JOKER: KILLER SMILE #1 | DC

Artist: Run The Jewels
Album: RTJ4
Date Released: June 3rd, 2020
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Artist Background
The duo consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, and legendary underground produceMC El-P, known together as Run The Jewels, originally came together as a result of Adult Swim executive Jason DeMarco who introduced the two in 2011. After his 2011 album PL3DGE peaked at #115 on the US charts, Killer Mike told Jason that he wanted to make his own AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Jason informed Mike, “If you want AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted modernized, the only producer I know who comes close to the Bomb Squad-level of production is El-P”. The duo’s chemistry was immediate, as El-P went on to produce all of Killer Mike’s 2012 last solo album R.A.P. Music, and Mike featured on El-P’s final solo album Cancer 4 Cure. Mike and El’s respective albums released within a week of each other in May 2012, and the two embarked on a twenty-city US tour in the following months. After returning from tour, the pair had found a friendship growing between themselves, and made the decision to put other projects on hold and focus on the chemistry that had been sparked. Recording at an upstate NY studio beginning in April 2013, the duo re-appropriated the phrase “Run The Jewels” from the LL Cool J track “Cheesy Rat Blues", and released their self-titled collaborative album, for free via digital download, only a mere 2 months later in June 2013.
36” Chain vs. Pistol & Fist
Run The Jewels discography currently exists in a distinct pairing. With Run The Jewels as their debut, this record set the group's tone as a light-hearted, braggadocious duo with as much confidence in their abilities as swag in their punchlines. Just over a year later, the sequel Run The Jewels 2 took the foundation set from their freshman effort and dialed the insanity up to 11. RTJ2 pushed the boundaries of their aggression and flows to new heights; with incredible energy in their verses, and absolutely impeccable beats, blending El-P’s signature industrial sound with sharp synth arpeggios, chopped Zach De La Rocha vocals, and absolutely bonkers Travis Barker drums.
It was then nearly 3 years before Jamie and Mike followed up their breakout RTJ2, with Run The Jewels 3 being released again ahead of its scheduled release date via free digital download, this time on Christmas Eve 2016. Instead of these two attempting to outdo the pure insanity and in-your-face attitude found in their predecessor, Mike and El decide to evolve themselves as a group. The duo had noticeably pulled back on the swag and dick jokes which made such a splash on RTJ2, instead choosing a more subdued, electronic approach to their beats, as well as a clearly stronger political approach in their lyrics. This change in sound and style is demonstrated in the album cover’s artwork. The first two records featured the distinctive RTJ “Pistol and Fist”, with the fist tightly gripping a chain. The chain, in my opinion, represents the swag and braggadocio that drove the aggressive nature of their first two albums. In RTJ3 the chain is removed, leaving only hands that have transformed from bleeding and bandaged, to a pristine gold.
This brings us to early 2020. It’s been nearly 4 years of living in a post-Trump America, and El-P announces that Run The Jewels fourth record has been completed. Mike and El live-stream the first single “yankee and the brave” on Instagram on March 22nd, 2020. Lyrically and sonically, RTJ4 exists as the successor to Run The Jewels 3, with Mike and El again taking the good from their previous effort and launching it into the creative stratosphere. El-P’s beats are again leaning towards the synthetic, electronic side, this time with the intensity dialed all the way up to 11. From a lyrical perspective, RTJ takes the politically-charged lyrics from their predecessor, and again, up the ante, laying down some of the hardest hitting and politically poignant bars either of these two have ever spit.
Album Review
2020 was a year that none of us will soon forget. An unprecedented global health crisis kept the majority of us inside for months at a time. RTJ4 was announced on May 12th, 2020, with a release date slated for June 5th, 2020. However, with 2020 as the gift that won’t stop giving, the end of May was highlighted by the unjust killing of George Floyd. The phrase heard around the world, “I can’t breathe” instantly became a rally-cry for the oppressed to finally take to the streets to demand systemic police reform, as Floyd’s death was not the first time this phrase was uttered in an unjust police killing. In fact, a 2020 study by the New York Times showed that at least 70 people have died in police custody after using the same phrase over the past decade. As millions of American’s began organizing protests and demonstrations in the wake of Floyd’s death, Run The Jewels made the decision to release their latest chapter two days ahead of the scheduled release. El-P tweeted, just minutes ahead of the drop, “Fuck it, why wait. The world is infested with bullshit, so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all. We hope it brings you some joy. Stay safe and hopeful out there and thank you for giving 2 friends the chance to be heard and do what they love”. In line with all past Run The Jewels releases, the album was made available for free digital download, two days ahead of its scheduled release date, on June 3rd, 2020.
THE RETURN (we don’t mean no harm but we truly mean all the disrespect)
RTJ4 opens with the first single, “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)”. Using the team names from their respective hometown baseball teams, Mike and El use the opening track to prove that they’re not just a hip-hop duo, they’re brothers, for better or worse. El-P kicks this installment off with rapid-fire, machine-gun esque snares, matching Killer Mike’s aggressive flow and tightly packed rhymes, before El jumps in to trade some dense rhymes as well. Mike and El depict themselves as outlaws, with Mike surrounded by cops with only one bullet remaining. He contemplates suicide instead of allowing the police to take him alive, until El-P jumps back in, offering Mike a way out, with a getaway car waiting outside. This tense situation is depicted lightheartedly in this song’s music video, which was released via Adult Swim and features the duo animated.
The trade-off between Mike and El’s short verses are reminiscent of late-80’s EPMD flows, while the production sounds like boom-bap that’s been sent to us from the future. This distinctive blend of old-school rap roots and forward thinking production is what continues to separate Run The Jewels from absolutely all of their contemporaries. While so many artists are continually playing catch-up with the latest trends, RTJ are side-stepping the trendy and moving forward with the mind-bending.
FLEXIN’ (ayo one for mayhem, two for mischief)
The second single “ooh la la” samples a Gang Star track "DWYCK (feat. Nice & Smooth)" as the basis for the chorus. I say “samples” as that’s how it is credited in the album’s liner notes, however it’s truly an interpolation of Greg Nice’s bar, slowed down slightly, and sung by El-P and Greg Nice himself. El-P is a true old-head at heart, and it’s abundantly obvious in his work, even going as far as to recruit legendary producer DJ Premiere to handle the scratching on the back end of this banger.
Out of key piano chords are looped to quickly create an unsettling aura surrounding the track, before El-P’s voice cuts through the infectious piano like a whip. Pounding, up-tempo drums are introduced after the chorus’ first iteration, creating what is possibly El-P’s first danceable beat. Lyrically, Mike and El-P initially seem scattered on this track, however the music video quickly makes their point very obvious.

”we imagined the world on the day that the age old struggle of class was finally over. a day that humanity, empathy and community were victorious over the forces that would separate us based on arbitrary systems created by man.
this video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else. not that people are without but that the whole meaning of money has vanished. that we have somehow solved our self created caste system and can now start fresh with love, hope and celebration. its a dream of humanity’s V-DAY… and the party we know would pop off.”

The video envisions a society celebrating the fact that the class system we currently exist within has finally imploded. Money is worthless, and we have rejected the desire to bind ourselves to the constraints of capitalism. All creeds and colors unite to burn the system that has so effectively controlled us for over a century. It’s a party, and if there was a song to celebrate the end of the world as it is currently known, “ooh la la” is that song.
Mike’s last verse features a few metaphors and comparisons celebrating the destruction of capitalism, saving the most poignant for last:

I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca
Helped me understand I'm probably more of a Joker
When we usher in chaos, just know that we did it smiling
Cannibals on this island, inmates run the asylum

Premo’s expertly cut scratches lead us into the equally hard hitting sample flip of “Misdemeanor”, by Foster Stevens as the basis for the beat to “out of sight”. Lending yet another nod to the old-school greats that laid the foundation for RTJ, “out of sight” samples the same track as The D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough”, only adding a bouncy, electronic synth atop the inverted chord hits, and uptempo, industrial drums, to create an absolutely infectious groove for Mike and El’s dynamic chemistry to shine, rapidly jumping between each other’s two line flows in the first verse.
“out of sight” shows each MC providing insight into how each of them earned a living and achieved their current status. Mike and El’s opening verse each details themselves robbing people in order to eat. El alludes to the fact that he crossed his accomplices in crime for the whole bag, while Mike details the fact his assailant tells him it’s an “honor” to be robbed by his mother’s only son.
While El-P’s production is the obvious stand out on first listen, Killer Mike comes through with one of the most sonically pleasing and technically proficient verses of 2020.

We the motivating, devastating, captivating
Ghost and Rae relating product of the fuckin' '80s
Coke dealin' babies, never regulating, bag accumulating
It would not be overstating to say they are underrating
The pride of Brooklyn and the Grady, baby
We don't need no compliments or confidence
Our attitude and latitude is "fuck you, pay me"

The dense, intricate rhyme schemes smack you in the face, almost distracting you from Mike’s delivery and blistering flow on the verse; flexing his legendary status while paying homage to his drug-dealing past. This absolutely stunning display of technical skill, story telling, and complex rhyming illustrates how RTJ seamlessly integrates the best of both old school and new school hip-hop.
“out of sight” also features a guest verse from 2 Chainz, and he continues to lay the braggadocio on thick. Considering Tity Boi’s dedication to trap stylings, his verse feels right at home on the flex track, despite it’s late 80’s tribute sample, a considerable departure from his usual sound palette.
Up until this point, I haven’t mentioned any of the El-P’s lyrics specifically. El-P is a great rapper, but Killer Mike… Well, Killer Mike is an incredible rapper. He’s the guy who draws you in. El-P is the one who lays the foundation for greatness and Mike is the show stopper, and that’s generally the case for most RTJ tracks. But on “holy calamafuck”, El-P seems determined to make people stop and ask, “Who the fuck is this?!”.
A sharp, yet nearly minimalistic drum kit backing a heavily distorted synthesizer melody lays beneath rhymically knocking cow-bells. This aggressively set stage allows Mike and El to flex as the dynamic duo they are, until the beat suddenly takes a turn for the chaotic. A gnarled, ultra-menacing synth overtakes everything while Mike screams into the abyss, until a distorted snare, enormous 808s, and skeletal hi-hats cut through and launch the beat switch into another dimension. The minimal, yet incredibly dark soundscape allows El-P to snap in a way I have never heard from him previously. His rhymes schemes are reminiscent of an old MF DOOM lyric notebook, while his topics flawlessly combine flexing, psychedelic use, and his well-cemented legacy in the hip-hop community. Cutting and pasting a few of his bars into this review could not convey a fraction of how stunning El-P’s performance on “holy calamafuck” is.
Slightly later in the track list, making liberal use of the Ether song “Gang of Four”, “the ground below” samples and loops the sharp guitar riff and adds aggressive, pounding drums as the basis for the beat; this is finally reminiscent of the forward-thinking, stridulous production El-P has built his reputation on. Capitalising on the classic RTJ moment, Mike and El both flex in their own unique ways. Mike compares himself to Godzilla taking on Tokyo, and El-P demands respect for his name as the legend he is, threatening to smack dying children for mispronouncing his name with his middle finger to the world; his complete disregard for human life and confidence in his abilities are summed up at the end of his verse.

You see a future where Run the Jewels ain’t the shit
Cancel my Hitler-killing trip
Turn the time machine back around a century

SO¢IAL JU$T-ICE (until my voice go from a shriek to whisper...)
While the first few tracks aren’t without their social and political themes, the back-end of RTJ4 is where Mike and El start to bust out the heavy topics. “goonies vs. E.T.”. starts off light, with El-P pointing to the irony of how once he finally started to make it “big” in the industry, the world began to descend into chaos due to climate changes, increasingly obvious social injustice, and political madness. He culminates his frustration with our disregard for the Earth with a fantastic quotable.

Fuck y’all got, another planet on stash?
Far from the fact of the flames and our trash
That is not snow, it is ash, and you gotta know
The past got a wrath, it’s a lover gone mad

Mike’s verse takes the light-hearted frustration expressed by El-P, and turns the aggression to the next level. Aiming his sights against the ruling class and their society that’s been designed to oppress people for profit, who have very meticulously painted themselves as celebrities and idols to the American public. Mike accepts that he will be villainized by these people for speaking against them, but he welcomes the nefarious role, knowing that the working class will eventually eat the rich, no matter how much they are stomped into the dirt.
And this is just the warmup.
If it’s possible for a song to represent a moment in time that captures the absolute shit storm that has been 2020, “walking in the snow” is that song. It’s release coincided perfectly with the protests for George Floyd which were sweeping the nation. Killer Mike’s verse directly references the phrase “I can’t breathe”, the last words of Eric Garner, which also happened to be the last words of Floyd as well. The fact that this verse was reportedly written in November 2019 perpetually underscores the importance of the content and perfectly represents how persistent this problem is. “walking in the snow” is a true encapsulation of both a defining moment in time and an ever-persisting issue.
But he doesn’t just stop at the racial injustice. Mike goes on an absolute rant about the American education system; how it’s not designed to teach people, but to discriminate against poor populations, limiting their legitimate opportunities, and therefore disproportionately leading them into a criminal lifestyle. He calls out the media as fear-mongers, and the apathy of the American public in the face of indecency. Fortunately for Mike, by the time we finally had the chance to hear this masterpiece, we were already on our feet, using this album as a war cry to mobilize against a tyrannical government that militarized against its own citizens simply for asking that we recognize systemic racism and demanding change. Killer Mike has the best verse of the year, no doubt in my mind.
The only drawback is that Mike’s verse is so fucking good that it completely overshadows El-P’s, which is also amazing. A menacing guitar riff and haunting synths kick the track off into a bouncy groove, where El-P unleashes a flurry of internal rhymes that does not relent for about half his verse. Even adding layers of social commentary within the densely packed bars, El refuses to quit and continues on his political tirade; criticizing ICE’s detainment center practices and the “pseudo-Christians” who support them, with a bar that now lives in my head:

Pseudo-Christians, y’all indifferent, kids in prison ain’t a sin? Shit
if even one scrap of what Jesus taught connected you’d feel different
what a disingenuous way to piss away existence, I don’t get it
I’d say you lost your goddamn minds if y’all possessed one to begin with

The combination of two of the best verses spit by any rapper(s) this year and production help from El-P and long time RTJ collaborator Little Shalimar, create a bouncy, aggressive, deeply truthful banger. “walking in the snow” not only encapsulates the crux of 2020 with lyrics that will become more powerful as they age, but will also forever be associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and the determination to expose continuing racial and societal injustices.
The sonic palette of RTJ4 holds an extremely unique place in El-P’s discography. Jamie is the definition of a self-made 90’s hip-hop legend. This is the dude who put New York underground hip-hop on the map with Company Flow, and he did it with his unique flavor of dark, noisy, dense, boom-bap. Whether he was doing it with the help of Rawkus, or completely independently during his Definitive Jux run, El-P has never made music with the intention of becoming famous. Funcrusher Plus, Fantastic Damage,I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, and Cancer 4 Cure are all highly revered as industrial, technical, abrasive, and completely unsuitable for the radio or a party. The fact that three songs on RTJ4 could easily be heard on the radio, at a party, or in a TV series credits scene is frankly, astounding. In a 2002 interview/documentary on El-P’s budding record label Def Jux, he stated that his friend bet him $500 that he could not make a beat that was “happy”. At the time of the interview, El-P said that he had not won that bet yet. While I might not qualify the beats on RTJ4 as “happy”, if you showed El-P the beat for “JU$T” in 2002, I believe he might have won that bet.
Pharell opens “JU$T” with the pre-chorus, spitting varied examples of how we’re all slaves to our current system throughout the track, over echoing snares and bouncy 808s before bright synth chords and up-tempo hi-hats burst in while Killer Mike delivers the chorus, pointing to the fact that the majority of the people featured on American currency owned slaves at one point in their lives. Mike’s verse touches on the fact that he has committed crimes to get where they are today. Mike is publicly open about his past as a drug dealer. So why is he a criminal, but Benjamin Franklin isn’t? These are the people who built our country, and they built it on the backs of slaves. He illustrates this theme with a more recent examples:

You believe corporations runnin marijuana? Ooh (how that happen?)
and your country gettin ran by a casino owner (ooh)
pedophiles sponsor all these fuckin’ racist bastards (they do)

When corporations are able to sell cannabis legally, but the government continually incarcerates people who trap, our president is a notoriously fraudulent businessman, and the people who helped put him in power run a pedophile ring, yet none of them face consequences and are allowed to continue to profit and remain in power while people suffer; well, we might be closer to slaves than previously imagined.
Rage Against The Machine frontman Zach de la Rocha also makes his mandatory feature appearance at the end of “JU$T”. As the only artist to feature on three Run The Jewels albums, Zach is essentially an unofficial member of the group at this point. His fiery verse is spit with the same “Rage” energy that set him apart in the mid-90’s, ending the track questioning his place in a capitalist society as a recipe for his inevitable demise, since his “breath”, or art, as his weapon to express himself is still being exploited for other’s profit.
Continuing with RTJ4’s heavily synthetic sonic palette, “never look back” features wavering synth leads resting above the slow-jams snappy snares and thumping bass, while a haunting voice echoes in the background. This unsettling aura provides additional gravity for Jamie and Mike to continue self-reflecting on defining moments in their childhood, and as well as how far they’ve come from those moments. Mike and El are both self-made men, and while they have a certain fondness for those gritty moments that defined them, moving forward in life is undoubtedly more important.
Skeletal drums reminiscent of a slowly pounding heart opens “pulling the pin”, before rhythmic hi-hats and textured, watery synths fluttering in the upper register resting above a bouncy synth lead, and punchy 808s, burst in. The track digs itself into a slower, marching groove and shows the duo figuratively doing exactly what the title implies. Painting a portrait of a society that has turned on itself, Mike and El are ready to pull the pin and start over.
The duo both detail their despise for the ruling class, pointing out multiple examples of how the elite have designed our society to keep poor people in their class. Simultaneously recognizing their own hypocrisy for profiting in a system that inherently discriminates; Mike reflects on his own success, knowing that living the lifestyle he enjoys is one built on oppression, and expresses the guilt that has caused him. El-P opens with a brutal metaphor for police, implying that they’re the root cause of the “wretched state of danger” our society exists within, and that the only effective corrective action is to numb yourself with drugs. Despite his advice, Jamie knows this is not a permanent solution, but one that causes more self-inflicted wounds.
The final piece of the puzzle that is RTJ4, “a few words for the firing squad” begins to close the album with ever crescending strings, and loud, thunderous drums which never seem to resolve, continuing throughout their verses. While the drums that lead to nowhere can be sonically unpleasant, the unresolved melodies are intentionally representative of their current mindsets. Their verses are reflective and grim, but simultaneously optimistic and envisions a world where tragedy is a less common occurrence.
El is grateful for what he has now but recognizes his entire life has been skewed by traumas, so out of place feels normal for him. He reflects on his current success, noting that the worst people tend to end up with the most, which makes becoming “rich” something not as desirable as it once was.
Mike opens up about the death of his mother who died while he was on an airplane, admitting his struggles to not cope with his trauma with opioids. However, his wife provides him the most important reason to stay clean “but my queen/say she need a king/not another junkie rapper fiend” while a heartbreaking saxophone solo highlights the gravity of his lyrics.
The track ends with what sounds the like wrap-up voiceover to a TV show, a conceptually satisfying ending, as the opening track “yankee and brave (ep.4)” began with El-P stating:

”This week, on Yankee and The Brave”

This voiceover paints the duo as brothers on the run from the law and crooked cops, and while this does close this “episode” out as intended, the critic in me is bothered by the slightly kitschy outro to such a spectacular album. The voices singing over and over, “Brave, brave, braaaaaave, Yankee and the Brave” would be, simply put, better left on the cutting room floor. The ending of this track alone is what knocks my score of this album down a few points. Despite its stellar lyrical content, with drums that never seem to reach that “holy shit!” moment, and the easily skippable outro, it’s upsetting to me that an album this great ends on such a low note.
Overview
RTJ4 is by far my favorite album of the year. El-P’s cutting edge approach to their sound, blended with lyrical content that continues to be more relevant by the day, the duo have come together with what is objectively their most accessible album to date. RTJ4 is the natural evolution of sound and subject matter for the duo; taking the foundation set by Run The Jewels 3 and evolving it into a more concise, more accessible, and more conceptual album. While I still personally prefer the “fuck the world” intensity and experimental nature of Run The Jewels 2, RTJ4 opens themselves up to a whole new world of exposure, and when you’re as talented as these two, you know they’re going to capitalize on it. RTJ is currently at their apex, and they’ve created an album that will make many new life-long fans going forward.
9.2/10
Discussion Points

• How does this compare to other RTJ releases? How about in comparison to the member’s solo works?
  
• Does the overwhelmingly positive critical reception of this album surprise you?
  
• How will this be looked back on in 5 years?
  
• What are your favorite lyrics?
  

Over the years I have thoroughly enjoyed throwing together playlists for different occasions (making coffee, working out, weddings, seasons, etc.) and thought I'd share! Please let me know your thoughts, favourite mixes, as well as recommendations for future playlists. All feedback is welcome! Hope you enjoy them:
That Weekend Feeling
Skip to the good bit; weekend grooves to wave away any weekday blues.
Awesome Mix: Ultimate Edition (Mixtape)
A great hero, named Kevin Bacon, once taught an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that, dancing, well, is the greatest thing there is. The legend of Footloose comes alive with Awesome Mix: Ultimate Edition - Songs from and inspired by the Guardians of the Galaxy series.
Morning Motivation: Steal Some Sunshine
Soak up the sun with energetic jams and breezy classics!
I'd Drink To That: Party Playlist
Mix it up with a party playlist to keep the night buzzing.
I'd Sing To That: Carpool Karaoke
Pack up and take those pipes on a roadtrip! The catchy. The memorable.
Just Jams 🎧
Nothing but jams to fill a pair of headphones or stadium.
Brendan's Listen Local
Funky & Thumpy! Some of my favourite energetic jams, classics, and BBQ party starters from our local Australian & New Zealand artists.
Friday Fire
It's Friday! Friends. Family. Fun.
Groovin' The Brew
Nothing but rockin' party grooves on tap.
Diverse Pop Sounds
It's pop, but not as you know it.
Break Thru
Ear Candy.
Sunday Sesh
Beers & bangers on a weekend!
Run To Paradise
Set up goals, and knock them down with an energetic running playlist.
Summer Daze
The heat is on with a playlist of crisp summer tunes.
Autumn Mix: Volume 1
A breezy & brilliant playlist for the ever-changing Autumn seasons.
Chilled Pop
Soft, chilled winter pop songs.
Warm Tunes
Warm songs of Spring, like a comforting embrace.
A Mid-Summer Night's Drink 🍻
Lord, what fun these mortals be!
Wind Down 🌚
When the night winds down, so does some great music.
90's Baby! 📼
It is the sound of the roller disco, BMX bike track and arcade!
The Hip Hip Hop
Only the hippest of the hip. My modern and classic hip hop favourites.
Indie Bops: It's ALT Good
Get your alternative bounce on.
Not Your Final Form: A Workout Playlist
All the other licks with the pumped up kicks to keep you going during a workout. My favourites and a few other choice tunes for pushing harder, faster, stronger.
Easy On The Ears
Easy, Easy, Easybeats.
Life Is Good ☀️
Today is gonna be a good day.
Dial M For Music
Deep, cathartic music.
JOY
Smile.
Vibe Hard
Get into the zone, and vibe-out to infectious tunes!
Rock & Roll Never Dies
Who says rock & roll is dead? Commercial radio? It's always been around; you've just got to roll with it and look harder. Get your kicks!
Brainfood
Introspective acoustic, calming strings, uplifting anthems, and a touch of nature. Food for the brain, and perfect background noise for studies.
Game Night 🎲
For every occasion... casino, tabletop, videogames; a soundtrack to a brilliant game night!
Sizzlers: BBQ Playlist 🍔
Fire up the burner and the anthems with a barbeque playlist hotter than the bright ball in the sky.
Kickstart My Heart: Classic Rock Radio
Rocking all over the world.
Rush Hour
Grinding Gears.
Riff Raff: Party Rock
Some rowdy rock to turn up the night.
RE : FRESH 🍹
SUPERDOPE. Piña colada's and Caribbean Rum.
The Driver
There's a voice in my head that drives my heel.
Country Road
Might as well cruise. Might as well banjo.
Born to be Wild
Life's an adventure; you can't be tamed.
Night Moves: Dancing In The Moonlight
Unwind with the moonbeams. Night drives & night lives.
Funk Right Off
Get Funk'd.
Rambling Roses 💐
Beauty and Love are as body and soul. Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.
Sweat. Reset.
Whatever it takes. 'Cause you love the adrenaline in your veins.
Power Pop: Marathon
Power pop to push and electrify a workout.
Cool Beans: Coffee Playlist
Recharge with some warm tunes.
Kitchen Crooners 🎀
Now we're cooking!
Now We're Cooking!
Tasty tunes for the Kitchen.
Pool Party
Dive in to great poolside swing.
Inspiration 💡 Takes Flight
Reach for the Sky!
Going Places
Always push forward.
First 💍
Songs for special days.
DisNeat - Taking The Mickey
Nothing but Disney favourites.
Road Trip: Spinning Wheels
Hear the call for adventure and hit the road.
Guilty Pleasures 🍨
You like the Grease soundtrack? Word.
Catchy AF POP
Pop that bops. Essentials and the catchiest of the catchy.
Acoustica
Stripped Back.
Playlist + Chill
Cool off with some chilled beats and sweet acoustic.
Making Waves
Unwind with breathy, breezy songs perfect for a walk on the beach.
The Playlist Of The Decade (New Years Eve)
We welcomed 2020 with the ultimate party playlist jam-packed with familiar throwbacks and modern favourites from the 2010's! Good times!
Rhythm Heaven
Step up and dance.
Sax on the Beach 🎷
Gratuitous? Nah! An instrument to elevate a song from good to great!
BedroX 🔥
Sparks.
Pump It Up: The Playlist of Champions 🏆
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
Retro Rewind
Twist & shout to killer Jukebox Classics.
Classic Se7ens
Nothing but 70's favourites.
Great Eight's
Nothing but 80's Favourites.
Noughty & Nice
Nothing but great 00's Throwbacks.
The Best Playlist Never Heard
It's unheard of!
Best Songs You Might Have Missed
Potentially slipped under the radar.
Songs for Soundtracks 🎬
Royale with cheese.
The Grand European Playlist
About to take off!
EPIC 🗡
Fortune & Glory!
SUPERHOT VR : ROCK
The champ is coming.
SUPERHOT VR : HIP-HOP
Kings never die.
SUPERHOT VR : ACTION
John Wick Schtick.
Cowboy Bebop : Spike Spiegel
Spike Spiegel is an ex-Syndicate goon and a bounty hunter aboard the Bebop. He is proficient in martial arts, zipcraft flying, and gunfights, but he also has comical and aloof sides of his personality. If there's three things he can't stand, it's kids, pets, and women with attitudes.
Cowboy Bebop : Faye Valentine
Faye Valentine is a coma survivor of over 50 years and she is trying to regain her memory. She got into a lot of debt upon entering this futuristic world, and she had to resort to a life of crime and hustling to survive... that is, until she decided to live on the Bebop and become a bounty hunter.
Cowboy Bebop : Jet Black
Jet Black is an ex-ISSP Special Forces Officer and the Captain of the Bebop. He is a bounty hunter and is called the "Black Dog" because once he sinks his teeth in he never lets go. Jet enjoys American Jazz music, taking care of Bonsai trees, and has a knack for investigative work.
Cowboy Bebop : Radical Edward
Edward is a net diver from Earth. Edward is a child prodigy for hacking and has an aptitude for anything mechanical, even though Edward has some eccentricities in other parts of her personality. For instance, Edward speaks in third person and sometimes behaves like a wild animal.
At The Movies 🎟
Lights, camera, playlist.
James Bond Classics 🍸
A martini, shaken, not stirred.
The Word Is Bond 🍸
The world is not enough; but this playlist comes pretty close.
Live Love LIVE
Blistering live performances.
Future Nostalgia
Neo-swing, retro swagger; it's future nostalgia.
B-Side Yourself
Hidden Gems, Deep Cuts & Rarities.
Punk'd
You're Gonna Go Far, Kid.
Building Houses: Hit By Hit
Baby let's play house.
Far ALT
A playlist rocking that weird shit.
Stay Home: The Safety Dance
Stay safe out there.
Day Tripper
A playlist for a long drive - a day trip.
In Tents
Music For Camping.
Roots
Bluesy classics to strut to.
All That Jazz
Get jazzy on it.
Focus Features
Take a breather.
Australiana
Paradise.
Drive Time
Coast to coast. Songs for a spin.
Stone Cold Classicals
It's classically classic.
Hall of Fame 💎
Songs for the career climbers and L.A. dreamers. Glitz & glam; all that jazz.
This is Halloween
Everybody Scream!
It's Beginning to Sound A Lot Like Christmas!
Christmas Classics.
Just For Laughs 🎭
What a Joker!
Two Nights In Tao🎙
Karaoke? There's a first time for everything.
GAME
Take control.
Game On : Borderlands Psycho-delic
CHOO CHOO THE PAIN TRAIN'S COMIN'
Red Dead Redemption II
Songs For Bloody Duels, Whiskey-Fueled Gambles, and Rolling Desert Plains.
Energy Shot
Keep animated with an energetic dose of catchy music!
Party Fillers
A background mix for any event.
The Essential AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Although their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock, and heavy metal, the band themselves call it simply "rock and roll"
The Essential One Republic
OneRepublic is an American pop rock band formed in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2002. It consists of lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Tedder, guitarist Zach Filkins, guitarist Drew Brown, bassist and cellist Brent Kutzle, drummer Eddie Fisher and keyboardist Brian Willett.
The Essential Shinedown
Shinedown is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida, formed by singer Brent Smith in 2001. Shinedown has sold more than ten million records worldwide, and has had the most number one singles on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts out of any band, with 16.
The Essential Dua Lipa
Dua Lipa is an English singer and songwriter. After working as a model, she signed with Warner Music Group in 2015 and released her self-titled debut album in 2017. The success of the singles helped her self-titled album become one of the most-streamed albums on Spotify.
The Essential Preatures
The Preatures are an Australian band from Sydney. The band was formed in 2010 and features Isabella 'Izzi' Manfredi on vocals/keyboards, Jack Moffitt (guitar), Thomas Champion (bass) and Luke Davison (drums). The band won the Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition with their song Is This How You Feel.
The Essential Maroon 5
Maroon 5 is an American pop rock band from Los Angeles, California. It currently consists of lead vocalist Adam Levine, keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Jesse Carmichael, lead guitarist James Valentine, drummer Matt Flynn, keyboardist PJ Morton and multi-instrumentalist Sam Farrar.
The Essential INXS
INXS were an Australian rock band, formed in 1977 in Sydney. INXS was fronted by Hutchence, whose magnetic stage presence made him the focal point of the band. Initially known for their new wave/pop style, the band later developed a harder pub rock style that included funk and dance elements.
The Essential Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The group, whose best-known line-up comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, are regarded as the most influential band of all time. The Beatles are the best-selling music act of all time.
The Essential Volbeat
Volbeat are a Danish rock band formed in Copenhagen in 2001. They play a fusion of rock and roll, heavy metal and rockabilly. Their current line-up consists of vocalist and guitarist Michael Poulsen, guitarist Rob Caggiano, drummer Jon Larsen and bassist Kaspar Boye Larsen.
The Essential Chromeo
Chromeo is a Canadian electro-funk duo from Montreal, formed in 2002 by musicians David "Dave 1" Macklovitch and Patrick "P-Thugg" Gemayel. Their sound draws from blue-eyed soul, dance music, rock, synth-pop, disco and funk. As of 2018, the band has released five studio albums.
The Essential Queen
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Their classic line-up was Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals) and John Deacon (bass). With estimated record sales ranging from 170 million to 300 million, they are one of the biggest.
The Essential Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, and dancer. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century.
The Essential Brian Setzer
Brian Robert Setzer (born April 10, 1959) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He found widespread success in the early 1980s with the 1950s-style rockabilly group Stray Cats, and revitalized his career in the early 1990s with his swing revival band, the Brian Setzer Orchestra.
The Essential Florida Georgia Line
Florida Georgia Line are an American country music duo consisting of vocalists Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley. Their 2012 debut single "Cruise" broke two major sales records: it was downloaded over seven million times, making it the first country song ever to receive the Diamond certification.
The Essential KISS
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973 by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley. Well known for its members' face paint and stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid-to-late 1970s with its elaborate live performances.
The Essential Sheppard
Sheppard is an Australian indie pop band from Brisbane, formed in 2009. At the 2014 ARIA's ceremony, they were nominated for Album of the Year, Best Group, Best Independent Release, Best Pop Release, Song of the Year, Producer of the Year, and Best Video.
The Essential Matchbox 20
Matchbox Twenty is an American rock band, formed in Orlando, Florida, in 1995. The group currently consists of Rob Thomas (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Brian Yale (bass guitar), Paul Doucette (drums, rhythm guitar, backing vocals), and Kyle Cook (lead guitar, vocals).
The Essential Coldplay
Coldplay are a British rock band that were formed in London in 1996 consisting of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, and drummer Will Champion. Coldplay have sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling.
The Essential Daughtry
Daughtry is an American rock band formed and fronted by namesake Chris Daughtry, who was a finalist on the fifth season of American Idol. Their self-titled debut album was released in November 2006 and reached number one on the Billboard 200. To date, Daughtry has sold over 9 million albums.
The Essential Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas are an American musical group, consisting of rappers will.i.am*, apl.de.ap, Taboo, J. Rey Soul and singer Fergie. Originally an alternative hip hop group, they subsequently refashioned themselves as a more marketable pop-rap act and have become best-selling artists.*

DC Next presents:

BATGIRL

In Riddler’s Revenge
Issue Nine: Disentanglement
Written by AdamantAce
Edited by PatrollinTheMojave
 
<< | < Prev. | Next Issue > Coming Next Month
 
 
“It’s been months, Allen!” barked Lieutenant Jason Bard. “Maybe there was some big conspiracy between all the loser villains, but that was then.”
“Crooks don’t just get bored and give up!” Detective Crispus Allen insisted. Despite being his senior in years, he was forced under the command of the hard-ass lieutenant.
“I don’t know, I know I’d have had second thoughts if I were them,” Bard shot back. “If right as I - the new Riddler - was about to strike, the new Joker brings the whole city to its knees. Hard to one-up that.”
“Hard, but not impossible,” Crispus maintained. “And right now, the city can’t take another big shakeup like that again.”
Lieutenant Bard took a deep breath and eased back. “I get your concern, Crispus. Hell, Killer Moth shot up Baker right in front of you. You could’ve died along with him.”
“This isn’t about me,” Crispus interjected.
“No, of course not,” Bard maintained. “It’s about Gotham. And right now there’s a huge backlog of cases in the Petty Crimes ledger that I need all hands on deck to close. O’Dare’s still on leave, and Bennett and Yin are up to their eyeballs chasing after the Penny Plunderer.”
“So, let me guess,” Crispus began. “You think my time would be far better spent investigating the Whoopee-Cushion Bandit or something equally meaningless!?”
“No crime is meaningless, Crispus!” Bard rose from his seat, refusing to be belittled. “And for as absurd as our perps can get, they leave behind real victims. Victims that deserve justice no matter if they’ve been hurt by Two-Face or Polka Dot Man!”
“I…” Crispus was furious, frustrated at the wall he had met. But no retort came to him, nothing to counter Bard’s words. Was he right? Crispus turned inward. Who was he to rule which criminals were worth stopping, which victims did and did not deserve justice? He shrank, bowing his head. “Okay.”
“Right,” Bard took a deep breath. “Good. Expect a case file on your desk after lunch.”
“Yessir.”
“Now, come on,” Bard rested a hand on Crispus’ back. “Let’s get you a joe.”
Slowly, the pair left the Weird Cases office, the lieutenant locking the door behind him. Moments later, once they had vanished down the corridor, Barbara Gordon emerged. She moved quickly, cane in hand, making sure no-one was about, and produced from her pocket a lockpick. There, she began working the lock. She had overhead everything, having expected Bard to take another crack at pulling Crispus off the case after all the time that had passed since the last Z-lister-related activity. Crispus was off the case, but that didn’t mean he still couldn’t help, not if Babs could clone the case files on his work computer to consult herself.
But the lock just wouldn’t go. It was an old lock, rusted and degraded on the inside. How she wished they just switched to magnetic locks, then she could have used her computer to clone an ID card or just hacked the thing directly. Instead, she was making a mess using tools she had barely used before. Then, a voice.
“What are you doing?”
Oh no. Barbara looked up, pulling the lockpick free and burying it in the pocket of her jeans. Quickly she gripped the top of her cane and drove it hard into the floor, pushing her weight onto it as she was expected to do. Compromised, rapidly began brainstorming excuses, explanations, and - failing that - what she’d say to her father. Then she saw who it was that had spotted her and began counting her lucky stars.
“Mason,” she blustered. “I, uh…”
“Is this for Batgirl stuff?” he asked too loudly for Barbara’s comfort, prompting a panicked shush from her. “Oh, sorry…”
“Yeah, it’s, uh…” she mumbled. Screw it. She pulled a small flash drive from her pocket and showed it to the rookie detective. “I need a copy of Detective Allen’s files from the Z-lister conspiracy. It’s important.”
“Right, well, why didn’t you ask?” Mason smiled. Before Babs could react, he plucked the drive from her grip and pulled his keys from his jacket, pushing them into the door.
“Oh, I--”
Mason O’Dare paid her no mind, pushing into the office and plugging the drive straight into Crispus’ computer tower. Then, a few clicks and several minutes of Barbara nervously standing guard outside the door later, and the job was done. Mason then emerged, handing her the flash drive back, a baseball cap now in his other hand. “I know I’m meant to be on leave, but I left my baseball cap in the office.”
“You came all the way in for a baseball cap?”
“I think you mean ‘thank you’,” Mason grinned.
Barbara blushed. He was right, he had done her a real solid. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Barbara scoffed, sharing a laugh with the rookie before he too vanished along the hallway.
 
🔸🔸 🦇 🔸🔸
 
Barbara pulled down hard on the roof of the vehicle, lifting herself out of the cab and upright onto the paved road. She drove her cane down, steadying herself, then moved to the rear of the cab. Except the driver beat her there, courteous enough to pop the trunk and remove from it her collapsible wheelchair, placing it on the ground and pulling it into place.
“Thank you,” Barbara smiled widely. She didn’t need his help - she was much stronger than she looked - but it was enough to know people in Gotham still cared. Barbara then reached into the purse she kept tucked beneath her arm and handed him a smooth stack of bills, more than enough to compensate him.
“You’re very welcome,” the cabbie nodded.
Barbara reached down, making sure the joints of her chair were properly clicked into place, and then lowered herself into it, pulling apart her collapsible cane and stuffing it folded into her purse. She gripped the rims of her wheels tightly, her hands calloused and sturdy and began toward her destination.
“Need a hand?” the cabbie asked, gesturing past the gates he had stopped besides, up the hill.
“I’m good, thanks,” Barbara replied. “I could use the exercise.”
So the cabbie retreated back to his car and took off, and Barbara rolled herself up the hill to Blackgate Penitentiary.
Gotham’s prison was an awful place. Dark, cold, and full of the most blackened souls to be found in the city. Unlike Arkham, its inmates were of sound mind. That, they could be certain of as every criminal defense lawyer worth their chips fought tooth and nail, exhausting every avenue to try and get their defendant tucked away behind the revolving door of Arkham instead of the fortress that was Blackgate. That left the prison reserved for a special kind of evil, one that was fully aware of its own corruption. But, one clear benefit of Blackgate over Arkham was its age. The asylum was almost as old as Gotham itself, left to ruin, but Blackgate was modern, cold and unfeeling. But on the bright side, it was a lot more wheelchair accessible.
Eventually, after wide hall after wide hall, Barbara and the guards escorting her reached a door, silver and sturdy. One guard unlocked the door with a key and pulled it open, while another ushered Barbara inside. She rolled in and the door shut behind her. Sure enough, just as arranged, he was waiting for her, handcuffed across the steel table. Edward Nygma.
He grinned. “What’s half blue, half green, and red all over?”
Barbara pushed herself up to the nearest edge of the table to meet him. “I think you’re getting your riddles crossed with jokes.”
Nygma shrugged. “Whatever works.”
This meeting was a pain to organise. Especially without Barbara’s father finding out. Especially when he was the police commissioner. Officially, it was Detective O’Dare that was interviewing the old Riddler, a last ditch effort to dredge up anything on his successor, and they had to go over Bard’s head to arrange that. But it had paid off, or it would if Barbara could get anything out of him.
“Tell me you’re here to chat over one of my many unsolved crimes,” Riddler boasted, his skinny face pulled wide by his slimy grin. “They’ve already sent everyone else on the payroll, and now they sent the kid? No, I will not be telling you where the bodies are.”
“Actually, I want to know about the new Riddler.”
His face melted away instantly. Gone was the braggadocious Nygma. A flash of rage appeared in his eyes. “People are still talking about that pretender!?” he seethed. “It’s been months!”
Barbara let the corners of her mouth turn up, not letting herself be frightened by the villain’s outbursts. “It has,” she agreed. “It’s the most the city’s talked about the Riddler in over a decade!” That was a lie, but just barely. The city of Gotham wasn’t taking the new Riddler and their posse nearly as seriously as they should have, as Batgirl and Crispus had, but Nygma had reached a level of irrelevance that was hard to beat in recent times. And he knew it, his face made that clear as day.
“And you assume I’m working with this… errant fraude?” Nygma whined.
“Actually, no,” Babs replied. This was a strange feeling, carrying the swagger of Batgirl even as Barbara Gordon. It gave her power. “Their MO is gearing up the Z-listers, the forgotten laughing stocks of Gotham, making them more dangerous. Relying on their perceived irrelevance. That’s reason enough to call themselves ‘Riddler’.”
Nygma moved to explode, before wrestling to compose himself. The second he leapt over the table was the second the guards outside bolted in to restrain him. He was smarter than that. “Ah yes, after all it’s not as if I stood at the top besides Cobblepot, Ivy, Harvey, and… Joker.”
“Stood.” Barbara spat. “You hurt a lot of people in your prime. Enough to have plenty of enemies. But whoever’s going out and calling themselves Riddler has to have a personal grudge.”
“Oh?”
“Slights aside, the name ‘Riddler’ doesn’t inspire the terror it used to.” Barbara explained. “They picked that name above all others for a reason. And judging by how you’re taking it, it seems to have been rather effective in pissing you off.”
Nygma nodded, ignoring the inherent insult. The girl had a point. “I see, so this is about me. I’m the target here!” The man seemed freed from his insecurity; the boastful Nygma returned.
Barbara scoffed. Giving the villain a new sense of satisfaction wasn’t why she was here. “So who is it? Who has the most to gain by taking you down a peg?”
“Oh, that isn’t for us to know.”
Babs was stunned. “Excuse me?”
“Whoever it is, they don’t want me to know it’s them,” Nygma reasoned.
“And why’s that?”
“Because if they did, they’d be making it damn well obvious,” Nygma spat.
“Obvious?” Barbara replied. “You left challenges and puzzles. If it was worth knowing, it wouldn’t be obvious.”
“To you maybe,” Nygma sneered. “Or to Batman, or Batgirl, and especially to that cursed Batwing. But what’s a challenge to the subpar majority is obvious to one of a superior intellect.”
“Right,” Barbara harrumphed.
“But, from what I gather, no-one has even the slightest clue. No breadcrumbs. Nothing. Who it is isn’t the point. That’s not the riddle.”
“Then what is?”
“Exactly.” Nygma began chuckling to himself. Slowly, he rose from his seat, his both arms still bound to the table. He rattled his chains and cried out. “Guaaaaard! We’re done here!!”
Silence.
“Guard?” Nygma stirred. He turned back to Barbara stiffly and shrugged. “Guess he’s on a smoke break--”
BOOM. The entire room began to shake violently, jolting Nygma to his feet. Conversely, Barbara couldn’t stand soon enough, and her chair toppled to the side. She tried to stand, but as the room continued to quake, she struggled to even see straight. Then a second blast and the far wall caved inwards, the flames of the explosion flickering through the newly-formed hole. Brick, steel and shattered ceramic poured to the ground. Through the legs of the table, all Barbara could see was the blue sky through the devastated wall. Then a silhouette. Tall and wide, with large wings. The figure stepped beyond the sunlight and moved towards Nygma, who seemed just as startled as Barbara was.
“No, not now…” Barbara grumbled weakly.
Killer Moth.
“You!? You’re dead!” Nygma spat, outraged at the interruption. Barbara heard the rattling of keys beyond the steel doors as the guards scrambled to enter the interrogation chamber. But, coolly and cleanly, Killer Moth simply raised his cocoon gun, the same one that killed Jakob Baker, and fired two volleys, encasing the two doorways in a rapidly solidifying white fibre, sealing the doors shut.
“Oh,” Nygma’s eyes went wide. “You’re one of his.”
Out from under the table, Barbara Gordon charged forward. No suit, no leg braces. With a furious cry, she threw out the long edge of her walking cane, driving it against Killer Moth’s right hand and knocking his cocoon gun to the ground. But the villain barely reacted, turning his featureless green helmet to face her, his narrow eye slits dark and purple. Barbara swung out again, causing Nygma to throw himself back to avoid the blow. But Killer Moth simply let it rake across his violet chestpiece. Ineffectual.
“Hm,” Barbara heard him say before he delivered a single strike, smacking her with the back of his closed fist, knocking her to the ground. Then, Killer Moth reached down, scooping his weapon off of the ground, and grabbed a hold of Nygma tight. He moved over to the gaping hole he had made with his explosives, one that opened out to the bright sky and the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, steep cliffs below. Then he jumped, taking Nygma with him, and soared off into the sky. Off towards the amber sunset.
 
🔸🔸 🦇 🔸🔸
 
At last, the Z-listers had made their move. And while it wasn’t the one she was expecting, Barbara knew this meant their plan was about to go into action. Whoever the new Riddler was, they undoubtedly sought to outdo their predecessor. Naturally they would have him to witness the depths of his inferiority up close and personal.
Barbara Gordon raced home, ditching her chair and cane and donning on tight black leg braces. Then came her armour - her jet-black bodysuit - and her golden gloves and boots. She clasped her blue and black cape over her shoulders and pulled her thin black cowl into place. With the golden insignia on her chest, Batgirl was ready to go.
Then, darkness.
From atop a high perch, Barbara saw the entirety of Gotham city plunged into the dark. Towers with thousands of brightly-lit golden windows were now featureless slabs of black. The long shadows on every street corner were replaced with blanket swathes of dark. Gotham was always a shadowy city at night, but now every creature and criminal that lurked in those shadows had the whole city as their playground.
Barbara pulled her data scanner from her pocket, a handheld device to replace her usual remote terminal of the modest supercomputer she had stashed at home. But it was clear that even without relying on the grid, her tech was greatly limited. All she sought to do was get a lay down of the state of the city - news reports, government chatter, social media - but all internet and telephone services were firmly shut down. This was clearly the work of the Z-listers. Zebra Man’s electro-bombs to disable the power plants and the grid, and Kite-Man’s expertise to disable communication towers. Soon, the cowardly criminal populace of Gotham would find their fears disappeared in the cover of darkness, and would crawl out and wreak havoc. And if she was struggling to coordinate herself, she could only wonder how the police were coordinating with each other.
No, fires were sure to come, but she had to treat the cause, not the symptoms. Aboard her motorcycle, Barbara surged toward the Somerset Energy Mill, one of three supersized power stations in Gotham, desperate to respond to the power outage and track down those responsible. Barbara knew Kite-Man would be behind the communications disruption. Condiment King was in custody, and Zebra Man was dead. She figured the new Riddler - secretive as he was - wouldn’t be out on a spree in public, which left Killer Moth and Magpie. Barbara was ready for either as she pushed into the roof-top entrance of the plant, or was determined to think she was. She was Batgirl, she had been ready for this for months. Except when she swept through the plant, though she found the police assigned to secure the building incapacitated en masse, and though she found the exploded remains of Riddler’s energy bombs - fueled with energy stolen from Zebra Man - there was no Magpie nor Killer Moth to be found. Clearly whichever of them it was had hit the place and bolted, off to the next site. She had missed them.
Barbara pulled out her phone, hoping for any service at all, to relay what she had found to the police. But to no avail. Working in the GCPD as Barbara Gordon, it wasn’t difficult to engineer a backdoor into police radio systems, but they too were unworkable, broadcasting static. She cursed. This could have been prevented had the mayor’s office heeded her warning that the GCPD’s communications were so out of date and boosted the police’s budget rather than slashing it.
Unable to reach the police, Barbara had no choice but to continue on herself. The power stations would take ages to repair, but something could still be done about the communications towers. So Batgirl set off, pelting through the blackened streets of Gotham on her motorcycle, crossing through Somerset to the East End police precinct. Digital maps were off the table, and she definitely didn’t have an atlas to hand, but Barbara had more than a few advantages over her fellow vigilantes to that end. For one, she had spent her entire life within the limits of Gotham City, living and breathing its maze-like streets and architecture, and her eidetic memory meant she knew exactly where she was headed.
Rocketing down Oldman Avenue, Barbara was only a small distance away from her destination when a police car overtook her, drifting to a screeching halt on the left hand side of the road. This caught Barbara’s attention. She looked to watch the officer get out of his vehicle, level his handgun and move towards the currently-shut Big Belly Burger. Responding to a break-in? No, Babs shook her head. She couldn’t help him, she was busy.
Within five minutes, Batgirl was where she needed to be, scaling the East End precinct. A tall tower was erected atop the rooftop, a network of steel girders and twisted wires, a wide dish at the top. This was one of five towers responsible for relaying communications between the GCPD, keeping their data off of the public-facing satellites and servers. The idea was that they were an important precaution should anything happen to the public-facing systems, running on their own private grid. But that did the police little good when they too had been targeted by the Z-listers.
Barbara approached the metal tower slowly, wrapping her two fists around the bottom of the structure. She looked up to the very top, noting how high up it was. To fly was exhilarating for Barbara, blessing her the freedom she lacked in her daily life as the wind beneath her cape helped her soar through the city. That didn’t mean she liked heights. So, hesitantly and then determinedly Babs began to climb. 10 feet. 20 feet. 30 feet up - and that wasn’t counting the height of the multistorey building the tower was built upon. Then she saw it. A small circular device was planted firmly in the centre of the metal tower, blinking rhythmically with green light. Working hard to keep herself pressed flat against the tower, against the wind that would beat her from the structure, Barbara scoffed. Moving slowly as not to fall off balance, she raised a golden glove and reached towards the signal jammer.
Thwack.
A jolt ran through Babs’ body as she was collided with by something unknown. For a moment she had no idea what had hit her, but a moment later she didn’t care to know as she lost her grip on the tower, plummeting downwards. The wind whipped against her, dizzying her, catching under her cape and sending her spinning. She wasn’t flying at all. She was falling, and fast. Then it became clear what had happened, as Kite-Man took her place several feet above her, clinging to the tower and securing the jamming device.
Shit. As Barbara fell, it was difficult to resist the urge to panic, to kick and flail and throw her body about. But she had to stay calm, still and centered as she retrieved her grapnel gun and fired a well placed shot. With Barbara only 10 feet from the floor, the grappling line she had fired went taut, and with a high pitched whir, the grapnel gun wound back the cable, propelling her back up towards the upper communication tower. After landing, now clinging to the metal frame even tighter, she reached up for the villain’s boot, attempting to pull Kite-Man down. Ugh. The wind buffeted against her, seemingly getting harsher and harsher. This was his element, that was why he was selected for the job. Slowly, Barbara took a deep breath and flung a smoke bomb upwards. She was hardly a master marksman and so couldn’t hit Kite-Man directly in these conditions. But she didn’t have to. A few seconds after releasing the smoke bomb, it detonated, releasing an opaque white gas. And though the pellet detonated nowhere near the villain, the harsh winds were more than suitable to blow the ball of smoke downwind towards the tower, blinding the glider-clad criminal.
“Shit! Kite-Man coughed, hurriedly securing the mouthpiece of his forest green helmet.
In the opening, Barbara leapt back, leaving the safety of the structure once more and firing another shot of her grapnel gun, this one landing above Kite-Man and carrying her on a collision course. She smacked against him at full speed, the violent winds behind her back and working in her favour. She clutched at his shoulders and wrapped her legs past his waist, leveraging herself against the flat edge of the tower and pulling. As Babs heaved, Kite-Man’s grip began to weaken before breaking. He detached from the tower and began to fall… with Babs still attached.
“Shit!!” Kite-Man cursed again and pulled the cord that fell from his shoulder, expanding her backpack into a full-sized kite-shaped glider, with Batgirl clinging on for dear life on the back. Together they cut through the air, and he cried out over the wind, “No-one stops us -- Especially not Batgirl!”
“We’ll see about that!” Barbara shouted back.
From her belt she pulled a Batarang, or the closest she could make herself without studying Bruce’s original blueprints. With her off-hand clenched shut to keep herself attached, she wound her other back, brandishing the sharp edge of the bat-shaped projectile, and plunged. She raked the bladed bat across the length of Kite-Man’s glider, cutting it nearly in two, and then leapt off. Barbara then pressed the button-pads on the palms of her gloves and activated the glider element in her cape, turning it into a rigid sheet capable of plucking her from freefall. So as Kite-Man tumbled towards the dirt below, Batgirl soared gracefully to meet him.
Chuck Brown landed in Robinson Park, kicking up clumps of mud and grass with the impact. As he moved to stand, his muscles roared. He wasn’t built for this, but he couldn’t afford to slow down. He quickly ditched his destroyed glider, jettisoning the whole backpack and hobbling as quickly as he could across the grass. But in the pitch black, surrounded by foliage, it was difficult to tell which way was up. He didn’t get far before he heard her voice again.
“Stop!” Batgirl cried. “It’s over!”
It wasn’t. It couldn’t be over until Gotham gave up, until his employer reigned supreme and - through them - Chuck had had his revenge. It couldn’t be over already. So he kept moving, unable to give up, straining and damaging himself even more despite being completely outpaced.
From the dark, Batgirl appeared ahead of him, dropping out of the sky. “Where’s the Riddler?”
“You know I can’t tell you that,” Chuck shook his head, attempting to push past her. “I won’t.”
But Batgirl wasn’t playing his games. She wouldn’t let him escape. “Not the phony you’re working for, the real Riddler,” she corrected. “Where are you keeping him?”
“Keeping him?” Chuck stopped, caught off guard. It was as if the vigilante was speaking a foreign language. “What?”
“Killer Moth broke Nygma out of Blackgate, kicking your whole scheme into motion,” Batgirl explained. “What did you do with him?”
“I…” No. Surely not. They were a team, united despite their varying goals and motivations in proving that Gotham was wrong to throw them away. They were honest with each other. “They wouldn’t.”
“They did,” Batgirl threw up her hands.
“Why would they do that?” Chuck murmured. Springing Nygma was never part of the plan. The plan was to leave Nygma forgotten, alone and obsolete. Not freeing him.
Barbara looked upon the man ahead of her, the lenses in her cowl good enough to give her some modest dark vision even without power. The man was blindsided, broken, and betrayed. She didn’t know much about his story, but she knew Chuck Brown had personal history with Edward Nygma. What she saw now was the depths of the secrets the new Riddler had been keeping from the other Z-listers. Lying to Zebra Man about the cure to his condition, keeping Kite-Man in the dark about their plans. Were they all being strung along? Unfortunately, Barbara knew she didn’t have time to talk, as Chuck Brown shook himself back to reality and raised his fists.
“No, you’re lying,” he growled. “This is my last chance for revenge. You can’t win. Every minute Gotham is left in darkness, more and more of its citizens come out looking for trouble. You can’t save the whole city at once!”
Desperate, Brown swung back and threw a punch Barbara’s way. But he was emotional and sloppy. And in the dark, on muddy ground, it wasn’t hard for her to duck under him, crack him over the head with a punch and send him toppling into the mud. She cursed. She didn’t have to save all of the city at once, but she had to start somewhere.
Moving quickly, Barbara met the edge of Robinson Park and ascended to a streetlight along Cooke Avenue. Then, using her grapnel gun, she propelled herself into a glide back to the police communications tower. And without Kite-Man’s interception, Babs made quick work of scaling the structure and removing the Riddler’s signal jammer before crushing it against the ground. Then, with one down, Barbara tapped into police radio once again. Still static, but she could now hear the occasional word amongst the mess. Almost enough to make out a message.
“--bzzzztt--kkkkkkkkkkkk-Attent---officers----converg----eadquart-zzzzzzzzzz-Riddler-zzzzzzzzzzz--”
This had to be the Riddler’s play: Take out communications and leave the cops like deers in headlights. There were more than enough cops in Gotham to respond to any number of emergencies, but no single cop could respond to any of them alone. Well, Batgirl would see to that, with one tower clear and four more to go. But that wasn’t all. That became clear as a gunshot rang out in the distance.
Barbara chased the discharge, bounding over a building and landing on a flat roof lower down. There, she looked to the corner of DeLisle and Meriwether. Instantly, she was horrified. A woman in a pristine black dress and a woolen coat clung to her son, backing away from a dozen gangbangers. At their feet lay the boy’s father, blood haemorrhaging from a wound in the centre of his chest. No.
Barbara knew she had to intervene. Preventing violence like this was what the Bat she wore on her chest was all about. But she also knew her odds against a mob of that size. She had fought mobs before, and knew that if she fell against them, the city would have lost one of its best chances at stopping the Riddler.
No. A hero’s job wasn’t to choose who needed saving the most. A hero’s job was to save. So she prepared to leap, but was stopped. Out from down Meriwether Street, a similarly sized unit of men in white armour charged together, surrounding the gangbangers. As they raised their rifles - which pulsed with blue energy - Barbara recognised the insignia on their chests through the darkness. Monarch Security, the private security firm using state-of-the-art Cleer Solutions technology to keep the “clean” boroughs of Gotham clean. Clearly they, like another faction in the city, had comms tech far superior to the ancient machinery the GCPD were using, tech that wasn’t so easily disrupted. And though Monarch were far fewer in number than the legions of cops, their rapid response gave Barbara hope that they could pull the city back yet.
Barbara looked back up to the sky, up to the thick clouds coalescing over the city, where the Bat-Signal would be shining if not for the blackout, lit by her father to herald the Dark Knight in times of emergency. There were four more communications towers to restore, three power stations to get back up and running, and Killer Moth, Magpie, the new Riddler and the old one to boot still in the wind. Suddenly Barbara couldn’t justify going it alone anymore. She would save this city, but much as none of these criminals could bring it to their knees single handedly, and much as they were a dreadful force with their powers combined, Barbara wouldn’t save the city alone. Reluctantly, Batgirl reached for the bat-shaped button on the edge of her utility belt and pressed it flat, opening a communications channel.
“Batgirl to Batcave: Gotham’s under attack, but if you’ll lend me your help… I have a plan.”
 
 
Next: Gotham City comes together in Batgirl #10 - Coming February 17th
 

This year I went to see 192 different movies in theaters, plus one rewatch. That's up from 162 in 2018, 140 in 2017, 9 in 2016, and 5 in 2015. I usually go 3 or 4 times per week, mostly on weekends. I keep track of dates/theaters/movies/ratings for fun and save all of the stubs.
My ratings are what I give the movie right after seeing it, with no real 'checklist' or anything, mostly just initial thought/enjoyment/opinion. It's not meant to be taken super seriously, I'm not a professional reviewer.
This is my full ranking for the year, from favorite to least-favorite, with a few small reviews/thoughts thrown in:
Monos - 10/10 - Hands-down my favorite movie of the year and honestly high on my all-time list. It's Apocalypse Now meets Lord of the Flies, with some Beasts of No Nation thrown in. It builds a unique, lived-in world that's believable and brutal. Beautifully-filmed, some of the best shots of the year (the ending shot gets seared in your mind). Modern and grounded look at a militia/cartel fighting against an unnamed enemy in a Colombian jungle. It almost feels post-apocalyptic instead of 'cartel vs government', which I really loved. You get to imagine your own backstory as the story unfolds. Unforgiving and gut-wrenching, but hopeful too. Got a lot out of its cast. Can't recommend this movie enough. Really disappointed this didn't make the Best Foreign Language Film shortlist. "Masterpiece" gets thrown around a lot, but in my mind this is the only one this year.
Marriage Story - 10/10
The Farewell - 10/10
Journey to a Mother's Room - 9/10 - Biggest surprise of the year, came out of nowhere. Deeply-personal story between a mother & daughter. It's very basic on the surface, and there's not much story (you start at Point A, and end at Point A), but it's the most emotional movie of the year. If you don't cry at least 3 times during this, you're probably not human. It's all about the unbreakable connection you have to your parent(s), from the day you're born until the day you die. It only takes place over the course of a few months, but feels like lifetimes. Beautiful little movie about separation, loss, and human connection.
Waves - 9/10 - I could write 20 pages on how much I loved this movie. To keep it short, it's got a perfect soundtrack, perfect setting, awards-worthy performances (from Kelvin Harrison Jr., Sterling K. Brown, and Taylor Russell). Visceral story that grips you from the first minute and doesn't let go until the closing shot. Unique use of colors and aspect-ratio. It takes a huge risk structurally that pays off. It's also the only movie I went to see twice this year. Really worth it too, picked up on a lot of stuff on the second viewing. Would've went a third time if theaters kept it playing longer. Every tiny decision/action has a huge impact. Just watch this.
Last Black Man In San Francisco - 9/10
Birds of Passage - 9/10
Apollo 11 - 9/10 - The best documentary of the year. Probably the best editing (and use of sound) I've ever seen/heard in a documentary. It's unique because they don't use interviews like most documentaries do, it's real sound the whole through. Impressive use of archival footage/audio.
Uncut Gems - 9/10 - This movie wasn't on the Best Original Score shortlist for the 2020 Oscars. This aggression will not stand.
The Mustang - 9/10
Wild Rose - 9/10 - If this doesn't win the Oscar for Best Original Song ('Glasgow'), I've lost all faith in the Academy. The ending concert scene had me crying like a baby. Jessie Buckley is gonna be big. Best music-drama since A Star Is Born.
Transit - 9/10
Ad Astra - 9/10 - Top-notch acting, great atmosphere, world-building, existentialism, beautiful VFX, engaging score. Best opening scene of the year. Thoughtful commentary on modern society all wrapped in a Heart of Darkness blanket. If you're into space/exploration movies, then I recommend this. Surprised at the backlash this movie has gotten on /movies.
The Report - 9/10 - This was a really good year for legal-thrillers and The Report was the cream of the crop. Tight, Sorkin-like script with top performances from Adam Driver & Annette Bening. Could change a lot of minds about the war on terror and use of torture.
Parasite - 9/10
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - 9/10
Midnight Traveler - 9/10 - If you feel like life is unfair and the odds are stacked against you, watch this movie. It puts everything in a different perspective. Every problem you have is going to seem minuscule compared to what this family went through. It's eye-opening and should fill you with anger.
Luce - 9/10 - It's Kelvin Harrison Jr's world and we're just living in it.
The Irishman - 8/10
Mickey and the Bear - 8/10 - Camila Morrone puts in the best breakout performance of the year. PTSD, drug-addiction, alcoholism, rural Montana, toxic relationships, James Badge Dale, following your dreams. What's not to love?
The Art of Self Defense - 8/10 - The best dark-comedy of the year. So many great one liners. It's like Yorgos Lanthimos directing Death of Stalin, set in a karate studio. Surprisingly violent and depressing, but in all the right ways. Jesse Eisenberg's best movie since.....The Social Network?
Peanut Butter Falcon - 8/10 - "Am I going to die?" "We all do, it's only a matter of time, now stop being a little bitch." - Favorite line of the year, really stuck with me.
Everybody Knows - 8/10
Mary Magdalene - 8/10
Knives Out - 8/10 - Well-crafted whoddunit with an ensemble cast. Just a genuinely fun time at the movies. Ana de Armas with well-deserved leading role for once. A few of the characters are a tad bit unrealistic (and basically caricatures), but the movie doesn't take itself seriously enough for that to be a problem. Daniel Craig hamming it up with a Southern accent was fun. Old school film with a modern twist.
The Lighthouse - 8/10
The Dead Don't Die - 8/10 - This movie really isn't for everyone, but I loved the dry humor and purposefully-bad chemistry/dialogue. The line delivery was off-putting but hilarious. Everything is extremely on-the-nose and it works. I could watch 10 hours of Tom Waits talking to himself.
Us - 8/10
Villains - 8/10
Ford v Ferrari - 8/10
Midsommar - 8/10
Jojo Rabbit - 8/10
Official Secrets - 8/10 - Keira Knightley with one of the most underrated performances of the year. Another really good legal/political-thriller that exposes the dark side of government bureaucracy.
Pain & Glory - 8/10
John Wick 3: Parabellum - 8/10
Queen & Slim - 8/10
Amazing Grace - 8/10 - Great concert-documentary. Some of Aretha Franklin's performances in this should give you insane chills. I actually had this one rated higher right after watching it, but then looked up some of the people shown on screen and it turns out some were real pieces of shit, while preaching to people like hypocrits. Felt gross and took a lot of the magic out. One of my few revised scores this year.
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood - 8/10
Joker - 8/10
Non-Fiction - 8/10 - It's very French (talky and sexual) and the writing seems impressed with itself, but it's a good adult-drama that surprised me. I'm a big fan of Olivier Assayas and this is some of his best work.
Rocketman - 8/10
Stan & Ollie - 8/10
Hustlers - 8/10
Avengers Endgame - 8/10
Doctor Sleep - 8/10 - It gets bloated and probably needed to be 20-30 minutes shorter (there's a shit ton of side-characters), but it was a worthwhile sequel to The Shining. Didn't feel like a cash grab and carries its own weight.
Booksmart - 8/10
Little Monsters - 8/10 - I'd recommend watching this based just on Josh Gad's character. So over-the-top and hilarious. When he starts chugging hand sanitizer might be the most I laughed in a theater this year. Also Lupita Nyong'o playing & singing on the ukulele to a bunch of kids is exactly what I needed in my life. Cute zombie-comedy with a ton of heart.
Spider-Man: Far From Home - 8/10
A Hidden Life - 8/10 - If there's a song from this year (or this decade even) that I'd want played at my funeral, it's James Newton Howard's theme from this movie. It's so beautiful and perfectly captures the feel of the movie. That song broke me down every time it played. I can't imagine this movie without it, it's that good. It's a shame this movie is getting ignored this awards season.
Never Look Away - 8/10
Toy Story 4 - 8/10
Pavarotti - 8/10
The Biggest Little Farm - 8/10- If you're really into the inner-workings of a Californian farm, then this is the documentary for you.
Abominable - 8/10
The Current War - 7/10
Artic - 7/10 - Well made, solidly-acted. I loved the small details about survival that this movie brings up, makes it very grounded and realistic. I'm kinda bored of survival movies in general so this didn't blow my mind or anything.
Bombshell - 7/10
Honey Boy - 7/10 - Pretty big letdown because I had really high expectations for this one. Lacked the emotional punch I hoped for. Didn't land for me at all, kind of like Boy Erased last year. I appreciate how honest and revealing it was, took a lot of guts for Shia LaBeouf to put this out there but it's forgettable. Lucas Hedges' Shia impression was reallllly on point though, that was worth the price of admission right there. Mid90s last year was a 10/10 for me and I expected the same for this. It was good, not great.
American Woman - 7/10 - Sienna Miller's performance in this is awards-worthy. The accent she does is perfect and it might be the most underrated role of the year. The movie gets way too tearjerky at the end though. It's basically 2 hours of bad shit happening to a good person, which gets a bit overwhelming.
The Beach Bum - 7/10
Captain Marvel - 7/10
Spies In Disguise - 7/10 - Looked pretty generic based on the trailer, but was actually pretty funny.
Cold Pursuit - 7/10
Tolkien - 7/10 - Not much happens but it felt really comfortable. Solid performances all around and they handled the WW1 scenes better than I thought they would. Expected to be bored out of my mind based on the reviews and trailer but it flowed well. As far as "Nicholas Hoult Biopics of Famous Writers" go, it's miles ahead of Rebel in the Rye 2 years ago.
Jumanji: The Next Level - 7/10
Sauvage/Wild - 7/10
Detective Pikachu - 7/10
Maiden - 7/10
Dark Waters - 7/10 - . Good performances and an okay script, even though it beats you over the head sometimes. Total waste of Anne Hathaway. She's way too good of an actress for a boring, generic, 'supporting wife' role with just a few lines. Not even sure why she was in this. Overall, a solid legal-thriller, which is a genre I really enjoy and I've been missing since its late-90s heyday. Pretty crazy story too, scummy and evil corporate greed is always interesting to explore on film (like The Insider). Should've been 20 minutes shorter and less on-the-nose
Adopt A Highway - 7/10
The Wedding Guest - 7/10
The Hummingbird Project - 7/10
Motherless Brooklyn - 7/10
The Lion King - 7/10
Last Christmas - 7/10 - It's really easy to bash this movie, a lot of the humor falls flat and the twist is ridiculous, but I couldn't help walking out with a smile. I love how committed Emilia Clarke was to the character, and her interactions with her boss and family were legitimately heart-warming at times. Also did I mention how ridiculous that twist is?
Richard Jewell - 7/10 - This was decent. Even though it's clearly Clint Eastwood's personal crusade (and thinly-veiled propaganda piece in some regards) against the FBI & the Spooky Media™, it still told the story effectively/semi-believably. Some of the characters (Hamm/Wilde obviously) were pretty ridiculous caricatures though, was hard to take anything they said seriously, I mean come on. You just roll your eyes at most of what they say. Some of the situations and encounters are too-conveniently set-up but that's easy to overlook. It had very solid performances (Hauser was great, especially when he finally let's his emotion show, in that scene where he kicks the table). Much better than The Mule, and 20x better than 15:17 To Paris.
Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker - 7/10
21 Bridges - 7/10
Before You Know It - 7/10
Hobbs & Shaw - 7/10 - This is peak "Stupid Summer Popcorn Movie" and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's The Meg of 2019.
Fighting With My Family - 7/10
Pet Sematary - 7/10
Downton Abbey - 7/10 - Never saw a single episode of the show before watching the movie, but it still felt familiasafe to jump right in.
Yesterday - 7/10
Greta - 7/10 - It's a cheesy, predictable, non-scary horror film but I liked it. Sometimes you just need Isabelle Hupert to play a psychopathic serial killer. Felt very old-school, a movie straight out of the 1980s.
Judy - 7/10 - It's the definition of Oscar bait and is emotionally manipulative, especially towards the end, but it does a great job at humanizing a Hollywood legend.
Frozen 2 - 7/10
Aladdin - 7/10
The Souvenir - 7/10
Zombieland 2: Double Tap - 7/10 - Nowhere near as memorable/iconic as the first one, but it still got a bunch of laughs from me (especially the Thomas Middleditch/Luke Wilson scene). Above-average for a comedy-sequel, but I could see this one not aging well.
The Two Popes - 6/10 - Two solid performances but underwhelming overall, too many cheap-looking flashback scenes, not enough Pryce/Hopkins. Reminded me of Can You Ever Forgive Me? last year, depending on the 2 leads to carry a weak movie/premise on their back, to disappointing results. Highly-overrated movie.
Ready Or Not - 6/10
Anna - 6/10 - It's basically Red Sparrow but slightly worse.
Saint Frances - 6/10
Hotel Mumbai - 6/10
Shazam! - 6/10 - Low-stakes, formulaic, superhero movie clearly made with strict budget limitations. It hits all the notes you'd expect a movie like this to hit. It was decent.
Alita: Battle Angel - 6/10
Loro - 6/10 - One of the more disappointing movies of the year. On paper it sounds amazing, a sprawling biopic of an infamous/corrupt Italian politician/mogul by Paolo Sorrentino who's not that far removed from a masterpiece? Sign me the fuck up. But nah, this was a shallow, surface-level (like my reviews), pointless dull knife of a biopic. Too much shoehorned religious imagery too. Tone is all over the place. It can't decide whether it's serious or funny and gets lost in-between. It looked nice at least. It also wins this year's "Most Nudity" award, easily beating the rest of the field.
Teen Spirit - 6/10
The Upside - 6/10
Gloria Bell - 6/10 - Great performance from Julianne Moore but this just felt like "Middle-Aged Crisis: The Movie". Just couldn't connect to it. I imagine the original is a lot better.
On The Basis Of Sex - 6/10
Stockholm - 6/10
Give Me Liberty - 6/10 - This is an example of a movie that has its heart in the right place but bites off a lot more than it can chew. There's a beautiful, emotional story in here somewhere, but it's too muddled with ineffective editing tricks and too many side-stories. It's sweet in some ways and the true-life characters bring a lot of charm, but it didn't do that much for me. A lot of 'year-end' lists have this as one of the most overlooked movies of the year, but I don't see it. Rough editing, bad soundtrack.
Child's Play - 6/10
Good Boys - 6/10 - Just watch Booksmart instead.
Styx - 6/10
Woman at War - 6/10
The Lego Movie 2 - 6/10
Missing Link - 6/10
Long Shot - 6/10 - The chemistry between Charlize Theron & Seth Rogen was great but the jokes couldn't really match it. It's a unique mix of politics & humor, but fell short of being an actual crowd-pleaser.
Echo in the Canyon - 6/10
Cyrano, My Love - 6/10
Dora the Explorer - 6/10
Brittany Runs A Marathon - 6/10
IT: Chapter 2 - 6/10 - Way too long. Felt like a never-ending series of fetch-quests. Good CGI & acting though.
Mister America - 6/10
Crawl - 6/10
Trial By Fire - 6/10 - Great performances by Laura Dern & Jack O'Connell get overshadowed by an overly-preacy script. It doesn't let the audience make up its own mind.
The Third Wife - 6/10
Godzilla: King of Monsters - 5/10 - This needed less humans, more monsters.
Glass - 5/10
Escape Room - 5/10
Terminator: Dark Fate - 5/10
Dumbo - 5/10
All Is True - 5/10
Brightburn - 5/10
The White Crow - 5/10 - One of those biopics where the movie doesn't do justice to the story. Reading the Wikipedia page on this guy's life, you'd except an Oscar contender. Instead it was just okay. Watch Cold War instead. It's basically this movie but better.
High Life - 5/10 - Unpleasant.
Where'd You Go Bernadette? - 5/10
Scary Stories to Tell Dark - 5/10
Her Smell - 5/10 - This movie made me physically nauseous. The tight, claustrophobic, haze-filled shots in the first 2 acts really threw me off. It's temporarily redeemed by a reallllllly good third act and a solid performance from Elisabeth Moss. But then deflated by a terrible final scene.
By the Grace of God - 5/10 - Based on the critical acclaim, director, and subject matter, I walked in expected to be blown away. Basically expected Spotlight, but this movie completely derails at the halfway point. Hard to sit through.
Blinded by the Light - 5/10
The Best of Enemies - 5/10
The Aeronauts - 5/10 - This is mis-marketed as an intense survival story but it's really just a boring biopic with too many flashbacks.
Fall of the American Empire - 5/10
Family - 5/10
The Goldfinch - 5/10 - It turns out an unfilmable novel really is unfilmbable, who would've thought? Shoutout to Jeffrey Wright & Finn Wolfhard for actually trying.
Angel Has Fallen - 5/10
Gemini Man - 5/10
Late Night - 5/10
Black and Blue - 5/10
Diane - 5/10 - This was just depression-porn. Sometimes it works (Mungiu/Zvyagintsev), sometimes it doesn't (this movie). It's such a bummer. Wouldn't recommend this to anyone but Mary Kay Place's performance makes it watchable and engaging sometimes.
Destroyer - 5/10
How To Train Your Dragon 3 - 5/10
Rafiki - 5/10 - I feel bad for this score because I get that this is a really important/significant movie for African Cinema, but I just couldn't get past the terrible acting, bad (like baaaaaad) dialogue, and lackluster story. Again, pretty big achievement that this got made and reached a global audience, but yeah, in a vacuum, it's undoubtedly a bad movie. Felt like an amateur movie on a shoestring budget.
Captive State - 4/10
Wild Nights With Emily - 4/10 - This movie is what happens when someone asks the question "hey, what if we turned Emily Dickinson's life into an SNL skit?". I get what they were going for, and Molly Shannon is great, but this was extremely unfunny and probably the longest 84-minute movie I've ever seen.
Dark Pheonix - 4/10
The Addams Family - 4/10
Midway - 4/10
To Dust - 4/10
Rojo - 4/10 - The only memorable thing about this movie is that there was a power outage about 90 minutes in so they comped my ticket and gave me a free drink. So that was cool, I guess.
The Kid Who Would Be King - 4/10
MIB: International - 4/10
The Kid - 4/10 - There's a 98% chance that this movie is some kind of tax write-off or money laundering scheme. It somehow got 2 big names (Pratt & Hawke), co-starring the son of the producer in his first movie ever. Directed by Vincent D'Onofrio for some reason (???). Was dumped by Lionsgate in a few hundred theaters with 0 marketing/promotion, and flopped hard. It's dated, boring, and unoriginal. Cheesy dialogue. Literally a story that's been told a million times before, usually in much better ways. No reason for this to exist. Chris Pratt has the worst fake-movie-beard of all time in this, that's kinda worth checking out.
Ramen Shop - 4/10
The Good Liar - 4/10- The most convoluted, needlessly-complicated plot of the year. Helen Mirren & Ian McKellen both phone it in (I don't blame them, they were given trash to work with). I hate when movies try to crowbar "WW2 flashbacks" into their movies when it's not needed.
Climax - 4/10
Harriet - 4/10
Lucy in the Sky - 4/10 - Once or twice a year, a movie comes along that has such a frustrating/stupid/anti-climactic ending it makes me actually angry. This is that movie. Natalie Portman had another movie like that last year (Vox Lux). Hey Noah Hawley, what the fuck?
Freaks - 4/10 - This movie would fit well in the "Good Idea But Bad Execution" subreddit.
Tel Aviv On Fire - 4/10
Ma - 4/10
Frankie - 3/10
Stuber - 3/10
Serenity - 3/10 - In a year full of batshit-crazy twists (looking at you, Last Christmas), this easily had the batshit-iest twist. It's something you actually have to experience yourself, and be fully-immersed in it, to appreciate how mind-numblingly crazy it is. How they got A-list talent for this script is a total mystery, but it probably involves of a lot of favors and cocaine. It's almost "so bad its good". Almost. I can't wait for the sequel, Free Guy, next year.
Maleficent 2: Mistress of Evil - 3/10 - More genocide than I expected for a live-action Disney fairy tale movie.
Donnybrook - 3/10
The Photograph - 3/10 - Zzzzzzzzzz...
Charlie's Angels - 3/10
Hellboy - 3/10 - This movie is like that annoying kid in middle school that tries way to hard to be edgy. It's gory and vulgar just for the sake of being gory & vulgar. It reminded me of the Predator reboot last year, had the same kind of dated/forced humor that seems to have no real target audience (except for the aforementioned middle school edgy kid I guess). Bad CGI and a boring villain. iirc it also had a lame sequel-bait ending which I hate.
Happy Death Day 2U - 3/10 -
The Sun Is Also A Star - 3/10 - It's filmed like a generic music video and has the emotional depth of a puddle.
Don't Let Go - 3/10
The Invisibles - 3/10
Playing with Fire - 3/10 - This was just like Mark Wahlberg's Instant Family last year, except that it was worse in every imaginable way. No lie, the end-credits bloopers were by far better than anything else in the movie. It was the only time I even chuckled or felt any type of emotion.
Cats - 2/10 - There's not much more I could say that already hasn't been said. Yes, it was bad. No, it wasn't the worst movie in history. For me, it was just so boring. Forgettable songs (except Beautiful Ghosts), no story/plot, nonsensical ending. Just wanted it to end. Jennifer Hudson just floating into space for no reason, Judi Dench giving me unwarranted lessons about raising cats, Ian McKellen slurping milk from a bowl, Extremely-Hairy-And-Naked-Idris-Elba, Cockroach Genocide, etc. These things all happened and we can't change them, and for us to grow as a society, we need to just move on and learn from our mistakes.
Rambo: Last Blood - 2/10
The Sound of Silence - 2/10 - More like The Sound of Boredom, amirite? No but seriously, that's all I got. This movie was the closest I got to falling asleep in my seat this year.
Synonyms - 2/10
Black Christmas - 2/10 - Extremely cheesy dialogue, cop-out violence, boring/predictable jump scares, low production value (bad even for a low-end Blumhouse movie), some of the worst one-liners you've ever heard, unrealistic/2D characters. Shitty ending. Wayyyyy too heavy-handed with the message. About as subtle as a flying brick to the forehead. Amateur acting, cutaway for every death, etc etc.
After the Wedding - 2/10 - Overacted, muddled garbage.
47 Meters Down Uncaged - 1/10
Shaft - 1/10 - Crude, unfunny, soulless, grating, pointless. There's a million adjectives I could use to describe this reboot, and none of them are positive. This is one I'm surprised I didn't just walk out of. Probably didn't have anything better do do that day.
Jexi - 1/10 - This year's worst movie. It's just the kind of movie that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, like you need to watch something else to get the stink of this one out of your mind. It was just so mean-spirited, from start to finish. Not a single joke landed, you just hated all of the characters. There are no redeeming factors. On the technical side, it was very basic, looked like a cheap music video. No memorable scenes, no good lines of dialogue, no originality in any way. None of the "cheerful"/"pick-me-up" moments earn any kind of emotional reaction. If you had a freshman high-school film student remake Her as a shitty comedy, this would be it. The fact that I paid money to see this is something I will never live down.
Movies that I saw outside of theaters, not included in the list:

• The King - 8/10 - Netflix
• Paddleton - 8/10 - Netflix
• El Camino: A Breaking Bad Story - 8/10 - Netflix
• High Flying Bird - 7/10 - Netflix
• Dolemite Is My Name - 7/10 - Netflix
• Triple Frontier - 6/10 - Netflix
• The Boy Who Harnessed Wind - 6/10 - Netflix
• The Laundromat - 5/10 - Netflix
• The Highwaymen - 5/10 - Netflix
• Velvet Buzzsaw - 4/10 - Netflix
• Bird Box - 4/10 - Netflix
• Six Underground - 2/10 - Netflix

Movies that I saw in theaters in 2019, but are not included in the list due to original release date:

• If Beale Street Could Talk - 9/10
• Cold War - 9/10
• Capernaum - 9/10
• Mary Poppins Returns - 7/10
• The Charmer - 6/10

Movies that I haven't seen yet but will see in the next few weeks:

• Little Women
• 1917
• In Fabric
• Tremors
• Just Mercy
• Midnight Family
• A Million Little Pieces
• The Earthquake Bird
• American Son
• Portrait of A Lady On Fire
• Clemency
• Beanpole
• The Kingmaker
• The Song of Names

Here is the distribution of theater visits by day of the week:
https://i.imgur.com/aIlGc6d.jpg
Throughout the year, I've gone to 13 different theaters. 9 at major chains, and 4 at indie theaters. Here's the distribution of visits by theater:
https://i.imgur.com/MuGEcEp.png
Here is the distribution of theater visits by month:
https://i.imgur.com/DhTqpeB.jpg
Other:

• The longest stretch I went without going to the movies was from July 21st thru August 20th, without a single trip to the movies. Partially due to an out-of-country trip and personal stuff. During this time I "missed out" on The Kitchen, The Nightingale, Brian Banks, and Honeyland. Mostly caught up to the rest.
• The most theater visits in a one-week span was November 1st thru November 8th, with 8 movies that week.
• The most in one day was 3 movies in theaters on March 15th, 2019 (Styx, To Dust, and Captive State).
• There were 26 double-headers this year (two movies in theaters during the same day, usually back-to-back).

Solid year, not as many surprises as 2018 though. Going to try to break 200 in 2020.
Here is last year's ranking:
https://www.reddit.com/movies/comments/aavyri_saw_162_movies_in_theaters_in_2018_here_is_my/

The main problem with both movies are Pennywise's powers. On one hand he's a shapeshifter that can mess with minds but on the other hand he creates other monsters. I mean... there are a few creatures attacking the Losers at the same time... Georgie in the flooded basement, Bevvy's FathePharmacist/Greta/Bowers attacking Bevvy and Cute Little Doggie turning into the nightmare fuel that scared Eddie and Richie. You may say that they're just illusions but... they can interact with losers so they're physical. This is so confusing. Let's just say that Pennywise's house is his own pocket dimension and he can do whatever he wants in it. This would fix most of the issues with these films. Also, I'd remove the entire "it's not real, none of this is real" bullcrap because... if none of this is real then how could you clean Beverly's bathroom from blood if that's just an illusion?
Zombie Patrick Hockstetter in Chapter 2 is confusing. Is he Pennywise? If so, why is he Henry's chauffeur? Can Pennywise even drive? I'd actually give Pennywise a new power, turning people he killed into mindless zombies fully controlled by him. This would make him even more interesting as a character. There would be an additional scene showing Pennywise using the deadlights to "revive" Patrick. He'd do this only if he has more than enough bodies to eat and he'd do that mostly to adults because they don't taste as good as kids. Also, I'd maybe replace Zombie Patrick with Zombie Belch.
Also, the movies should be more consistent with each other.
Chapter 1:
I'd make it take place in 1990 (would be a cool reference to the release date of the original movie/miniseries).
I'd cut the scene where Bill says "Georgie hurry up" because it's pretty pointless and it's just an unnecessary jumpscare.
There would be just one barricade and Georgie would bump into in (it doesn't make sense that he bumped into the second barricade if he saw the first one).
I'd show Pennywise's hand extending unnaturally before cutting to Georgie being pulled into the sewer.
Bowers not bullying Bill because Georgie went missing doesn't really make sense.
Richie's little secret should be teased a bit in the first film.
I understand why Ben wasn't riding his bike (he was carrying the model) but Bill should be cycling home.
Betty Ripson signing her shoe is... kinda weird and out of place.
Ben follows the easter eggs until he hears something behind one of the books. He peels that book back off the shelf. He's blinded by the red light coming out of the shelf but then he can see something that looks kinda like a circus. The other books begin to fall revealing what's behind the shelf. Ben sees headless children and Pennywise the clown holding the red balloon but he has his back to him. Suddenly Pennywise does a 180 degrees turn with his head (and maybe also a head circle) before the rest of his body also turns around revealing a head in Pennywise's hand... Ben's head. Then Pennywise's balloon turns into Beverly's head and spine. Ben hears something behind him, he turns around only to see his own body, headless and scorched. He's chased by headless himself around the library before bumping into the librarian just like in the real film.
Ben shouldn't run along the river while escaping Bower's gang. This shot is beautiful but it would make more sense for him to hide between the trees.
Hockstetter's death is kinda lame. I'd change it. After Patrick sees zombie children, he freaks out and runs away to the exit of the sewers but he takes the wrong way and instead of the exit he sees the pipe with metal bars. He's trapped. The voices of children are becoming louder and louder. Hockstetter sees a metal pipe lying on the ground, he picks it up and is ready to fight the zombie children but to his surprise all he sees is a red balloon. He smashes it with a pipe and is splashed by blood that was inside of the balloon. More and more balloons start to emerge from the sewer water but instead of regular tassels, they have intestines hanging out of them. Hockstetter smashes them until he gets covered by leeches that were in one of the balloons. He desperately tries to remove the leeches from him body while the metal bars behind him disappear (they were just an illusion). Pennywise's hands appear in the pipe and they grab Patrick. We see Patrick screaming while being pulled into the pipe (similarly to how Belch was pulled into the pipe in the 1990 miniseries) until he completely disappears.
After Bowers lets Mike go, Mike should spit some... you know... out.
Pennywise doesn't trip on the stairs in Bill's basement. Instead, he slowly crawls on all fours and grabs Bill by the leg. Bill is able to get out of It's grasp and Pennywise just smiles and slides down the stairs just like in the real film.
While Bevvy fights the hair tentacles, the balloon appears from the sink and starts to inflate before eventually popping and covering the whole bathroom with blood. It was kinda silly that Pennywise was trying to drown Beverly. Also, Bev's father doesn't see the blood but he touches her wet hair... really? Also later when she shows the bathroom to the other Losers, some blood should be missing... cause she was able to wash the blood out of her which wouldn't be possible without using the bathroom.
The Eddie & Leper scene was kinda silly. I mean... a verminophobic wouldn't pick the pills up from the ground... actually... I don't think anyone would do that. Also, Pennywise (Leper) chases Eddie just like pretty much every killer in every horror movie ever. Would be better if instead of chasing him, It would just grab him by the hand and maybe cough... which would cover Eddie in some slime. Eddie would get out of It's grasp and run away (just like in the real scene) and then he'd reach for his inhalator only to see his hand being covered in warts and rotting away. Then Pennywise would appear and actually attack Eddie... I mean... come on, he was in It's backyard... anyway, Eddie would get away and his hand would revert back to its normal state.
The Losers would actually be able to turn the projector off and they'd all chill but Pennywise would pop out of the projection anyway... you know... because he's magical.
In the "beep beep Richie" scene, one of the clown dolls would be painted like Joker.
I can see why they didn't go to the hospital with Ben after Bowers tried to curve his name in Ben's belly but they really should have after Pennywise slashed his belly with his claws.
I'd add more missing children posters to the film.
Bowers' first knife he lost while chasing Ben should be a regular old fashion knife. Then he'd get a brand new switchblade from Pennywise.
There should be a scene explaining why Pennywise chose Bowers as his minion and why he wanted him to kill them all. If Bowers killed them all then Pennywise wouldn't be able to feed on their fear. Oh, and he could have just killed bowers too but for some reason didn't.
I wouldn't change Beverly's outfit.
After Bevvy killed/knocked out her father Pennywise was just waiting for her. This is kinda lame but I don't know how it could have been fixed.
I'd add a deleted scene where the other two bullies are dead in the car and Bowers talks to them.
The scene where painting lady turns into Pennywise would be more terrifying if we'd actually see Pennywise transforming into his clown form.
When Georgie (Pennywise) says "I couldn't keep up with it", Bill should actually say "her" instead of "she"... also, Pennywise is trying to make Bill cry even though he feeds on fear not sadness... and Bill should instantly know it's not Georgie.
While Pennywise is backflipping into the well, I'd add a sound effect similar to the one he makes while using Deadlights (that would indicate that he has no choice and he must hibernate).
The Losers swear right after the fight with Pennywise and Bill disinfects the piece of glass (using a disinfectant liquid Eddie would give him in this scene) before cutting the hands of the Losers. Everyone knows that cutting your hand with a dirty piece of glass covered in blood of your friends is a very good way to get infected. Then we see a scene of Stan's parents reacting to his head wounds, Beverly moving to her grandma, Richie changing "loser" to "lover" on Eddie's bandage, Mike staying in Derry and Bill's family moving. We actually see more of Bill's mum here. As their car drive away, the camera zooms on the sewer entrance. Than it cuts to black and we hear Pennywise's laugh. It was extremely disappointing and underwhelming to wait for credits to pass only to hear his laughter.
Chapter 2:
First off let's fix the Birds of Prey trailer that was shown right before the movie. In this trailer, the red balloon appears over Warner Bros logo, then DC logo appears and then Harley Quinn pops the balloon and says "Clowns are lame". That was pretty cool... but DC logo should appear after Harley said that. Everyone thought the movie is about to begin but then DC logo appeared and everyone realized that it's just BOP trailer. Even my friend said "I knew something's not right when DC logo appeared" so yea... it should have appeared a bit later.
The movie opens in the sewers. The sound of Losers fighting Pennywise at the end of Chapter 1 could be heard. Then we see Bowers being washed out alongside the corpses of children. Maybe we can also get a scene explaining how he survived the fall... if he was able to grab that one protruding brick or if Pennywise grabbed him... I don't know. There would be an additional scene in Chapter one of Bower's dad's girlfriend coming home, seeing him dead and calling the police. She'd also be present in the scene where Bowers returns home and is arrested. Henry actually tries to attack her and says he needs to kill them all before he's arrested (police just assuming he killed his father was kinda random... even if they knew he's a psycho). 27 years later, he escapes, just like in the real movie. He's the one who attacks Adrian and Don and throws them into the river. Pennywise eats them and after red balloons appear, Henry smiles and disappears in the darkness... and then the title card appears. It would make sense for Pennywise to free his minion right after he woke up from his hibernation.
Deadlights in the first film are shown to be a part of Pennywise and his tool to make the kids float... while in Chapter 2 they're honestly the worst part of the film. It is revealed that they're Pennywise's true form... which doesn't make sense at all. If they're It's true form then why are they in his mouth? Shouldn't they be... him? How on Earth is Pennywise able to live with Deadlights outside of his body and last but not least, why do Deadlights instantly appear when Losers do the ritual? Deadlights in Chapter 2 act more like a separated entity while in the first film they were a part of Pennywise and probably one of his organs. Hell, would be cool if in this version they were It's heart. Think about it, why would an intergalactic shapeshifter feeding on fear have a very human-like heart? I would expect It's heart to look weird and alien and Deadlights look just like that.
I'd add a lot of deleted scenes and I'd move some flashbacks to the first film.
There would be a scene of some people trying to demolish the Neibolt House but then they'd be scared/killed by Pennywise and his illusions. Also, nobody would live next door to this house.
In this film Pennywise would have a scacrack on his head that would be a reference to his head cracking at the end of the first film. I know he has a good healing factor and he resets every twenty seven years but it would be kinda cool non the less.
Bevvy's husband just giving up and not chasing her was kind of unrealistic. Instead Bevvy would knock him out (similarly to how she knocked out/killed her father in the first film) and leave. He'd wake up and go to Derry later in the film where he'd be killed by Pennywise.
In this film, the Losers don't remember each other... but they know Bill's movies which makes no sense. Would be better if they remembered each others (just never met in those 27 years) but didn't remembered that they fought Pennywise (because it was erased from their memory as soon as they left Derry).
The fortune cookie creatures wouldn't interact with the environment (because they're just illusions), the baby faced bug would be more similar to cicada (because Pennywise was compared to cicada in the first film [and that was awesome by the way]) and the flying cookie would have a claw/pincer just like the cookie from the 1990 movie. Also, Richie would smash the table with a chair instead of Mike. The waitress would ask "What's going on here?" and would tell them to pay for destroying the table but would later say that they don't need to pay after Mike or Bill would say "There was a rat on our table".
Vicky's mum would answer a phone call and look away from Vicky before she'd follow the firefly. Right now she just stares at people playing baseball and doesn't care about her daughter at all.
"The ritual won't work if someone will be missing" which doesn't make sense because Stanley is already missing. Also the fact that the Losers must search for their "artifacts" alone doesn't make sense either because they found Stan's hat when they were all together. It would make more sense if Mike just said they can't waste time and splitting up will allow them to find the artifacts faster.
A car that almost bumps into Bill rides too slowly... it would have a lot of time to stop.
Bill shouldn't believe it's Georgie in the sewer, and him getting his boat from the sewer is stupid as hell. It's kinda like if Pennywise gave him this boat. Instead of Georgie, the skateboard kid would be in the sewer and Bill would have doubts before saving him (he'd know it could be Pennywise) but he'd ultimately try to save him (after he started crying) before he would turn out to indeed be Pennywise. However, I have no idea how the boat thing could have been solved.
In the Mrs. Kersh scene, the little girl from the picture (which I assume is the real Mrs. Kersh when she was young) would blink to Beverly and smile in the creepy way and then the blood would start coming from the picture. While chasing Bevvy around the house PennyKersh would slowly rot and turn into even more terrifying version of the witch. Also, Bevvy would actyally kick the door out (it was kinda silly for Pennywise to just let her out).
While vomiting, the Leper looks really fake... his jaw shakes unnaturally and you can see that it's just an animatronic. I'd add some CGI there to make him look more realistic.
It makes no sense for Henry to stab Eddie in a cheek. Would be better if he tried to stab him in the neck but Eddie ducked. Also Eddie should be taken to a hospital after he got stabbed.
Bowers' death is changed. Mike and Richie cut him multiple times, gouge his eye out and smash him into the wall before he finally collapses to the ground. Zombie Hockstetter shows up in the library too and Ben kills him by collapsing a bookshelf onto him.
In the scene where we see Pennywise's origin and where he kills people while changing into the Thunder Bird and Wendigo, we'd also see him eating animals... you know... because he had to eat something before people arrived to Derry.
Would be better if Mike made the ritual up. If the Indians knew it doesn't work, why would they tell Mike about it? There was a chance that he'd steal the vessel and do a ritual anyway... and that's exactly what happened. Mike lying and coming with the ritual up would work better in my opinion.
While cutting Ben, Pennywise should actually use his claws. Also, Ben should have "H" scar on his stomach (because Bowers carved it in the first film).
Spider Stan should have one of his spider limbs growing out of his eye like on the awesome rejected concept art. Also, Stan's body in the fridge should have cut veins (which would be a reference to his death).
In the sewers, the Losers would see the floating corpses of children, just like in the first film.
While trying to drown Beverly, Pennywise would turn into a mutated and deformed creature with tentacles that have teeth and eyes on them.
The final design for Pennywise Spider was kind of disappointing. Spiderwise should have multiple eyes just like real spiders do (maybe even eyes on his jaw just like on one of the concept arts) and his spider legs should look like the ones from Chapter 1. Also, his extra eyes should rapidly look around in every direction (basically do what Skarsgård's Pennywise is known for) before glowing blue (which would be a nod to 1990 Pennywise's eyes glowing blue while using the deadlights). Also, while using the deadlights his jaws should split in half forming a Demogorgon styled mouth. That would be really disturbing.
At some point he'd swap his spider arms for tentacles (and take Cthulhu like form) because they were kind of foreshadowed in Chapter one... and they're creepy, right? Also, maybe he'd turn one of his tentacles into a snake because the fear of snakes is probably the third most popular fear right after the fear of clowns and spiders.
Eddie and Richie should actually check what's behind the "Scary" door.
There would be a scene where... let's say Bill is lured underneath Pennywise and then It opens the mouth located between his spider legs and tries to eat him but Bill escapes.
While locking Ben up, Pennywise would turn into a mummy (he turned his head into a mummy head in Chapter one and it was kind of teasing him taking this form in Chapter 2 but it never happened + Ben later calls him a [CENSORED] stupid Mummy).
Before grabbing Mike Pennywise would grew multiple fingers running all the way up the arm that would burn and decay to remind him of his parents. Also, he shouldn't just throw Mike away. Mike would slip out of his hand when the monster killing spear would stuck in his throat.
I'd remove the whole "make Pennywise small" and "all living things must obey the laws of the shape they're in" because Pennywise wasn't even trying to become smaller... even if he should just become smaller instead of trying to destroy the entrance to the cave in which the losers were hiding (or he should just get them from the other side) and he can change shape and change the rules of his shape. Instead, the Losers would just figure out that if they won't be afraid, Pennywise would become weak cause he feeds on fear.
There was this very cool scrapped form of It called "The Concentric Nightmare", it was basically Pennywise turning himself inside out. I'd add it to the scene where the Losers insult Pennywise to death. Turning himself inside out would be a desperate attempt to scare the Losers while getting smaller and smaller.
While dying Pennywise should say some curses and spells in the (made up) ancient language.
When Pennywise is getting smaller and smaller, Richie should actually rip the arm that killed Eddie off.
When Pennywise is in his baby form, he says that they can't defeat him because he still feeds on Richie's fear and he's about to tell Richie's secret to everyone but Richie interrupts him and then he overcomes his fear and tells the other Losers that he's gay which weakens Pennywise down. Then Pennywise would desperately try to use the Deadlights but Mike would stick the "monster killing spear" into them... or something... I'm... I'm not sure. Also, I would make Baby Pennywise (Babywise?) less splattered.
I'd add a scene where the turtle swims near the losers but they don't even notice it.
Also, I'd make It Chapter 3 and I'd reuse the deleted scene where Pennywise eats a baby as an opening scene for this film. Also, this would be a Pennywise spin off explaining his past even further. and we'd see how It wakes up from his hibernation.

I've wanted to write this before, and it's probably been done or already discussed, but I still see confusion or controversy over Joker as a film. Does it have something to say, is it good film, and why is it so polarizing. For me the challenge is not seeing its merits but rather disentangling them in a coherent discussion: plot, characters, directing, setting, tone, etc. Great cinematography, great photography, composition (go back and look at the color schemes/blocking), editing, sound, etc. I could go on and on and I think this film will be looked back on more highly as an excellent example of cinema craft then it even gets now. There's a lot more here than Pheonix's acting.
I think there are two central themes to Joker, one from the perspective of the individual or character of Arthur Fleck and the other from the broader social environment ("we live in a society..."). In the case of the Joker the question posed to audiences challenges their ability to be judges of morality or character and it is the problem known in social psychology as the fundamental attribution error. We judge ourselves by our intentions, and we judge others by our perceptions of their actions: I know I'm a good person who generally acts with good intent, even when I screw up because I have access to my own mental states, but I can only rely on heuristics in judging the intent and subsequent actions of others. For a person with disabilities and limited skill-set like Arthur Fleck this is an impossible obstacle-course, particularly when set against the broader social theme. We live in a society that rewards the adequate and successful i.e. the more equipped you are to engage the world the more likely you are to succeed and thrive. In turn this success is used to further disadvantage individuals like Arthur Fleck who must navigate Kafkaesque bureaucracies to function; if they are cut loose as is done in defunding of his social worker they will be hopelessly adrift. This again follows the parallels of the 1970s and 80s when several high profile exposes of state run mental health institutions (such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) resulted in the closure and subsequent "dumping" into homelessness and the prison system of the chronically mentally ill.
Perhaps the best starting point for a modern audience is to relate the genre of film Joker occupies, which is perhaps dissonant to more casual viewers because the intellectual property is ostensibly a super hero franchise. The Joker is one of the most iconic comic villains featured in various extremes from camp to true psychopath. The movie is a character study in the psychological thriller style rather like American Pscyho although very clearly an homage (elevator scene anyone?) to the Scorsese film Taxi Driver. Arthur Fleck is effectively a re-imagining of Travis Bickle through the lens of the DC franchise as set in a real world Gotham. It is not a big budget blockbuster of typical comic book production and has a more independent or art house feel, which already is a mismatch with audience expectations. Someone growing up on Christopher Reeve's Superman would have very different expectations going into Joker. Travis Bickle is a socially inept loner, the focus of the story, making his way in an alienating and harsh world. Importantly a major theme in the this more grounded look at at character's life is the idea of human duality; real people are complex and hard to cleanly categorize, in the case of Bickle his narrative could just as easily see him end up the villain as the hero; and he ultimately is an anti-hero unfitting of direct emulation or adulation.
I'll revisit the character of Arthur Fleck in a moment, but I want to branch off now and talk about the setting of the film. The DC universe of Joker and Batman exists within the fictional city of Gotham, a thin allusion to New York City, and what's fitting for this telling of Arthur Fleck's story is the parallel with Taxi Driver's (and real life) New York City set in the 1970s and 80s. It was a grimey, corrupt, crime ridden, dirty, unsettling place (another film that captures this time and place as I recall is Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, Dog Day Afternoon, or Howard Beale's "Mad as hell" rant from Network). The garbage strike which is established as running background boiler issue that's set up and referenced throughout the movie is based on true events. So too is the subway shooting that ultimately tips Fleck from down on his luck schmuck to heinous criminal, which it parallels rather closely. Unlike the subway shooting though this film uses the modern day issue of economic disparity rather than racial tensions to craft a more relatable powder keg of social division.
The response was critical, as I understand it, to the "Occupy Wall Street" type commentary of the film which is arguably a bit of anachronism. Although there certainly was unrest over economic concerns during the 80s, notably the Volcker shock aimed at curtailing inflation, or the air line strike, I would argue the more apt analogy would be continued unrest of social issues which presents a thornier issue from a production stand point (subway vigilante shooting) and from an audience relation aspect. Events in 2020 aside I suspect in the wake of the past decade in 2019 there was more direct sympathy or understanding for a seemingly unfair economic system. From what I've gathered people were put off by how quickly the sentiment in the film boils over, but this is analogous to unrest of racial issues in the 80s for example the subway shootings or the Central Park 5. The unrest was there historically, and is well established in the background elements of the film, needing only a catalyst; a spark to light the fuel. Until recently, perhaps, people have been sheltered from large scale riots, but from '68 to Rodney King they were not that uncommon.
I'm loath to inject politics too much into this analysis but there does seem to be parallels with Trump, himself a high figure in 1980s New York, a slumlord who made his fortune by inheritance (i.e. undeservedly) and who publicly commented in favor of the prosecution during the Central Park 5 controversy. The young Wayne employee on the train who is ringleader (Wall Street 3) to the assault on Fleck is oddly similar in appearance to Don Jr. It re-contextualizes the philanthropy or stature of the Wayne family. Perhaps our sympathy to the murder of Wayne's parents would be altered if he were a Trump. Not to say that he deserves it, but perhaps you reap what you sow if your wealth comes at the expense and well-being of everyone else.
The film is well told in the language of cinema; right from the first scene we know Arthur Fleck lives in a world of shit, and without one word of dialogue we have visual symbolism of a Janus-Faced existence and the lone tear smearing his make-up of the Pagliacci type clown. Right out of the gate we know this is a character of inner turmoil who is not adept at expressing so. He puts on a mask (clown make-up) of sanity to function in the world. Life is constantly happening around him, though Fleck is removed. Note the audio at his work when one can constantly hear the goings on of his co-workers while Fleck often quietly set alone. And this symbolism continues, though not particularly subtle but most certainly effective. The lone trudge home after being a victim (emasculated no less, watch as he guards his balls during the attack) with multiple transfers on public transit just to have the last brutal climb up his Sisyphean steps to his dysfunctional home is relatable imagery. The audience will ultimately feel put off by their empathy for Fleck (who has not returned home from a day in which everything has gone wrong feeling defeated?) but also with their general apprehension to him as a person; he makes one feel ill at ease. Which remember at this point in the film Fleck has committed no crimes, he's harmed no one. He earnestly puts in the work at his job despite not his own unhappiness to entertain and amuse.
The fundamental attribution error is explored in Fleck by his mannerism and lack of social grace making audiences uneasy (he's a creep), which ultimately leads to his breakdown. And the film plays up the elements that make him creepy, for one he's a clown. People are generally put off by clowns. There are several allusions to notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacye e.g. Pogo's Comedy club and the diamond face paint for Fleck's clown make-up. Fleck is not capable of reading people, social situations, or engaging others. He's offbeat in his humor (e.g. when he's taking notes at the stand-up routine and laughs at the wrong time) which leads him to be the the punchline to the rest of the world: being terrorized by the kids who steal the sign, being bullied by his co-workers, laughing uncontrollably, etc. An effective example is when he actually manages to tell a convincing lie to the detectives at the hospital, throws his cigarette off with perfect timing, to only run face first into the door; he doesn't even get 10 seconds of dignity. Or when he accidentally shoots the wall, some Charlie Chaplin shtick, his ability to be funny always comes at his expense. And when he otherwise is funny it's almost always a private joke. There are two parts to a joke, the setup and the payoff. When he murders his workplace bully, Randall, he first premeditates a setup by using the chain lock on the door. It's then darkly funny when he lets his other short co-worker Gary leave only for him to be unable to unlatch the door. It's a joke only to Fleck and one the audience shares with guilt. Or consider the joke featured on Murray, "When I was a little boy and told people I was going to be a comedian, everyone laughed at me. Well, no one's laughing now." It's an actual joke from a real comedian, arguably a bit dated even by 1980s standards of comedy, but it's well crafted. Fleck just doesn't know how to deliver it, he's constantly off the mark. He goes on the equivalent of The Tonight Show and tries to tell knock-knock jokes.
Despite all of this he is constantly challenged to explain himself to the world, again with this Kafkaesque onus of responsibility to an indifferent world. He genuinely wants to do the right thing: he asks to have his meds increased which he is compliant in taking, he cares for his narcissistic and abusive mother without question, he tries to entertain the child on the bus, and gives his all entertaining the children in the hospital (a trope of comic book movie actors). Fleck only desires to be recognized for his hard work as evident in his first Murray fantasy.
The premise of the film seems to jump off from a meme critiquing the concept of Batman as a superhero. Batman is a 1%er, a rich man who uses his extraordinary resources to go out and beat up poor people. Obviously the lore of the Batman universe is more nuanced, exploring his vigilantism through a surreal and contrived lens of wacky super villains with grandiose schemes. Bruce himself is the product of garden variety mugging. The real world of vigilantism is far more complex, hearkening back to the subway shooter scene. We as an audience are more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to a fictional character like Batman because we understand as omniscient viewers his intent and character, because we see the moral code he carries in refusing to kill. This is a simplistic narrative device of many comic book dichotomies. Good and evil are clearly established and the solution is to punch or kill enough of the right evil characters. People want stories to lift their hopes out of the world in which Joker wallows. in the Joker there is the anti-hero's equivalent of a happy ending, significant only to him, the catharsis is wholly his at the discomfort of viewers. Releasing his murderous frustration is akin to the care-free way he descends the Sisyphusian stairs when he's finally shrugged off the burden of carrying on any attempt at a normal life.
Fleck is always expected to explain himself, a quick example of this is when his sleazy boss brings him in about the sign. In seconds his boss goes from questioning why anyone would steal a sign, to strongly suggesting Fleck would do so, insulting him directly from start to finish. Maybe now is the time to delve into what really kills this for mainstream audiences: Fleck is creepy. He's got that uncanny valley persona like he vaguely knows how people act or how to interact with people socially but like his comedy he just can't get the timing right. Intentions mean nothing if your audience is already ill at ease made worse by the fact he lives in his own fantasy world, has jokes that only make sense to him, his greasy emaciated appearance, his uncontrollable laughing, and the fact he's really not alright. It's like the feeling of being unsettled at a restaurant when a person with tourettes is having a problem with ticks. They're not harming or directly targeting anyone but a person making strange facial grimaces and randomly shouting puts one on edge. And Fleck doesn't read subtly, he's very literal and direct. His understanding of a stand-up act is "sex is funny", just shoot me becomes literally "I want to die" he's not good at figurative language. What's more his low weight, tics, or body contortions may be side-effects of the psychiatric meds he's on to attempt normalcy. Contrived as it may seem his off-putting elements are often the price of being a functioning member of society. He is both off-putting but inconsequential, his mother, his social worker, his boss; none of them listen when he explains his real problems or aspirations.
This leads me into the revelation of Fleck's childhood abuse. On the one hand I consider it borderline a cop-out to explain away his weirdness as a result of childhood trauma. You're putting the audience on the spot to either have antipathy to victims of severe childhood abuse or to attempt to condone their misdeeds as adults; it's very emotionally manipulative. Then again child abuse exists, the harmful repercussions of traumatic brain injury, maladjustment, heightened cortisol response, heightened risk to anti-social or maladaptive behavior is all based in fact. These are all aspects people will recognize on a surface level but have a harder time engaging as social ills. And these are hard social questions.
The fall. Once Arthur stands up for himself by killing the Wall Street 3 he's on a downhill ride. He experiences real life triggers: losing his job, his mother's ill health and revelations both about her relation to Wayne and his own traumatic life. It becomes easier for him to let his pro-social obligations slide and embrace his nascent anti-social tendencies. He embraces jokes that are funny only to him: punching out, "don't forget to smile", laughing at the subway murders, etc. This is a film that builds tension the whole way through, but no one questions mistreatment of a weirdo like Fleck. For example the fact Fleck is brought on national TV to be mocked, that the segue way to his intro on Murray is talking about all the problems he has. There's a viciousness in the world that's tolerated as common experience, even if the person on the receiving end sees their place in the world is to make people happy as Fleck does. Joker is unsettling not simply for the awful things "unpredictable" people like Fleck do, but because we are not as good as we think we are. It's why Fleck ends up being the voice of something more to the general descent into madness of the city; our tendency of indifference to others and their struggles breeds disruption and malcontent. The Joker is a figurehead, a symptom of a sick society (possibly literally); not an ethos.
Finally I have to address the vengeance once he fully lets go. The violence is visceral, the catharsis palpable. It's unnerving both how Phoenix portrays the indifference or satisfaction with which he carries it out, but then the subconscious aspect of the narrative which makes him an anti-hero. By the Arkham report we know his mother abused or allowed him to be abused terribly, then took him back in as if nothing as happened to be her own caretaker. Yet I doubt many would see the hospital scene in which he smothers her without a physical discomfort; a direct analogy would almost be something like Dr. Frankenstein destroyed by his creation. The coldness is unsettling but I suspect the subtext of possible justification is equally unnerving. But contrast there is violence we as the audience accept with less concern. No one feels as much discomfort as when the street hoodlums violently assault a sign-spinner, we don't care near as much as when the Wall Street 3 bully him on the train (it's almost welcome for them to redirect their anger from the female passenger to Arthur) and despite our disdain for his actions there is never equal disdain for Randall (his co-worker that bullies and manipulates Arthur) even when he is being his most self-serving and disingenuous (dude uses faux sympathy over the death of Fleck's mother to attempt to cover for his own crimes). There's an inconsistency in how we view misdeeds rooted in acceptable behavior. This is a critique of society crystallized in the lessons of Ledger's Joker, "Nobody panics when things go “according to plan”. Even if the plan is horrifying!" and it's the world the breaks characters like The Joker.