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https://www.thenerdelement.com/2024/10/27/week-7-nfl-prediction-updates-and-week-8-picks/
Good evening, folks! Today I want to discuss which picks I got right and which ones I got wrong! So, let’s get started, shall we?! I predicted that the Bills would beat the Titans 27-20, but the final score was 34-10 Bills over the Titans. I predicted that the Colts would beat the Dolphins 31-21, but the final score was 16-10 Colts over the Dolphins. I predicted that the Packers would beat the Texans 38-31, but the final score was 24-22 Packers over the Texans. I predicted that the Commanders would beat the Panthers 38-13, but the final score was 40-7 Commanders over the Panthers in a huge blowout. I predicted that the Chiefs would beat the 49ers 34-27, but the final score was 28-18 Chiefs over the 49ers. I predicted that the Steelers will beat the Jets 34-13, but the final score was 37-15 Steelers over the Jets. I predicted that the Ravens would beat the Bucs 35-17, but the final score was 41-31 Ravens over the Bucs. I predicted that the Lions would beat the Vikings 34-30, but the final score was 31-29 Lions over the Vikings.
I predicted that the Falcons would beat the Seahawks 28-21, but the final score was 34-14 Seahawks over the Falcons. I predicted that the Raiders would beat the Rams 31-17, but the final score was 20-15 Rams over the Raiders. I predicted that the Chargers would beat the Cards 24-16, but the final score was 17-15 Cards over the Chargers. The Cards offense kicked a game-winning field goal and the defense kept the Chargers offense out of the end zone and held them to 59 rushing yards.
Overall, I have gotten 8 out of 11 picks correct!!!! Now, let’s get to the NFL week 8 picks, shall we?! The first game I will predict is the Eagles @Bengals game. I think the Bengals will beat the Eagles 26-20. The next game I will predict is the Ravens @Browns game, the divisional rivalries. I think the Ravens will beat the Browns 38-13. The next game I will predict is the Titans @Lions game. I think the Lions will beat the Titans 41-17. The next game I will predict is the Cardinals @Dolphins game. I think the Cards will beat the Dolphins 27-10. The next game I will predict is the Packers @Jags game. I think the Packers will beat the Jags 42-24. The next game I will predict is the Bills @Seahawks game. I think the Bills will beat the Seahawks 31-20. The next game I will predict is the Panthers @Broncos game. I think the Broncos will beat the Panthers 34-17. The next game I will predict is the Chiefs @Raiders game, the divisional rivalries. I think the Chiefs will beat the Raiders 34-16. The next game I will predict is the Bears @Commanders game. I think the Commanders will beat the Bears 35-14. The next game I will predict is the Cowboys @49ers game on Sunday night football. I think the Cowboys will beat the 49ers 27-24. The last game I will predict is the Giants @Steelers game on Monday night football. I think the Steelers will beat the Giants 34-10.
So, what do you guys think about the NFL week 8 picks?! I would love to hear your thoughts and comments are down below! Stay tuned for NFL updates.
The post Week 7 NFL Prediction Updates and Week 8 Picks appeared first on The Nerd Element.
Adult Swim surprised many fans today at New York Comic Con this year by screening the full premiere episode of Lazarus, the new globe-trotting thriller from Shinichirō Watanabe. When we first got glimpses of the new series last year from San Diego Comic-Con, I was locked in seeing only a taste of a series that I knew that I wanted to watch.
Featuring a character being chased throughout that first short preview trailer from last year, one could see that the animation was smooth, sleek even, and worth re-watching for its short one minute and thirty-one second run time. There was enough Mirror’s Edge-like parkour to make me dizzy and a variety of characters on screen to keep me interested and speculating until we get more.
And we got more this week with a slightly longer clip of English-subtitled first look video of Lazarus this time around with Axel voiced by Mamoru Miyano–running and being parkour God once again.
Adult Swim describes the story:
The year is 2052 – an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity prevails across the globe. The reason for this: mankind has been freed from sickness and pain. Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist Dr. Skinner has developed a miracle cure-all drug with no apparent drawbacks called Hapuna. Hapuna soon becomes ubiquitous… and essential. However, soon after Hapuna is officially introduced, Dr. Skinner vanishes.
Three years later, the world has moved on. But Dr. Skinner has returned – this time, as a harbinger of doom. Skinner announces that Hapuna has a short half-life. Everyone who has taken it will die approximately three years later. Death is coming for this sinful world – and coming soon.
As a response to this threat, a special task force of 5 agents is gathered from across the world to save humanity from Skinner’s plan. This group is called “Lazarus.” Can they find Skinner and develop a vaccine before time runs out?
I have really always loved the science fiction worlds in the anime projects that Watanabe has been involved in. He’s also had a great hand in collabs with musicians and artists that I love listening to. Last time around, I took a look at the cats involved and admitted that I was a little star-struck with some big names attached including Kamasi Washington, which made me know that the music was going to be on point.
According to Anime News Network: Senior vice president and head of anime and action series at Adult Swim Jason DeMarco confirmed that Watanabe is directing every episode. Chad Stahelski (John Wick stuntman and director) is designing the action sequences for the science-fiction action anime. The anime will feature a score by jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, and producers, DJs, and musicians Floating Points and Bonobo. Sola Entertainment is producing.
As reported by Gizmodo, here’s a run through of its Japanese voice cast and where you might’ve heard them before:
- Koichi Yamadera (Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop) as Dr. Skinner
- Megumi Hayashibara (Faye Valentine from Cowboy Bebop) as Hersch
- Mamoru Miyano (Chrollo Lucilfer from Hunter x Hunter) as Axel
- Maaya Uchida (Alluka Zoldyck from Hunter x Hunter) as Chris
- Yuma Uchida (Megumi Fushiguro from Jujutsu Kaisen) as Leland
- Makoto Furukawa (Saitama from One Punch Man) as Doug
- Manaka Iwami (Akane Kurokawa from Oshi no Ko) as Eleina
- Akio Otsuka (Yujiro Hanma from Baki Hanma) as Abel
I am very much looking forward to Lazarus and this hella jazzy (electronic, house and perhaps all the genre mashing) soundtrack it will serve with it. I love sci-fiction, especially in the realms of anime and from the house that Shinichirō Watanabe builds. I love that we’re getting more and more glimpses of the series, even little by little to make us all anticipate this come 2025. I don’t know for certain what Axel’s backstory is or what he’ll bring to Team Lazarus but I enjoy seeing him evade cops, flip and parkour around and just be fun to watch run around on screen. I love how the collective of fans are feeling early 2000’s anime vibes (in a good, not great way) with this newer series which means most of all will be eagerly awaiting Adult Swim’s latest.
Lazarus is slated to premiere on Adult Swim in 2025.
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The post FIRST LOOK: ‘Lazarus’ Coming to Adult Swim in 2025 appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Since 1988’s Child’s Play, Don Mancini has been the driving creative force behind the long-running franchise. After the first installment, which he co-wrote with the film’s director Tom Holland (Fright Night) and writer John Lafia (who’d go on to direct Child’s Play 2), Mancini continued to pen every screenplay.
It wasn’t until Seed of Chucky that he made his directorial debut, which hit theaters on November 11, 2004. Unfortunately, it didn’t do well at the box office, making it the last Child’s Play movie to premiere in theaters. Some fans consider it the worst in the franchise, though others, especially the LGBTQ+ community, regard it as a campy cult classic.
With the 20th anniversary approaching and in honor of the unceremonious cancellation of the Chucky series, let’s look back at this polarizing film that the studio considered “too gay, too funny…” and had “too much Jennifer Tilly” (as if there’s ever such a thing).
Most, if not all, horror franchises run into the same problem after a few sequels — the slashers stop being scary. To avoid that, Mancini subverted expectations by steering the Child’s Play films in a more comedic, self-referential direction, beginning with 1998’s Bride of Chucky directed by Ronny Yu (Freddy vs. Jason). There were still horror elements but it deviated from the story of Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent and Justin Whalin), the young protagonist central to Child’s Play 1–3. The film introduced Chucky’s (Brad Dourif) fabulously twisted ex-girlfriend, Tiffany Valentine, played to perfection by Jennifer Tilly.
After bribing and then killing a police officer to obtain Chucky’s remains, Tiffany stitches him together and recites the Damballa voodoo spell to resurrect her old lover. Tiffany spent a decade looking for Chucky, believing that he planned to marry her but he laughs in her face at the idea, so she locks him in a playpen, later taunting him with a bride doll. At this point, Chucky has come back from the dead four times; a measly cage doesn’t hold him for long. After killing her in a very cool Bride of Frankenstein-inspired death, Chucky traps Tiffany in the bride doll, which she gives a serious glow-up in a makeover montage.
To transfer their souls into humans, the doll couple needs the Heart of Damballa amulet, inconveniently located 6 feet under in Hackensack, New Jersey, with Charles Lee Ray’s corpse. Tiffany pays her neighbor Jesse (Nick Stabile) to deliver the dolls, and he brings along his girlfriend Jade (Katherine Heigl).
The two couples go on a wild road trip leaving several bodies in their wake. After witnessing Tiffany committing a gruesomely creative murder involving a waterbed, a mirror, and a Champagne bottle, Chucky finally puts a ring on it. But their violently rocky relationship hits a few speed bumps along the way, and by the end, they’re literally at each other’s throats in a cemetery. Tiffany tries to kill Chucky, but he stabs her instead, and then Jade shoots him to death. Before the credits roll, Tiffany briefly wakes up and gives birth to a slimy, sharp-toothed (kinda cute) baby doll.
Seed of Chucky picks up six years later and we learn that the screeching infant was found by a British guy named Psychs (Keith-Lee Castle), a cruel ventriloquist who forces the ghoulish-looking doll (voiced by Billy Boyd) that he dubbed Shitface to be the dummy in his act. The orphaned doll has a kind and gentle heart but is plagued by murderous nightmares.
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, actor Jennifer Tilly (played by Jennifer Tilly) is on the set of Chucky Goes Psycho, a horror film based on the legend of the dolls inhabited by the souls of serial killers. The last time we saw Chucky and Tiffany, they were burnt to a crisp and riddled with bullets, but they’ve since had a makeover. Luckily, their offspring sees them on TV with the same Made in Japan markings, then flees England and runs away to Los Angeles to find their family. Better yet, they have the amulet to bring them back to life.
While he’s mostly referred to as male, the character’s gender is ambiguous. Chucky wants a boy, Tiffany wants a girl, so their child is called Glen or Glenda (an homage to Ed Wood’s cult classic). Tiffany sets her sights on transferring her soul into Jennifer Tilly and Chucky’s into hip-hop superstar-turned-director Redman (playing himself). The plan is to impregnate Jennifer and whatever baby pops out is for Glen or Glenda.
Considering their brief but nightmarish introduction in Bride, this “Dickensian waif” who wets his pants when he’s nervous was not what fans expected. Instead of a natural-born killer with their parents’ same lust for murder, Glen/Glenda is firmly against killing, at least a part of them. As they struggle with their gender identity, they also confront their killer instincts.
Seed haters couldn’t get on board with the meta-Hollywood aspect. Jennifer Tilly playing a version of herself while still voicing Tiffany, and later playing Tiffany in the body of Jennifer Tilly, is a lot to wrap your head around. She pokes fun at herself by playing a washed-up actor, annoyed with doing horror when she wants the juicy parts given to Julia Roberts. She’s determined to land the role of the Virgin Mary in Redman’s “Bible epic.”
Many often critique the multiple plot points, believing there are too many things going on when all that should be happening is Chucky killing people. Still, the film has some pretty cool kills. Glen/Glenda takes out sleazy paparazzo Pete Peters (John Waters) with acid and sets Jennifer’s assistant Joan (Hannah Spearritt) on fire, both accidents. Tiffany disembowels Redman after he fires Jennifer for being pregnant (though Mary would indeed be pregnant).
The comedy is very much of the time back when people thought it was cool to hate Britney Spears and celebs like Martha Stewart and Anna Nicole Smith were frequently referenced. But there’s still some humor that holds up. Glen/Glenda knowing nothing about himself other than the Made in Japan manufacturer mark and informing his personality is just hilarious.
Seed is also very much about acceptance. Tiffany tries to fight what she sees as an addiction to killing and knows that she wants to be a mother first (with some murderous tendencies). Jennifer gives birth to twins, allowing Glen/Glenda to split their identities in two. Even Chucky finds self-acceptance. Since the beginning, his main motivation has been to transfer his soul into a human body for good. But here, he realizes that he would rather embrace his serial killing nature in doll form, declaring “I am Chucky, the killer doll. And I dig it!”
Seed of Chucky is not for everyone, namely anyone looking for something truly terrifying. Mancini took a big swing making a full-on comedy that plays into the absurdity of killer dolls while touching on poignant topics like gender identity, addiction, and acceptance. For those who can accept that Seed of Chucky is a meta off-the-rails comedy, it’s a gory, good time.
Seed of Chucky is available to rent on Prime Video and is streaming on Netflix through October 31, 2024.
The post Cult Classics: An Appreciation of Don Mancini’s Polarizing ‘Seed of Chucky’ appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
It’s time for a new generation of feminists to take up the torch. But where to begin? Should teens hit the ground running with The Feminine Mystique? Or maybe a fantasy novel about dismantling entrenched structures of power? Yes and yes. If you need suggestions, here are 10 feminist books for teens.
10. We Should All Be Feminists
We Should All Be Feminists is a long-form essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a New York Times best-selling author and leading light in postcolonial feminist thought. Adapted from her TEDx talk of the same name, We Should All Be Feminists is an eloquent and deeply personal piece of prose about the importance of embracing feminist thought, no matter who you are. Combining personal anecdotes with observations of society as a whole, the book is a call to action for feminist thinkers everywhere.