the script with every line reading, because the Sheriff is written as poorly as any of the other characters, with his own nonsensical plots. He was raised by the witch Mortianna, who in the most overdramatic, unnecessary twist, turns out to be his birth mother. Why is there a witch in the Robin Hood story? So that Alan Rickman can stumble around an 80s music video conception of a dungeon, complete with a fog machine and green side lighting. She certainly doesn’t add anything.

There is a Sir Guy, played by professional bad guy Michael Wincott, but the film has room for only one sneering professional villain, so the Sheriff stabs him for no good reason. Ah well.

Richard and the Crusades

And again, a progressive sentiment (“hey, maybe religiously motivated wars are a bad thing,”) is undercut by the actual actions of the film. Yeah, paragon of good Daddy Loxley called the crusades “a foolish quest... vanity to force other men to our religion,” but that’s not what the title card at the beginning of the movie says. That card definitely implies that the worst part of the Crusades is how many young men it took out of England, never to return. And the Saracen prison guards are portrayed as inhuman monsters. And when Richard does ride up at the end (SEAN CONNERY!?), he’s treated as a hero, as if he had done nothing wrong to lead to this situation. So maybe Daddy Loxley was wrong about the Crusades?

The Ending

For some reason, at the end Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves becomes really fun. Not so good to make up for the rest of the movie, because, just, no, but it’s like the rest of the cast discovered the over-the-top, campy, hilarious Robin Hood movie that Alan Rickman was making, and decided they should all be in that instead.

So in yet another storming of the castle to rescue someone from hanging (this time half the Merry Men, including Little John’s son), shit starts blowing up! Literally! (As in, literal shit, and literally blowing up.)

The climax includes such lunacy as:

• Little John develops super strength, knocking down the gallows with his bare hands!
• Robin fires flaming arrows two at a time!
• Morgan Freeman gives a rousing speech about how to be a free man!
• Azeem and Robin are catapulted over a wall and land in a convenient pile of hay!
• Will says a bad word!
• We learn the Sheriff’s first name is George! (What?)
• A scribe who had his tongue cut out talks! (Whoops!)
• The Sheriff tries to rape Marian while the Bishop is still performing the marriage rites!
• Robin crashes through a stain-glass window (like a proper Robin Hood)!
• The witch teleports to one side of locked door, only for Azeem to run her through with a pike!
• Robin and the Sheriff have a decent sword fight.
• The witch teleports to the other side of the locked door, only to have Azeem kill her again by throwing a sword so hard she flies across the room!

If the whole movie had been set at this fever pitch, with over the top action and violence and character choices... well, I’m not saying it would have been good, but it would have been a lot more fun and memorable and exciting.

But the ending isn’t enough to wash away the boring, racist taste of the rest of the film, and when Friar Tuck looks directly into the camera to tell Robin and Marian (and us) to get out of here and start making babies, and that... that... that song starts playing, I’m reminded why I goddamn hate this movie.

You know, somebody could make a really good parody....

Drinking Game

Three drinks, but you’ll want it to be more. There’s no real archery contest, but Robin does split an arrow in the training montage, because I guess that’s a thing you need to do in a Robin Hood movie.

The killer trigger in this film is racism. There’s a lot, both the characters being racist (the English towards Azeem, Azeem towards the English), and the film being racist (Celts are giants that feel no pain and rape women in the middle of battlefields).

Yuck.

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Steven Padnick is a freelance writer and editor. By day. You can find more of his writing and funny pictures at padnick.tumblr.com.

On top of being a brilliant parody of other Robin Hood movies, specifically skewering Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Mel Brooks’s Robin Hood: Men in Tights works pretty decently as a Robin Hood story on its own. The mugging for the camera, anachronisms, and meta-humor about being a Mel Brooks movie remove the story from the specific setting of late 12th century England and make it speak to the experience of its contemporary audience. And the meta-textual satire recalls the spirit of the festival plays which popularized and developed the Robin Hood myths, where Robin would directly encourage the audience to boo the Sheriff and help him hide.

[Read More]

Some of the very topical jokes have gone from cutting to dated to nostalgic (“Hey, remember Home Alone? What about Reebok Pumps?) But the film isn’t for us, it’s for movie goers in 1993. So jokes like the Sheriff of Nottingham Rottingham’s daddy getting him into the National Guard do double duty: it’s a shot at Dan Quayle’s “service” during the Vietnam War, and it’s a good shorthand for how Robin, a veteran, views the Sheriff, who avoided joining Richard’s crusade.

On the other hand, the homophobic, transphobic, fat-phobic, racist, sexist, and able-ist jokes are a lot more offensive to me now than they were when I was 13. Brooks finds the idea of men in women’s clothing inherently funny, and so presents cross-dressing as the beginning and end of many of the jokes (including the title and title song). And while Brooks has been using racist imagery to confront and challenge racism since Blazing Saddles, it’s sometimes hard to tell when he’s making fun of the oppressors and when he’s making fun of the oppressed.

Fortunately, most of the time, Brooks is making fun of Kevin Costner, and that’s where Men in Tights really shines. While I can’t actually recommend watching Prince of Thieves, having seen it does make Men in Tights that much funnier. Brooks takes broad shots at Costner’s crap-fest: the title, the characters of A’Choo, Blinkin, and Latrine, lines like “unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak in an English accent.”

But Brooks also makes some subtle but pointed jabs as well. Men in Tights Little John is afraid he’ll drown in an inch of water, making Prince of Thieves Little John look just as dumb for being afraid of drowning in a foot. The Abbot calls out the weirdness of learning the Sheriff’s first name, Mervin, at the wedding ceremony, but that’s really no dumber than learning Rickman’s Sheriff is named George. If you didn’t know it already, Men in Tights makes it super clear that Prince of Thieves is really a terrible movie.

But Brooks doesn’t stop with the Costner version. There are plenty of jokes aimed at the Flynn Robin Hood, mostly in the person of Cary Elwes, and a couple of shots taken at the Disney version too, mostly in that Men in Tights is an unapologetic musical. There’s a rapping chorus of Merry Men, both Robin and Marian get big solos, and of course there’s the title song. If only the Sheriff and John got a duet.... At a certain point, I have to assume that the more Robin Hood movies I see, the more jokes I’ll get.

The plot is basically the first half of The Adventures of Robin Hood mashed up with Prince of Thieves: Robin returns from the Crusades to find his family dead and his lands seized, inspiring him to lead a troupe of Merry Men against Prince John. When Robin’s captured during an archery contest, his men ride to his rescue in the climactic scene.

Robin Hood

As much as Kevin Costner deserves the blame for making Prince of Thieves terrible, Cary Elwes deserves that much credit for making Men in Tights great. Fresh off his very Flynn-like performance in The Princess Bride, rumor has it that Elwes was offered the lead of Prince of Thieves but turned it down because he did not want to get typecast as a swashbuckler. More likely, he turned it down because he read the script, because here he is swashbuckling up a storm in a pitch perfect performance.

Elwes’s Robin Hood is the apotheosis of the character: brave, funny, and a right smug bastard. He responds to torture by making sassy jokes. He treats his final duel with the Sheriff as a fencing lesson. He is basically the Errol Flynn Robin Hood, from the design of his costume to his hearty laugh. When he bursts into Prince John’s feast with a wild boar over his shoulders (“Traif,” John remarks without enthusiasm) he is nearly shot for shot recreating Flynn’s best scene from The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Elwes’s Robin Hood’s main character flaw is that he’s a little too into being Robin Hood, prone to giving long heroic speeches (full of liberal promises like a four day work week and affordable health care) that bore his listeners into sleep. Like Graham Chapman’s Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Elwes’s Robin is a mostly serious take on the character trapped in a cartoonish world that isn’t taking this is as seriously as he is. So he’s constantly pushing against the silliness of the people around him, trying to get them into the shape he needs them to be.

But since Elwes’s Robin Hood is also an incredibly patient soul, Robin’s pushing generally takes the form of polite exasperation. The Merry Men don’t know whether “Yea” or “Nay” means yes, so Robin tells them (while rolling his eyes). Blind Blinkin wants to keep watch, so Robin lets him. Will Scarlett tells Robin to fire an arrow directly at him, so Robin shrugs his shoulders and does so. Even his pointless quarterstaff fight with Little John over an non-existent river is an indulgence of Little John’s challenge. The only people he can’t indulge are bullies like the Sheriff and Prince John.

Oh, and Kevin Costner. Elwes is constantly showing up Costner’s Robin Hood. Costner escapes from an Islamic prison. Elwes escapes and frees all the other prisoners. Costner looses two arrows at once. Elwes looses six. Costner’s father dies. Elwes loses his father, mother, all his brothers, dog, cat, and goldfish. (“My cat?” “Choked on the goldfish.”) And, of course, he does so with an authentic, English accent.

The Merry Men

Taking the role of Robin’s right hand man is nineteen-year-old Dave Chapelle as A’Choo. In his first film role, Chapelle is a revelation: smart, goofy, kind, likeable. He’s also the most anachronistic, contemporary character. He’s not playing a Moor in England, he’s playing a 20th century, black American in a 12th century farce, wearing his feathered cap backwards, teaching Robin to fist pound, and falling into Malcolm X impressions. If Elwes is playing Flynn’s Robin Hood, Chapelle is playing himself. As one giant improvement over Prince of Thieves, A’Choo owes no clichéd “life-debt” to Robin. He just falls in with Robin’s band as a voice of cool, 20th century reason.

In another improvement, A’Choo being the second in command does not deprive other characters of important roles. Little John has a lot of great moments as a super-strong giant of a man who’s also a little slow (“Don’t let my name fool you. In real life I’m very big”). And Will Scarlett plays a wonderfully confident back-up who’s inhumanly fast with a knife and knows it. He’s also not called Scarlett because he wears red, but because his full name is Will Scarlett O’Hara (“We’re from Georgia”).

And then there’s Blinkin. If Duncan, his Prince of Thieves counterpart, existed just to suffer and die, Blinkin is there just to be ridiculous. Yes, Brooks makes every last joke he can about a blind Merry Man, constantly fighting the wrong target and looking the wrong way, only to pull out a super human catch at the crucial moment, but Blinkin is a clown for many reasons. An idiot who doesn’t understand Robin might not be happy to hear about the death of his entire family, a lecher first seen reading Playboy in Braille who quickly fondles a statue he believes is Robin returned for the wars, and the voice of the most regressive opinions expressed by the good guys (“A Jew? Here?”). Honest talk, guys, I love Blinkin.

Mel Brooks takes up the Friar Tuck role as the Rabbi Tuckman in a cameo short enough to establish the character before returning to officiate the wedding at the end. He takes another crack at men who wear tights and gets in a couple of circumcision jokes, in case you might have forgotten this was a Mel Brooks movie.

The rest of the Merry Men are a random assortment of villagers Robin and his men round up in their insurrection against Prince John and, in an odd nod to realism, they never actually get good. Despite the requisite training montage, they remain basically inept fighters to the end. But they do make good back-up singers and dancers.

Marian

Amy Yasbeck plays Marian as Madeline Kahn playing a Disney Princess. (In case it’s not clear, Mel Brooks introduces her singing topless in a clamshell with mermaid hair.) In another sharp bit of satire, Brooks really lays heavy emphasis on the Maid part of Maid Marian, down to her wearing an obvious, plot-point chastity belt. Everyone in the film, from Robin to the Sheriff to the Merry Men to the cameras crashing through the windows, leer at Marian, openly discussing her virginity. This highlights how much other Robin Hood films, especially Prince of Thieves, fetishize Marian’s virginity, building to the moment when Robin and Marian can finally bang. (Even the Disney film ends this way). That the film ends with Robin calling for a locksmith, that for all that effort they still can’t have sex, shows just how foolish that trope is.

Though she’s never given the supposed knife skills of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s Marian, Yasbeck’s Marian is still more active in her own story. She warns Robin of the Sheriff’s trap (even if Robin blows her off) and she agrees to marry the Sheriff to save Robin’s life, making her one of the more pro-active Marians.

I wish Marian’s maid was funnier, though. Bess in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Lady Kluck in the Disney version were bold, brassy women who never surrendered and actively encouraged Marian’s romance with Robin. Broomhilde, however, is played as a fat German prude who fetishizes Marian’s virginity more than any man. And there are way too many fat jokes about her (even the super strong Little John can’t lift her).

The Bad Guys

Roger Rees, as the Sheriff of Rottingham, has an interesting line to walk. He has to do a parodic version of Alan Rickman’s Sheriff, except Rickman was already doing a full-tilt, camp villain, so what’s a comedian to do?

For one, Rees plays the villain slightly more straight than Rickman did, trying his best to look imposing when hanging on the wrong side of a horse, bringing in some more of Basil Rathbone’s uptight class consciousness. In this way, he’s the evil counterpoint to Elwes’s Robin Hood, trying to take things seriously but surrounded by people who won’t let him. Then he adds a speech impediment that means he speaks words in the wrong order when he gets upset. And he plays up the Sheriff’s cowardly nature, running from any fight if he has the opportunity.

In contrast to Rees’s semi-serious take, Richard Lewis plays Prince John as himself: neurotic, pampered, and very very Jewish. As much as that’s the joke—the king of England is obviously a New York Jew—it’s also in line with Peter Ustinov’s insecure, thumb sucking lion and Claude Rains’ smarmy, jewel loving show-off. (Compare Rains’s “Robin, I like you,” with Lewis’s “Funny guy! Fun-ny guy!”) Again, the parodic, anachronistic joke is in line with the established character.

Which leaves Tracy Ullman as Latrine (“It used to be Shit-House”). Her role as Prince John’s witchy-advisor/chef is basically a long rape joke about how sex with an ugly woman is a fate worse than death. Which is horrible. On the other hand, it’s literally no more random or off-topic than the witch in Prince of Thieves, so I’m calling this a wash.

Richard and the Crusades

Men in Tights has its own, bizarre take on the Crusades. Like History of the World Part I’s version of the Inquisition, the Crusades are portrayed as bad vaudeville, run by stereotypes of overly friendly Middle Eastern maître d's in sparkly jackets, where torture involves cartoonish yanking of tongues and the forced wearing of fake beards. It’s a weird take that doesn’t get into the morality of the Crusades, but at least the Saracens aren’t portrayed as Morlocks.

For his part, Sir Patrick Stewart’s cameo as King Richard is nothing but a parody of Sean Connery’s cameo, down to a slight Scottish accent. If Brooks has anything to say about Richard, it’s in line with his opinion of all kings: he doesn’t have much respect for them personally (“Here’s your knife.” “Sword.” “Whatever.”), but he has to respect their lifestyle (“It’s good to be king”).

The Ending

Men in Tights has one of my favorite climaxes to a Robin Hood film, for the simple reason that it’s Robin who’s threatened with hanging, and the Merry Men who have to rescue him. In many ways, that’s actually the most natural climax for a Robin Hood story—that eventually he will be captured, but the common people he fed, trained, and inspired will rise up to rescue him. Also, like any good Robin Hood, Elwes remains a smug, sassy jackass even as the rope goes around his neck. If he’s worried, he’s certainly not going to let the Sheriff see it.

Of course, this is still the Mel Brooks movie, so it’s all a big joke, filled with allusions to other movies, especially Brooks’s. The hangman is the same hangman from Blazing Saddles. The sword fight almost kills a crew-member, as it does in Spaceballs. And the fight is a mash-up of the final duels in Prince of Thieves (Robin interrupts the Sheriff’s attempt to rape Marian), The Adventures of Robin Hood (including a shadow puppet fight), and The Princess Bride (Cary Elwes just looks so natural trading witty barbs while fencing, prettily).

Weirdly, it ends with Robin accidentally running the Sheriff through. The film had been so careful up to that point to avoid explicit violence. Lots of people get conked on the head or pinned by their clothing to walls, but no one dies or is even seriously harmed. And yet the Sheriff is definitely killed, only to be brought back to life by the magic of the witch. Which, again, is a rape joke about having sex with an ugly woman, so, yeah, maybe Brooks should have just left the Sheriff dead.

Drinking Game

This is another four drink movie. There’s no one scene that will kill you, but the film is a pastiche of all Robin Hood stories, so it hits most of the common tropes. Additionally, Mel Brooks speaks in the language of historical inaccuracy, so there’s a drink at least once per scene.

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Steven Padnick is a freelance writer and editor. By day. You can find more of his writing and funny pictures at padnick.tumblr.com.

With 2013 behind us, it comes time to rank everything we had done or liked (or perhaps glanced at once all year long) in an endless series of “Best of” lists, and anime is no exception. As in every year, there were the usual hits, misses, misses so dazzling they became ironic hits, and the shows that were so middle-of-the-road everyone already forgot they aired (remember Kotoura-san? We don’t either). We’ve used our excellent subjective judgment to pick our ten favorite shows of 2013.

[Keep reading to see if we’ve snubbed your favorite cartoon]

10. Psycho-Pass

This cyberpunk police drama filled a niche for anime fans hungry for the gritty science fiction titles of years past. With its Minority Report-ish premise, dark color palette, and transforming weapon designs with blue blinky bits, Psycho-Pass has the look and feel of Ghost in the Shell or Blade Runner—though it doesn’t, unfortunately, manage to fill those illustrious shoes. While the dystopian themes of the show never quite materialized in the way we had hoped and some character arcs didn’t receive the focus they deserved, the diverse cast, clever villain, and the infamous ruthlessness of writer Gen Urobuchi (Madoka Magica) kept us entertained and on our toes until the very end. We’re looking forward to seeing what the second season brings in 2014.

Missed the Philip K Dick references and suffering? Watch now on Hulu.

 

9. WataMote—No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys Fault I’m Not Popular

Whether or not you liked WataMote will probably depend on what level you can sympathize with protagonist Tomoko’s plight. A cringe-comedy in the vein of Welcome to the NHK, WataMote finds humor in what is actually a terribly sad situation: that of an awkward loner who can’t understand why she’s not the most popular girl in school. In the wrong hands this odd little show could have been a disaster, but quirky, stylized visuals and adroit handling of tone really brought out the best in the material, creating a show that balances humor and pathos almost disturbingly well. A word must also be said for Izumi Kitta, Tomoko’s voice actor, whose voice-cracking performance deserves credit for many of the funniest moments in the show.

Never paused a show because the awkward moments caused you actual physical pain? Watch WataMote now on Crunchyroll.

 

8. Free!

Free! made major waves this year (always with the water puns) due to the major fan reaction to this 30 second commercial for the concept that aired a few months before the show. Setting the hype aside, Free! is a solid sports anime filled with beautiful animation and lots of light-hearted fun. Although it at times tends too much towards melodrama for our tastes, it also had a good sense of humor and an excellent grasp of its character interaction—this is the kind of show you can just tell the whole staff had a great time making. The show is sure to be a major point of contention for years to come, but love it or hate it, Free! was one of the more interesting phenomena of 2013, and a pretty darn fun sports show to boot.

Missed cute boys doing swimming things? Watch now on Crunchyroll.

 

7. Shin Sekai Yori / From the New World

Shin Sekai Yori was one of the most fascinating anime of the year, though it seems to have been largely overlooked in favor of its dystopian cohort, Psycho-Pass. This far-future science fiction show not only presented a well-constructed future world and culture, but was one of those anime that really makes the most of the medium, combining a variety of animation styles and some truly stunning design elements. The show is at times quite uneven in quality, with some pacing issues and directorial missteps over its 25 episode run—although considering that the plot covers a span of twenty-four years, it flows much better than one might expect. But uneven as it may be, when Shin Sekai Yori is good, it’s brilliant, and very much worth watching to the final conclusion.

Missed dystopian psychic adventures? Watch now on Crunchyroll.

 

6. Little Witch Academia

Not a show exactly, but Little Witch Academia deserves a place on this list nonetheless. Studio Trigger’s Anime Mirai entry for 2013, Little Witch Academia is a delightful twenty-five minute mashup of Harry Potter and Saturday morning cartoons rendered in beautiful, fluid animation with a playful, Looney-Tunesish style. But aside from being the most magical fun you can experience in less than half an hour, Little Witch Academia is also worth a mention in that it marks an interesting trend in 2013: the rise of Kickstarter as an avenue for funding anime production. The popularity of Little Witch Academia allowed Trigger to successfully Kickstart a sequel now slated for 2015, and they’ve not been the only ones—Production IG and Masaki Yuasa’s Kickstarted anime Kick-Heart won a gaggle of awards at film festivals worldwide this year, and Kenji Itoso’s Santa Company project is in its last few hours as we speak. The trend represents exciting potential for Western fans to have a voice in anime production, something that would have been considered impossible in years past.

Missed that thing Trigger did before KILL la KILL? Watch now on Crunchyroll.

 

5. Hataraku Maou-sama! / The Devil is a Part-Timer

Hataraku Maou-sama! managed to rise above its seemingly tired and generic premise (a fish-out-of-water comedy with an evil being? Never heard that one before) to be a fresh and incredibly fun romp. Watching a great and terrible demon lord scrape together the next month’s rent while working at MgRonalds is amusing enough, but Maou-sama’s success is all in the execution: creative direction and character animation combined with great performances from the entire cast (including the protagonists performing much of the first episode in a fantasy language) made this show one of the most entertaining comedies of the year.

Missed Lucifer as a housebound NEET? Watch now on Hulu.

 

4. Silver Spoon / Gin no Saji

To be quite honest, Silver Spoon didn’t have to work very hard to be a success: based on an award-winning, bestselling manga by Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist), the folks making this adaptation would have had to work hard to screw it up. Silver Spoon is everything we were promised: a heartwarming tale about farm animals and adolescent self-discovery. Balancing protagonist Hachiken’s personal struggles and relationships with a broad cast of characters, Silver Spoon deals gracefully with both the hardships and rewards of agricultural life, not fearing ambiguous answers to the ethical questions it raises. The show’s greatest success, though, besides teaching us more about dairy farming than we ever thought we wanted to know, is in capturing that balance of seriousness and humor that Arakawa so excels at creating in her work. The second season will be airing in January, and as far as we’re concerned it can’t come soon enough.

Missed out on learning where eggs come from? Watch now on Crunchyroll or Daisuki.

 

3. Attack on Titan / Shingeki no Kyojin

Of course no look at anime in 2013 could possibly avoid discussing Attack on Titan—certainly, if not the best, the most colossal (har har) anime of the year. Attack on Titan delivered some of the most spectacular action sequences and memorable characters of the year, capturing a huge audience with its mix of fantasy, action, and intrigue. Despite being plagued with production issues and suffering from some painfully glacial pacing in order to stretch the material over the full 25 episodes, Attack on Titan’s portrayal of the desperate fury of Eren and his cohorts in the Survey Corps as they fight against the titan menace made for one of the most exciting shows of the year. And can we just get a word in about Hiroyuki Sawano’s dramatic musical score for this show? Watching titans devour Eren’s friends just wouldn’t have been the same without it.

Somehow never heard of Attack on Titan? Watch now on Crunchyroll. Alternatively, go to your nearest anime convention and start counting the Levi and Sasha cosplayers.

 

2. Kyousougiga

Kyousougiga has been several years in the making, beginning with a standalone web short in 2011 which was a bit of a jumble—a beautiful, exciting jumble, but utterly incomprehensible in terms of actual plot. Many among us thought there might be something wonderful there, if only Toei would give its animators a break from working on PreCure to make a real go of it. At last, our patience was rewarded: finally given a ten episode run this year, Kyousougiga has proven that there was something magical behind that first short. With fantastic art and a colorful, dynamic visual style, Kyousougiga’s looks alone would almost be enough to put it on this list, but the visuals support a lovingly developed mythology, strong characters, and a compelling family saga that traverses both death and dimension. The slightly convoluted plot is well worth the effort—rarely are we treated to something so original and imaginative as Kyousougiga.

Missed Lewis Carroll in magical Kyoto? Catch up now on Crunchyroll.

 

1. Uchouten Kazoku / The Eccentric Family

Mixing family drama, Japanese mythology, and a magically realistic alternate Kyoto, it’s easy to see why Uchouten Kazoku was our favorite show of 2013. This title delivered in every department: a thoughtful plot provided by a Tomihiko Morimi (The Tatami Galaxy) novel, beautiful art and animation, and lovable characters brought to life by a great voice cast all came together to create a show that was both comedic and heartbreaking. Though Uchouten Kazoku seems to meander at some points, taking its time building a complex world of tanuki, tengu, and humans, the show is self-confident in its wanderings, and never loses sight of its larger themes and character arcs in this story of loss and family legacy.

Missed tanuki doing idiotic things? Watch now on Crunchyroll.

 

Didn’t see your favorite show from 2013 on here? Tell us what we missed in the comments, or check out all 206 anime from 2013 in this year-end AMV:

 

*For the record, to qualify for this list, the titles were required to:

• End in 2013
• Not be a movie (sorry Garden of Words)
• Not be a sequel (sorry Chihayafuru 2)
• Not be available only through fansubs/Japanese releases (sorry Yamato 2199 and Jojo’s)
• Not be Aku no Hana (not sorry, that rotoscoping was a nightmare)

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Kelly Quinn is an assistant editor at Tor Books. She can also be found on Twitter.

 

At first I was going to go with a happy image of Downton Abbey‘s Mary Crawley, since doubtless if this bill had been passed back in her day she’d have been very pleased to be able to inherit her father’s title herself instead of having to marry her cousin Matthew. You know, assuming she weren’t fictional. But the allure of the Mary Crawley “judging you” look is just too strong.

Four baronets have taken some time off from being rich, drinking tea, and shopping for jodhpurs (that’s what happens in the British peerage system, right?) to add an amendment to a bill making its way through the House of Lords that will make it possible for women to inherit their father’s titles. The bill has been nicknamed the “Downton law” after, you guessed it, Downton Abbey, which had as a plot point in its earlier seasons the fact that lead character Mary Crawley couldn’t inherit her father’s Earlship because she was the wrong gender and tradition! History! Honor!

According to its supporters the bill is gaining some traction, which is good, because in the great multiple choice question that is this story the rule that keeps women from inheriting is

A) Pointless
B) Antiquated
C) Sexist
D) All of the above

The law already included earls, dukes, viscounts, and other hereditary titles, but baronets had to make a special effort to get in on it for reasons to do with the peerage system that frankly I don’t understand and don’t really care about. One of those baronets who went the extra mile is Sir Nicholas Stuart Taylor, whose baronetcy will become extinct if one of his daughters cannot inherit his title. One of those daughters is Virginia Stuart Taylor, whose parents “were so disappointed not to have an heir that her mother cried when she learnt she had given birth to a girl,” according to The Telegraph.

“I don’t mind if i am the first, the 10th, the 100th [baronetess],” says Stuart Taylor,

“but I’ve been brought up the rest of my life — apart from those first years of disappointment of not being a boy — as completely equal to men.
I have been brought up believing that girls are equal to boys, often getting better grades at university. Everything is equal and it seems kind of ridiculous that we are trying so hard to make it fair for women in other areas of life but not in this one.”

Of the 1,260 baronets in the UK, only four of them—all in Scotland—can be passed down to daughters. Mary would doubtless be very pleased if this were to change. Ditto Edith. Edith for life.

(via: Jezebel)

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