Degrassi: Next Gen, S1

This is my life: watching Degrassi reruns on YouTube :')

I was uhbsessed with Sean back in my pre-high school days, and rewatching I totally get why but at the same time cringe at how basic I am. Sean is like 5'4 with bad skin and looks VERY CANADIAN. Very like Canadian white trash. Honestly I'm being rude to conceal my true amorous feelings. Sean is literally like always wearing a jean jacket. He is truly the baddest bitch Degrassi has ever seen. I can't decide if I sincerely ship him with strong-faced Emma, though. I do and I don't. The bad boy meets good girl trope isn't something I'm inherently into, but I like that Degrassi 1. is slowburning it (at least for a teen show) and 2. is doing like the middle school version of it, so it actually makes sense and isn't as cringe as when they do it with mature people/adults.

Principal Ratchet. Useless. Irrelevant. Basic Becky.

I despise JT. Always have. I did not care when he was killed and won't care when I watch it again :)

I do not remember caring about Jimmy when I used to watch Degrassi back in the day on The N after Instant Star went off or whatever. I did always think Aubrey was a qt, but I definitely did not actually ever care what Jimmy had going on. I thought he was boring and never had any good storylines. Just rewatching season 1, I feel totally different. At least for now. Like, he is adorable. He's kind of a good guy~ I think compared to the other annoying male characters, he's a breath of fresh air. Only his character can get away with having a tear fall from his eye as he orders pizza alone on his birthday :'(

I ship Jimmy and Sean. Degrassi is wrong for not nurturing this relationship!!!

Sean's Brother Tracker or Jacker or some shit. Roasted TF outta Emma when she wrote that article trying to get the computers taken away so the poor kids would have no way to do their homework. Give this man the Nobel Prize!

Jimmy's face when Ter and Paige were doing that awkward ass white girl two-step while performing Ashley's shitty song they made shittier by slutting up :')

Paige is the worst. A bad friend and thinks she's cute but definitely is not at all. In the Youtube comments (God keeps me alive as a joke) they were saying how they don't understand why Teri and Ash keep Paige around. And I'm like, yeah, wtf, why do they. Paige actively tried to smash Jimmy and 1000% stole Spinner's fat ass right up from under Teri (Terry? Terri?). Who does that? The fact that she hasn't been jumped yet is really wild, and extremely Canadian.

A plus-sized QUEEN. I want to say the show disrespects Teri, but so far I actually don't see that. But if my memory serves me correctly, they def go super hard on that in later seasons. But I'll wait to drag until we get there. But every1 in the utube comments was saying how pretty Teri is. I agree, but watching the show, they don't actually make it seem like Teri is some disgusting blob, that's more Teri dealing with a self-esteem issue. But I'll wait to see if this show starts making it seem like they agree Teri should have low self-esteem b4 I start going in. A character having low self-esteem is a valid plotline, especially for this type of afterschool special-y type of program. It's just weird when they do something like that and you can tell they agree with the character's psyche lol but anyway I'll w8

 

Annoying. Self-righteous. A bad friend. It's kind of terrible that Emma is such a big time main character, because she's pretty awful. She isn't awful enough to make me not care what happens, but she is pretty close to that line, so..

Baby Manny. I can hardly watch these early episodes with pre-thong Manuela lol, like she was such a liddle baby bean are you kidding me. But I see hints of the Manny we come to know, like when she got buck with Paige lol that's the Manny eye know. But Cassie Steele is too adorable with her lil dimples pleaz 

Oscar, the true star of this show. A bad bitch, and a #diva.

Hazel, the Nicki Minaj of Degrassi Middle School.

Coach guy. Who apparently also teaches math??? #Iconic when he had rumors spread about him molesting Liberty and wasn't immediately fired #tenurelife. Also iconic when he was reading out ppl's test scores smfh. A lowkey bad bitch.

The true ship of this season. Fight me!

rbvungriovjrpij WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY does that guy just steal Jimmy's basketball and Jimmy doesn't do shit??!?!? Jimmy is lowkey a punk lmao. He is so cute tho :( 

Spin is so thick and sloppy and not in a good way though he absolutely could qualify to be one of Drake's babymammas, so that's something <3

Can't stand Toby, but despise him less than JT. Every1 in the utube comments was talking about his eyelashes and honestly the most annoying boys always have the best eyelashes. It's sickening and God is mocking us.

U guise. I never liked Liberty. But so far, just rewatching the first season, she is honestly so adorable. The actress is plain cute, but I also see they give Liberty a little comedy to do and it's actually funny lol. Sum1 in the utube comments compared her to Cookie from Ned's Declassified Skool Survival Guide and I totally see it. 4now, they're def companion characters. I hope I keep liking Liberty but I'm just remembering the assassination they do on her character in later seasons and pre-cringing.

Ms. Kwan. I was on my "get a man get a life" steaz with her, then they dropped the Husband Has Cancer bomb and I felt bad. Ms. Kwan to me does too much occasionally, but Spin and Jimmy went too far egging her car. Honestly, I only blame Spinner. Jimmy is just a follower but he is a sweet boy who would not think to do that independently idc idc!!

Literally irrelevant. Possibly Hispanic.

Ash is annoying, but I remember she was in my like Top 5 back when I first watched this in my awkward and oily days. I was obsessed with Ash, Craig, Manny, then Emma and Sean. Every1 else could die honestly. Rewatching, I still favor her character and storylines. And I'm excited for the coming seasons when she's emo and gets into all that drama with Craig. Idc, Ash is my fave eventho she's literally the worst, and possibly Gypsy.

Snake. Caucasian.

Okay, let's go season 2. No skool shootingz yet I don't think, but I anticipate the arrival of Craig, who is one of my all time faves, but with Craig comes Joey :( and his depressing bald bullshit :( Degrassi always has me on this roller coaster of emotions. Anyway, I'm thirty years old :')

The Grey (2011)

I had no idea this movie almost came out nearly ten years ago. I remember seeing some trailers and being immediately obsessed but I'm only just now getting around to seeing it. I love things set in snowy mountain places, especially when the movie is like a thriller or adventure. I like the aesthetic of mountain/snow deaths. Avalanches and freezing to death teas. It's my kink. Another one of my kinks is people being eaten alive and/or chewed on by wild animals in movies. Any sort of animal attacks is my sexuality. It does not occur in movies nearly as much as it should. 

So The Grey has snow and The Grey has wolves. What are the girls expecting from something like this just on-site? You're expecting Liam Neeson to be up in the movie tearing a wolf apart with his hands and teeth.  

Does The Grey deliver on this??

Um, no!!!!! So time to complain.

So the movie starts with, horribly, some voice-over from Liam. He's like depressed or some shit. Man, join the club. I think his character works on an oil rig? Idk, he works some job that loner people on the lam seem like they would have. Like someone who killed their wife so they move to Alaska and tell everyone their name is Rick when it's really Donovan and they have killed more than once, but just the wife was the "big kill", so they had to dash. No one cares what's going on in Alaska. Perfect place to disappear, even if you're a huge Irish-accented man that literally everyone would notice but okay. 

So the voice-over I thought was unnecessary. I think it's there so we can connect to Liam's character? Come to understand him? I felt we would've gotten the same effect just from simple visuals. They show like flashbacks to Liam being with his wife and then Liam is saying some depressed shit or whatever over it. And we see him walking around solemnly and occasionally hunting wolves. Then after this sequence, we go on a plane where we meet the crew Liam is going to be working with on Insert Whatever Manly Scumbag Job Idk, and then there's a plane crash.

I strongly feel the beginning narration bit should've been chopped and we start the movie with the plane crash. We don't need to be told to care about Liam's character. He's Irish and looks sad. That's enough. Just toss him immediately into peril and we'll care. We don't need him rolling around the sheets with his dead wife while he recites terrible poetry. It's fine, you don't have to be deep. That's not what this is, it's okay.

So the crew is on a plane going to??? Idk. I literally have no idea what the Movie Job is. Idk if they didn't explain it well, or if I just zoned out when they were talking about it. Probably number 2, but hey, make it interesting so I can not fall asleep thanks.

We meet the crew briefly before the plane crashes. So let's see we have James Badge Dale and Dallas Roberts giving the girls a Rubicon reunion that they did not and would not ever ask for; we have adorable small man Joe Anderson; we have fucking Dermot Mulroney, whom I thought was entirely out of place, but simultaneously very welcome; we have a man I know in my bones is racist but whom I kinda like actor-wise, Frank Grillo; and then sum other misc. ppl I did not care about whom were killed off pretty early.

The first of the manz we the audience are supposed to care about who dies is freakin' James Badge Dale. WTF. 

Can you guess how many guys they have to kill off before Frank Grillo dies?

Literally like a million!!!

How tf does Frank survive sooo long??! How the fuck does he survive longer than Dermot? This movie should be arrested.

So here's the first thing I don't like: like literally everyone is dying lmao. Idk what I expected, but literally every character dying was not it??? After the big black guy died I was like okay these are our final guys. Enough death. Wait can we talk about how the black guy didn't even die from a wolf attack but from like...literally nothing lmao??? He died from movie magic or some shit. His big ass just went to sleep and never woke up smfh. The best death was Dermot's, which was hilarious, but it had me on the edge of my seat. Most of the other deaths were dumb. I thought Dallas dying was fucked up and forced. Even Frank's ~death~ was dumb because 1. we don't get to see it which is bullshit he was so annoying can we at least see him get ripped to death by werewolves wtf and 2. I thought the wolves immediately descending upon him was so extra. 

Let's talk about the wolves.

They were literally...like...did this movie have fifteen cents as its budget?? If your movie is literally entirely about wolf attacks um...please have them look good so the audience can be actually scared? These shits looked like some claymation bullshit out of some PBS special version of Peter & the Wolf.

I was SHOOK

by how ugly and bad these wolves looked.

Like what in the world. Isn't Liam Neeson supposed to be some sort of movie star? How are you going to have a Liam-starring action vehicle with some dumb-looking shit like this? Maybe I am giving Liam too much credit idk. Like, I feel if this was a Tom Cruise movie or something the wolves would look good so we can be scared for Tom's crazy ass and genuinely fear for his life when ordinarily we would not ever, you know? This wolves worked against the movie, imo. 

But maybe this movie is supposed to be deep, and I'm being shallow thinking it was just about wolf attacks. The movie tried to have ~deep~ moments in the film, but literally all of it was laughable. Had the deepness been actually effective, maybe I would not have cared about the dumb ugly wolves as much. But alas.

The worst thing about this movie was the ending. Literally who else thought Liam was about to box the fuck out of the Main Baddie Wolf? I know it wasn't just me. This movie literally teased a showdown then just cut the fuck off. BRB calling the police on this movie and telling them it's African American so they get here QUICK to arrest this shit because having to have endured watching this mess should be considered an Act of Violence!

West Side Story (1961)

So I'm obsessed with West Side Story. I've seen it a million times and it never gets old. And I don't even like musicals like that. When everyone was talking about Hamilton I wanted them all to die. I still do. I saw Lay Miserables at the cineplex and I promise you I will celebrate the day Tom Hooper is murdered in the streets. I promise you.

But West Side Story just does something to me. It could be because it's just, ya know, actually good. But I'm not the expert on musicals. I really can't judge them objectively and say what is good and not because inherently people randomly breaking into song or *shudders* rap is, like, insane. It shouldn't be happening and I think, in general, it's bad. 

But in West Side Story it's all fine. It shouldn't be. Most of the story's main characters are gang members/"tough" street hoodlums prancing down the street like graceful gazelles. What Crip or Latin King does like pirouettes and shit on their way to a shoot-out? Pretty much none. But West Side Story will have you believe pretty much all. And you will believe, and you will like it!

So on my recent viewing I was cracking up at all the ballet and dancing. I never don't be laughing. It's so hilarious to me like these are gang members, right? But wait, now I have a new question, or like a sub-question to that: How old are these kids? Like, everyone in the movie. I noticed at some point, I think during Officer Krupke, the Jets refer to themselves as "JDs", which I refuse to look up, but thanks to my medium-good oldtimey movie knowledge, pretty sure that means juvenile delinquents. But I only just noticed that during my last viewing. The whole time I'm wondering if these are grown folk; grown ass men prancing around in the streets all day, fighting over turf. Like, literally that's all. They don't seem to be selling drugs or prostitutes or anything I guess real gangs do. These white boys and puerto ricans are literally getting big in their chest about who can hang out at the park.

So honestly that should answer my question concerning age, but it really doesn't. Everyone looks like someone's mom and they need to stop. If you even dare to tell me Action is supposed to be like 15 I'm calling the police.

 Look at these tough guy hoodlums, you guys.

 Pretty sure George Chakiris is literally Greek and not Puerto Rican even in obscura world. I am almost certain he is wearing literally shoe polish as makeup. This movie is #problematic!!!

I just noticed this random background ballet gang member Riff fake-punches in the stomach. I am so upset I didn't successfully screencap the guy smiling at Riff and he had a little dimple. Whom is this mans? He is so cute but racist and probably a nazi like the rest of the Jets so nvm lmao

Bruh, say uncle

I am a Tony STAN. When I first discovered West Side Story, I did not like Tony. I thought he was a damn geek. His ass looks like Megan Fox. He's a simp! His songs are simp ass soliloquies!!! Idk if I have matured or regressed, but I love Tony now and all his songs and his duets with Maria are my fave. Tony is too pure for this world. He just wanted to quit that gay gang, work at his lil jobbie, and be baes forever with Maria. 

"Could beeee, who knowsssss" (don't know the actual title smh) is, like, pure joy and genuine optimism in one single song. Listen, I am emo and I like sad shit. If I'm not being emo I like angry music about stabbing God or whatever. This song shouldn't be my fave song in the musical and one of my fave songs just like in general on Earth. But it is. Justice for Tony. He's a sweet boy. But a little bit of an idiot so you know he gon' die smh. I wish Riff's gay crush on Tony purified him instead of destroyed. This movie is anti-gay.

 THE Puerto Rican Princess has finally arrived!!

 That dress is really cute and Anita and Maria are my lil babies :')

 Look at Anita she's like "Look at those two DEFINITELY LATINAS :)". Look at also definitely not Indian Chico in the back like the loser fourth wheel he was always destined to be :')

I love this part when Tony and Maria first see each other. I can't believe I used to hate them lol. I still honestly have no idea if me growing to love them so much is a positive or negative. Like, there's something wrong with both of them. Maria "My Hands Are Cold" Spanish Last Name might actually be mentally challenged. But I don't care they're my ship!! :'(

This look and dress on Anita is so damn iconic. I never get tired of watching her twirl all over the place during "America".

 I'm telling you, it's something wrong with these two. They both need caretakers looking out for their best interests. Like, what are they even doing in this scene? Someone needs to come get both of them and make sure they're taking their medication. Still, I ship. Them being slow doesn't mean they don't deserve love like everyone else. The only one who doesn't deserve love is Chino, because earlier I thought his name was Chico. If you can't even make me remember your simple ass name you just need to quit and go back to your Indian gang and stop fucking playing in people's face!

 I ship Riff and Bernardo as friends. Not even in a shitposty sort of way. Like, I just feel they would be friends if not for the whole "Go back to Puerto Rico, you dirty pig" thing! Plus, Bernardo called Riff...maybe a Pollock or something?? Which is totally just as bad!!

    

  Lmao, this was funny. Me in a gang, tbh.

 If I was a character in West Side Story, I'd be this guy yelling at the Jets to shut the fuck up. 

After COULD BEEEEEEEE, WHO KNOWSSSSSSSSS, "Cool" is my fave performance. "America" used to be my fave song. Who am I now? Idek. I honestly feel like I'm regressing lmao, but Cool is so lit to me. Plus ICE is a motherfucking zaddy. PERIOD!!!! I love the message of the song. But I feel weird about it because like two people have just been murdered, so it's like awk. Plus the Jets are nazis so it's like yike.

 Lmao when Anybodies asks what she can do and ICE tells her to stick to the shadows I was like "aw" then he says you did good buddyboy and Anybodies weird, terrible ass is all Thanx....DADDY-O. Bitch, if you don't get your neva gonna get married too ugly butt tf up outta here!!!!! This why they not lettin' you into the gang smh!!

This movie makes me SICK!! I honestly feel sad (not in a joke way) that Tony and Maria can't be together and that Chico's friendzoned ass killed Tony so he couldn't live long enough to become like an emotionally absent husband and father to Maria and their inevitable super-hot children!! It's BULLSHIT!! 

My favorite thing about the end is how everyone's hands are all over the murder weapon, and how you know Chino is going to be sent to the electric chair with no type of investigation, and honestly, it's what he #deserves.

Additional random out of context notes:

-Anita saying to Maria: "Boy, after a fight that brother of yours is so healthy". Excuse me, what?
-Tony and Maria singing all loud on the fire escape thing right outside her parents' window????
-When Maria tells the cop some made-up dude named Jose was the one her brother was trying to fight at the dance. Natalie Wood's face in that scene is a shitpost lmao
-Omg, when Tony goes to meet Maria at the bridal shop it IS SO STINKING CUTE!!! He is so excited!!! :((( Tony and Maria really are idiots tho lol
-Tony was a former gang member lmao??? They imply Tony has helped the gang out multiple times in fights and stuff? Tony? The one from this movie with his shirt open and shit??? Girl, I guess.
-Where ARE THE BLACK PEOPLE??? Not realistic, sis!!!
-Tony going around yelling "Maria" in a city full of Puerto Ricans like some dumber ass Cinderella
-"Puerto Rico is IN America now" - Bernardo, a woke king
-"It's when I don't look that it happens". Is Anita OK??