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Whalefall falls into the genre of survivalist drama along the likes of 127 Hours, Cast Away, and All is Lost; one human against nature’s elements and their struggle to survive impossible odds. In this situation, a young man is accidentally swallowed by a sperm whale and has only enough air in his diving air tank and his wits to survive and escape.

Some of these stories are based on a real-life incident; Whalefall is not. This film is adapted from the book of the same by author Daniel Kraus, who also cowrote the screenplay with the film’s director Brian Duffield. Duffield is probably best known for his excellent 2023 film No One Will Save You, which he wrote and directed.

In the same way that No One Will Save You was more than just an alien abduction thriller, Whalefall is more than just about a guy trying to survive having been swallowed by a whale. Whereas No One Will Save You juxtaposed pariaism with science fiction horror of being abducted by extraterrestrials, Whalefall juxtaposes the trauma of being raised by a toxic and emotionally abusive parent with having been swallowed by a whale.

The claustrophobia, fear, and physical abuse endured by the main character is compared, via flashbacks, to traumatic events with the main character’s father. It is the emotional abuse from the “tough love” provided by the father which gives the main character the strength to keep pushing for their survival and escape from the whale.

As unbelievable as the premise may seem, it is the comparison to the traumatic events of the young man’s childhood which are the crux and relatability of the story.

It is through the performance of the main character, played by Austin Abrams (Weapons, Paper Towns) that Whalefall really excels. Abrams’ likeability and panicked performance draw in the audience to want him to survive despite all the decisions made lacking forethought which led his character to the predicament of being accidentally swallowed by a whale.

The brutality of Whalefall comes in two forms. First is through the unrelenting physical abuse of Abrams’ character being inside the whale: broken ribs, broken ankle, burned skin, puncture wounds, etc.. And each and every abuse flung at him is intensified with the film’s excellent sound design which captures every aching and disgusting sound and emphasizes appropriately for dramatic effect.

The second form of brutality comes in the form of flashbacks to the emotional abuses inflicted on the main character by his father played by Academy Award Winner Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men).

Whalefall, while its focus is not body horror, does relish in the abuse inflicted on its main character to the point where I would argue that the film is not for the faint at heart.

The relentless abuses, claustrophobic cinematography, and booming sound design will appeal to some audiences, but also may be a deterrent for others. This statement is not meant to be a deterrent, but more a warning to anyone curious about Whalefall’s intensity.

Whalefall is rated PG-13 for the aforementioned physical abuses, intensity, and some sparse foul language.

The post Whalefall Is A Brutal Survivalist Coming of Age Drama! appeared first on Brite and Bubbly.

      

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Marvel’s VisionQuest continues the story begun in Disney Plus’s first streaming Marvel show WandaVision. VisionQuest follows the character of Vision, last seen flying into the sky to parts unknown at the end of WandaVision.

Five years have passed and Vision has been “soul searching” with other Stark created Artificial Intelligence Programs. This comprises a majority of returning characters and cast which include Paul Bettany reprising his role as Vision and James Spader as Ultron. To note, though Spader previously voiced Ultron in Avengers Age of Ultron, now he is portraying the human personification/human avatar of the character.

VisionQuest explores and plays a lot with the concept of Artificial Intelligence Programs having human avatars and being based on a preexisting human. The program JARVIS is portrayed by James D’Arcy who played a butler for Howard Stark in Avengers Endgame and the television series Agent Carter. FRIDAY was previously voiced by actress Kerry Condon in previous Avengers films like Captain America Civil War and Avengers Endgame but now is portrayed by Orla Brady (Star Trek: Picard).

EDITH was previously voiced by Dawn Michelle King in Spider-Man Far From Home but now is portrayed by Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek). Even the programs which ran Tony Stark’s helper bots in the Iron films have taken personal avatars with Henry Lewis (best known for his theatre and BBC acting work) portraying DUM-E and Jonathan Sayer (also best known for his theatre acting) portraying U.

This concept of artificial intelligence being based on preexisting personalities drives the story a lot. While VisionQuest is very much a Marvel Studios adventure, there is a reoccurring philosophical conversation being had about what makes a person who, or what, they are? In the very beginning of the series, Vision is seen rewatching events from the past (clips from various films and series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe) in a quest to determine who he is and who he wants to be. This leads to a lot of conversations between Vision and Ultron about choice and identity and what shapes a being. Are we more than the sum of our experiences? How much does our “bloodline” determine who we are and how we see ourselves?

One thing that was touched on in Age of Ultron, is the tracing of the evolution of artificial intelligence and its connections to previously existing programs. In Age of Ultron, Ultron is sometimes referred to the child of Tony Stark and Vision the spawn of Ultron. That gets taken to the next degree in VisionQuest when Ultron continually refers to Vision as “son” and Vision referring to JARVIS as “brother.” And throughout the series the phrase “you are my something” is wonderfully used to illustrate an understanding of a connection that cannot be clearly defined.

The programs see their predecessors and peers as family; referring to older versions having code that exists in proceeding models of programs. There is even a subplot that explores “the first synthetic being” which connects to a piece of Marvel Comics history that many comics fans will recognize immediately.

In addition to the analogy of family being used to describe the connection between the artificial intelligence programs, it is also explored in Vision’s connection to the character Thomas Shephard (Ruaridh Mollica, best known from the show Franchise), who contains the soul of his son Tommy from the events of WandaVision. The connection was explained in the middle series of this trilogy, Agatha All Along, and is again explained throughout the episodes of VisionQuest.

In addition to the philosophical story in VisionQuest, there is story of Vision being hunted by the bounty hunter Palladin played by Todd Stashwick (Star Trek: Picard), who is excellent as a no nonsense, indiscriminate murdering antagonist. T’Nia Miller (The Fall of the House of Usher), as I believe this has already been revealed, plays both the personification and the synthetic being Jocasta, who Marvel Comics fans will recognize instantly. 

If it feels like there is a lot going on, it’s because VisionQuest is 8 episodes with the final 2 episodes over an hour each. A LOT has been packed into VisionQuest to seemingly be the conclusion of the series trilogy which began with WandaVision and continued with Agatha All Along. Fitting in all the baggage of the previous shows is both a strength and weakness of this show. While the flashbacks are meant to inform the audience of what came previously, the real emotional weight of the events doesn’t hit as hard unless you have been on this journey that started with WandaVision.

The final episode does have an excellent emotional payoff, but there are many twists and turns getting to it. Fortunately, the acting, especially from stars Paul Bettany and James Spader, really keeps the scenes entertaining, and the actions and cinematography are cinematic level.

While Marvel is preparing audiences for Avengers Doomsday, VisionQuest does not connect to Doomsday and is more interested in continuing a story that audiences have been invested in since the success of WandaVision. It is an entertaining detour from the stakes of a multiverse and does deliver a satisfying emotional end. Audiences who watched and loved WandaVision and Agatha All Along are the target group for VisionQuest and I think they, like I did, will get the most out of this latest Marvel series.

Check out the first two episodes now on Disney Plus!

The post Marvel’s VisionQuest is a Philosophical Journey about Family! appeared first on Brite and Bubbly.

      

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We recently got to interview Carter Young from the new animated film Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie. Yes folks there is a new Paw Patrol movie and as a household with a young boy, we can’t wait to see it! Paw Patrol has been a staple in our home for some time. The new movie follows the PAW Patrol pups after their ship gets caught in a mysterious storm. They crash land on an uncharted tropical island filled with dinosaurs. They meet Rex, a pup who has been stranded on the island for years and has become an expert in all things dino-related.

When the PAW Patrol’s archrival, Mayor Humdinger, begins recklessly mining in hopes of exploiting the island for its natural resources, he inadvertently causes a huge, dormant volcano to erupt. The PAW Patrol pups are thrown into a series of high-stakes, dino-sized rescues bigger than anything they’ve done before, as they must stop Humdinger before everything on the island goes extinct.

We chatted with Carter Young, who stars in the film as Marshall (the fire rescue pup). We chatted about everything about the film to his future as Miles Morales aka Spin from Spidey and His Amazing friends. He also voices the character Miles Morales/Spin on that show too!

He is such a sweet and talented young actor and I’m so glad I got the chance to chat with him. Check out our full interview below or over on our YouTube!

Don’t forget to leave a comment, like and Subscribe to our channel over on YouTube as well! We have lots of fun videos coming soon!

Check out Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie in theaters now!

The post Interview With Carter Young From Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie! appeared first on Brite and Bubbly.

      

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In case you didn’t know, Halloween season now starts from July 5th until October 31st. Since it’s summer time, people now call the summer months the Summerween months now. So to celebrate Summerween we made these Summerween Marshmallow Ghost cups to sip on! It’s a refreshing spooky drink to enjoy for Summerween!

What I love about these is there are the perfect mix of spooky and summer fun!

They are super easy to make and only take 10 minutes to make!

Here is what you need to make these:

Ingredients:

• 9 ounce clear plastic cups
• 1 container of marshmallow fluff
• Chocolate milk
• A sharpie

Here is how to make it:

Using the back of a spoon, add marshmallow fluff to the insides of the plastic cups.

You can add 2-3 Ghost Smears in each cup.

Use the sharpie to draw on the ghost face.

Add chocolate milk or a chocolate milk shake & and a spooky straw and you’re done!

That’s all you have to do to enjoy this fun spooky treat! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

You can find more fun Halloween themed recipes and DIY’s HERE!

You can print the full recipe below as well!

Print

Summerween Marshmallow Ghost Cups!

A fun and easy drink you can enjoy for Summerween and Halloween!

Keyword halloween, summerween

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Equipment

• 1 Spoon
• A Sharpie Marker

Ingredients

• 9 ounce Clear plastic cups
• 1 Container of marshmallow fluff
• Chocolate milk

Instructions

• Using the back of a spoon, add marshmallow fluff to the insides of the plastic cups.
• You can add 2-3 Ghosts in each cup.
• Use the sharpie to draw on the ghost face.
• Add chocolate milk & or a Chocolate Milkshake and enjoy this fun spooky summerween treat.

Notes

Enjoy for Summerween or Halloween!

Happy Summerween and countdown to Halloween everyone!

The post Summerween Marshmallow Ghost Cups! appeared first on Brite and Bubbly.

      

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It’s that time of year again. It’s Shark Week time! If you’ve been following me for some time, you know I love me some Shark Week ! Every year we try to post something fun that you can eat or make while you watch and this year we’re back with another fun recipe. Check out this Shark Week Shark Float!

This Shark Week Shark Float is super easy to make and very refreshing. It’s a little bite to sip on and munch on while you watch this years show!

Here are the ingredients:

Ingredients:

• 3 scoops ice cream
• Hawaiian punch berry blue typhoon
• Shark gummies
• Peach rings
• Red or blue straws

To make it you just add the ice cream to your glass, then fill the glass with Hawaiian punch.

You then add a gummy shark, and a peach ring to the straw.

And that’s all you need to do to make it. I love to add a bunch of shark gummies or even a teddy graham inside of a gummy ring floating on top with a shark. That would be super cute as well.

Serve and Enjoy as you watch Shark Week this year!

Here is this years Shark Week Schedule! I can’t wait to watch K-Pop Shark Heroes! It’s got one of the girls who played one of the K-Pop Demon Hunters hunting Sharks! LOVE IT!

Here is a printable version of the recipe as well:

Print

Shark Week Shark Float

Easy and fun Shark Week themed ice cream float to make for Shark Week!

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Ingredients

• 3 scoops vanilla or sweet cream ice cream
• 1 cup Hawaiian punch berry blue typhoon
• Shark gummies
• Peach rings
• Red or blue straws

Instructions

• Add the ice cream of your choice to your glass, then fill the glass with Hawaiian punch.
• Add a gummy shark, and a peach ring to the straw.
• Serve and Enjoy!

Here is a tip you can do!

Hope you enjoy this fun Shark Week drink as much as I do!

Find more fun Shark Week DIY’s and Recipes HERE!

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Season 1 of X-Men 97 had the split episode of “Motendo / Lifedeath — Part 1” looked at the characters of Jubilee and Storm having personal journeys but in their own adventures which never overlap. DANGER.EXE elevates the concept of two characters having personal journeys but finds a way of uniting the adventures by way of them having something in common.

The characters in question here are Polaris and Professor Xavier. Each one is having a very personal impact over the death of Magneto from episode 4 by way of their individual relationship with him. The rest of the season, and especially this episode, presents the question “How do we live in a world without Magneto?” and what that means to different people. How is the legacy honored and preserved of someone who was not just important personally to their loved ones, but was important to the world?

DANGER.EXE does the same magic trick that a lot of X-Men 97 has done by taking aspects of storylines from the over 60 years of comic continuity and mixing them to create a new story that honors the themes of the original story while zigging instead of zagging to keep things fresh for longtime fans.

Fans of the comics will recognize the title and backdrop of the setting from a story arc in the mid 2000s from Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run. Of all the episodes, DANGER.EXE has the most easter eggs and nods to both the aforementioned Astonishing X-Men run as well as Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run.

DANGER.EXE also follows the other great thing that X-Men 97 has been doing which is focusing on a character which has not received as much spotlight previously. Lorna Dane/Polaris is that character in this episode, which I think will lead to some people calling it “the Polaris episode” despite the focus being on how her and Xavier deal with big changes in their lives. Weaving aspects of Polaris’ history through the decades of her time in the various X-books into this episode will hopefully catapult her popularity into a “Polarissance.”

With the X-Men having begun season 2 split by way of time travel, DANGER.EXE begins setting the new status quo for the season by giving the team a new mission and new costumes by the end of the episode. Because this is halfway through the current season, I can only hope season 3 will further X-pand on the newly established status quo.

Check out Season 2 of X-Men 97 streaming now on Disney+!

The post X-Men 97 Season 2 Episode Review: DANGER.EXE appeared first on Brite and Bubbly.

      

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Of all the episodes in Season 2 of X-Men 97, Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs stands out as the most graphic and violent. Understanding this is still an animated show on Disney Plus, they do push the TV-14 rating.

X-Men 97 Season 1, Episode 3 Fire Made Flesh was a horror story with Jean’s clone Madelyne Pryor turning the mansion into a nightmarish haunted house situation. Weapon X, Lies and DVDs, in the same vein, uses tropes of light body horror, isolationism, and paranoia from horror films Aliens and John Carpenter’s The Thing to set the mood.

Teased at the end of episode 4, Wolverine is going to a Weapon X Facility and he isn’t going alone. Members of his team include Sabretooth, Maverick, Lady Deathstrike, Garrison Kane, and Morph. The four prior characters having an association with Weapon X in the comics and the first 3 having previously appeared in the original X-Men The Animated Series. Garrison Kane, while previously having a cameo in the original series, does get slightly more to do in this appearance.

The outlier of the group is Morph because of his loyalty to Wolverine. In many ways, X-men 97 has taken how characters were presented in the original animated series and found ways to recontextualize what they mean and who they are without really changing the core of the character. Because the episode involves Weapon X, obviously Wolverine is the subject matter, but the episode looks at Logan through the eyes of Morph who is our eyes in the story.

To avoid spoilers, I will simply say in summation that by the end of the episode, Wolverine’s famous comic quote “I’m the best there is at what I do” is reframed to reflect that it is how he sees himself and that is the only value he puts on himself and as one character muses aloud “Doesn’t that make you sad? That makes me sad.”

Check out Season 2 of X-Men 97 streaming now on Disney+!

The post X-Men 97 Season 2 Episode Review: Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs! appeared first on Brite and Bubbly.

      

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Moana is the latest of Disney’s animation to live action film adaptations. As I have previously stated on this site, there are two routes that Disney goes for these adaptations: diversions from the point of view of the original films like Maleficent and Cruella, or direct retelling in live action like The Little Mermaid and most recently last year’s Lilo and Stitch. As of late, when it comes to the live action retellings, Disney seems to be in favor in sticking so closely to the original animated film that not only are the beats of the story the same, but many frames seem to act as storyboards as they try to shoot in live action exactly as it looked in animation.

Even in Lilo and Stitch, rather than altering the looks of the aliens from animation, they simply converted them into a 3-dimensional state using computer graphics. This is the case as well for Moana; even the pig Pua and chicken Heihei have been recreated to look just like their animated counterparts rather than resemble a real chicken and pig.

For those that are not familiar with the 2016 animated film Moana, yes, the original is only ten years old and is getting the live action adaptation treatment, the story is centered around Pacific Islands and their associated myths, legends and culture. A demigod named Maui steals a stone which is the heart of the goddess Te Fiti whose existence flourishes the ocean and islands with life.

The people of Moana’s island, Motunui, have a story where the ocean will choose someone to find The Heart of Te Fiti and with Maui’s help, return it and restore the natural order of the ocean and islands. Much like the animated film, this history is communicated in story form to Moana as a young girl in the beginning of the film.

The live action adaptation does not deviate from the people of Motunui forgetting and denying their ancestors voyaging ways; nor does it change Moana’s spirit for adventure and desire to journey beyond the island’s reef. The live action adaptation follows the story beats of the original animated film verbatim; there are no changes and no surprises. What is added in the live action adaptation is live action.

We no longer live in a world in which digital techniques cannot be applied to live action entertainment to create imaginative worlds and creatures which could only be done in animation. We do still live in a world in which animation and digital graphics cannot capture natural performances from live actors.

One of the big wins for having a live action Moana film is we get Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson being the live action Maui. In the animated film, Maui has a human body but is drawn to reflect his strength. Maui was voiced by Dwayne Johnson in the animated film and now he gets to be the live action embodiment of his animated character. What luck for all involved that he has always been a very athletic and physical performer, has natural charisma, and is very animated as an actor.

I dare say that Johnson’s live action performance as Maui is better than his animated performance. In live action, he has all his tools at his disposal. The big cocky smile he gives for Maui just works so well and his own physical presence makes the fantastic feats he accomplishes more believable. When you see Maui lift Moana’s boat with one hand, you buy it because look at the size of those muscles!

Though Johnson as a live action Maui is worth watching the film alone, his chemistry with the live action Moana (played by newcomer Catherine Lagaʻaia) is equal to that from the animated film. Remember, the title of the film is Moana and the movie does not allow anyone to steal the show from anyone. Catherine Lagaʻaia as Moana really holds her own quite well for a first-time lead in a big budget Hollywood movie. The performance does differ because she is not the original voice and she is not a cartoon, but Laga’aia captures and adequately displays the essence of Moana; and she has a beautiful singing voice so at no point does one feel the need to invite comparison.

One more thing that a live action adaptation brings is being able to behold things you know are real. The beautiful costumes of the people of Motunui are real, the stunning setting of the islands are real, and my favorite part is seeing live action choreography in a musical. Without a doubt, live action musical choreography has a presence and dynamism that has yet to be equally illustrated in animation. Also, live actors dancing, singing and navigating their boats to the song “We Know the Way” just looks really cool on the big screen.

The songs are the same, the story is the same, and as such Moana is just as fun in live action. There is one new song: “Along the Way” by Lin Manuel Miranda and performed by Catherine Lagaʻaia (the live action Moana), Auliʻi Cravalho (the original animated Moana), and Dwayne Johnson (Maui). Moana is a safe bet because you do know exactly what you are getting and if you are a fan of the original animated film, you will likely get similar enjoyment from this new live action adaptation.

Go see Moana in theaters now!

The post Disney’s Moana Is Still Great as a Live Action Musical! appeared first on Brite and Bubbly.

      

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