All posts by Samantha Garrison

Samantha Garrison belongs to a Saint Bernard named Laddi, so her life is an endless stream of drool. She believes in Ewoks, the true saviors of the galaxy far far away, Tilda Swinton, and a world without Jurassic Park sequels.

Anti-Racism Resources

At After the Hype, we believe Black Lives Matter. To amplify melanated voices and to help educate those who strive for a more anti-racist world, we’ve compiled some of the media we’ve been consuming this week to better our own understandings.

Non-Fiction
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed by Charles E. Cobb, Jr.

Fiction
LoveCraft Country by Matt Rough
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Social Accounts
– @Coco.Butter.Shutter
– @Photodre
– @krystinaarielle

Movies & TV
– 13th – Available on Netflix
– Dear White People – Available on Netflix
Blindspotting – Available on HBO

Links to Resources
Media about race that parents can show their children
President Obama’s List of Reading and Resources

Pandemic Picks: Sam’s Existential Book Club

Just before COVID-19 hit the US in force, I moved from Los Angeles to the suburbs of Nashville in hopes of a slower pace of life in which I could pursue more of my hobbies and spend more time with my family. I got the monkey paw version of this wish, to be sure, but I am truly enjoying all the time I’ve had to read while sitting on my back porch with my dog. 

I started with a collection of essays purchased before leaving titled Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed about writers who have chosen not to have children. It’s a great read. Something that fascinated me, and something nearly each author highlighted, is how new the choice to be child free really is. In the course of human history, people have been unable to produce children, but they have never had the ability to opt-out like we do now. That choice is more weighted than we give it credit. 

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Pandemic Picks: Waco

In 1993, the ATF raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX. Tipped off by the media and terrified after a similar situation in Ruby Ridge, ID that left a child dead, the Davidians started a firefight. Eight cult members and four ATF agents were killed. The FBI came in to handle the situation and commenced a 51-day standoff that ended in a horrifying fire that killed 76 people, including 25 children who lived on the compound. Waco, the six-episode miniseries currently available on Netflix, originally made for the Paramount Network, covers the events that lead to this standoff and the horrifying outcome. 

It’s hard to find anyone to root for in this situation, but Michael Shannon as FBI negotiator Gary Noesner grounds the story, helping us to see the humanity on both sides. Taylor Kitsch is incredible as charismatic Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh. He’s as magnetic as he is reprehensible, and it’s easy to see how he amassed a following, even if he was bent on martyrdom. One of my faves, Shea Wigham, makes an excellent turn as militant FBI agent Mitch Decker. He is so bent on getting the job done that he’s willing to use PSYOPS against American citizens and tear gas toddlers, even after killing a woman and her child at Ruby Ridge.

Waco is a shameful chapter in American history, and I’ve seen a lot of documentaries on the situation. But it wasn’t until I got to see it played out as drama made it somehow more real for me. Telling these stories, however difficult it might be, is important, especially when they are dramatized. It allows us to connect with the players as characters, creating some distance from their bad actions and giving us a glimpse of the souls underneath. Writers and actors get to the genuine emotion behind people who are likely nowhere near as eloquent or uncomplicated in real life. 

It’s a tough watch, but a rewarding one, and since most of us still have nothing but time, I suggest taking a look at Waco. 

Pandemic Picks: A Simple Favor

Paul Feig has become my go-to director for a good time. Spy is an all-timer for me, and last week, I clicked on his 2018 entry, A Simple Favor. It did not disappoint. This twisty-turny little mystery starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick does a great job balancing a solid mystery plot with a biting sense of humor. 

I love when a villain is just smart enough that I find myself rooting for them, and Lively’s Emily is the wry, well-dressed suburban mastermind of my cinema dreams. Although I’m no great fan of Anna Kendrick’s, she’s used here to great effect as Stephanie, an annoying, insecure single mother with a sordid past of her own. I enjoyed getting to know these women, flaws and all, and I like that their friendship clouded their judgment as much as their respective romances. The social web these two women manage to weave made the movie stick with me even after credits rolled. 

The movie is currently streaming on Netflix, and if you’re looking for a fun popcorn flick, you should give it a go.

Pandemic Picks: Bon Appetit

Bon Appetit was already the best YouTube channel, but forcing our favorite test kitchen chefs to work with what they’ve got in their own kitchen has both upped their creativity and their charm.

If, for some insane reason you weren’t already on the Bon Appetit train, the popular food publication has found new life by letting camera crews into its test kitchen and turning its staff of chefs into TV personalities. Because they were already writers, turning their kitchen experiments into easily accessible recipes for home cooks, it was a perfect marriage of old and new media, leading to charming series such as “Gourmet Makes,” in which Claire Saffitz attempts to recreate mass produced snack and candy, “It’s Alive with Brad Leone,” which follows the titular chef as he does fermentation experiments and learns where his food comes from, and other amazing regular programs.

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There & Back Again: The Weta Tour

SAM RECOUNTS HER TIME VISITING WETA STUDIOS IN NEW ZEALAND!

On December 26th, I got to visit Weta Studios on the Miramar Peninsula in Wellington, NZ, fulfilling an eighteen-year dream. Weta is four separate companies — Weta, Weta Digital, Pukeko Pictures, and Park Road Post. They also have physical studio space at Stone Street Studios. The front doors of the Weta Cave, the physical effects and prop house where Richard and Tania Taylor, along with Peter Jackson crafted the miniatures of Middle Earth, are guarded by Mr. Bilbo’s trolls. There’s a gift shop with a mini-museum, one of the only places where they have any major references to Peter Jackson’s early horror films. We got a snap of the Sumatran Rat Monkey.

Simian Raticus Rat Monkey Sumatra

The tour itself does not go through any workspaces, but it does include windows into their machine shop and armory. There are also artists working on their projects that take questions at the end. It’s far from the real experience of being in a studio space, but the tour guides and props they have on display are no less beautiful.

The second half of the tour found us at Pukeko Pictures, a production company responsible for the animated series Thunderbirds Are Go! Like the original Thunderbirds series from the 1960s, this family show used physical sets. However, instead of marionettes, the characters are all CGI animation. The sets themselves are more of what I had expected to see at the Weta cave — sets actually used for filming, and they were an absolute dream to view up close. Seeing the craftsmanship, ingenuity and creativity, not to mention the fascinating hybrid animation technique, really inspired me.

It has been eighteen years since I first watched Fellowship of the Ring — my first true movie obsession, the film that made me want to make films. In that time, I did go to film school, and I now work in animation, albeit in marketing, not production. It’s fascinating to take a step outside of that and see a movie studio through a fan lens. It made me realize what a big influence a movie can have on a person. As much as I wanted to see the nitty-gritty, the cubicles, the harried assistants and the ugly process of actually building a movie, it was refreshing to be reminded of the magic.

Thunderbirds set.

This week, back at my own desk, bogged down in the minutiae of one sheets and trailer release dates, I kept reminding myself to take a step back. While movies are my job and jobs feel tedious more often than not, what we do has the potential to connect with people. Whether it’s a favorite joke, a sweet character moment, or a movie like Fellowship that is such a big undertaking it inspires a person’s life choices, movies find their way into our hearts and minds. They connect us across oceans and continents, and we find ways to make sense of our own stories because a bunch of weirdos go to work every day to build something from nothing.

Weta was not necessarily the mind-blowing experience it would have been for me when I first watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but in some ways, it was more satisfying. It changed me yet again — from a jaded adult to one a little more inspired to take on her day.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina… and Satan

A look at the nightmarish monstrosity of Sabrina’s satan!

 

Movie depictions of Satan are generally pretty lame — he’s either portrayed as generically seductive (Devil’s Advocate, End of Days) or she’s portrayed as seductive (Bedazzled), or Mel Gibson makes it a woman with a snake in her nostril (Passion of the Chris). Black Phillip, morningstar of my favorite wish-fulfillment fantasy The Witch, never really showed his true self, and I’m still sore about it. Not so with Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Satan is the the goat-headed, cloven-hoofed, full-bodied patriarchal monster of my nightmares, and I love it.

 

Look, you can come at me with your Biblical knowledge that Satan is supposed to be tempting and attractive, the beautiful angel fallen from grace. I know. I definitely Sunday School’d better than you, trust. But at the end of day, the seductive nature of sin, the frailty of temptation, they have no place in the world of Sabrina (or, quite frankly in any of the non-Witch movies I listed above). In her world, the Father of Lies, the Dark Lord Himself, should be as scary as the evil he is meant to embody.

 

Sabrina’s quiet little town of Greendale is home to a Satanist coven. Although primarily populated by women, the men have most of the seats of power, handing down orders from the Dark Lord with supreme authority. This literal goat, like all mediocre men who’ve risen to power on their own arrogance, believes himself the metaphorical GOAT and pushes that fantasy like herpes by taking advantage of women who wanted a sense of safety. Typical. And not so different from it’s alleged opposite, the Christian church. It’s almost laughable in its transparency, in the same way that seeing a horned monster in an otherwise melodramatic show invokes that same tickling unease.

 

The show itself has struggled with tone in the first half of its first season, but Satan is a welcome constant. He reveals himself to his demon-wife at the end of episode one in all his animalistic glory. It’s what kept me watching. Even when he’s not on screen, his presence is felt in a big way — the same way patriarchy colors all of our communal social interactions whether we wish to acknowledge it or not. Rather than trying to make him all things Evil, the creators of Sabrina made the devil a clear metaphor for the biggest evil plaguing Sabrina and her friends — unchecked misogyny.

 

While I would never pledge my loyalty to this monster, I am excited to see where he takes Sabrina as more of her Chilling Adventures hit Netflix.

 

 

Strange Bedfellows: Esther Perel and Nicole Byer

A tremendously honest and valuable lesson from two great podcasts.

 

In the last month, I have binge-listened to two fascinating relationship podcasts: “Where Should We Begin?” hosted by psychologist Esther Perel, and “Why Won’t You Date Me?” hosted by Nicole Byer.

 

The first plays edited versions of real-life couples counseling sessions with Perel and her actual patients. She occasionally breaks through the dialogue to explain her methods, and it is a raw and beautiful look at people trying to better understand themselves and one-another. Episodes would often bring me to tears on my morning commute.

 

The latter is a comedian the host of Netflix’s Nailed It bringing her comedian friends, former flames, and other entertainers on to discuss her dating life, review her Tinder profile, and share their own relationship struggles. I have never laughed so hard.

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True Crime: Where’s The Line?

Wrestling with the balance of entertainment value of True Crime vs its insight.

 

The true part of true crime always gives me pause. It’s not that I am distrustful of documentarians, reporters, or even murder enthusiasts on podcasts. But engaging with true crime content makes me uneasy in the same way I felt nervous as a child when I did something I knew was wrong. For all the commentary these pieces offer, for all the new perspectives they provide or questions they raise about the quality of our justice system, these programs are first and foremost always about engaging an audience. To call them entertainment might seem crass, but therein lies the rub. True crime series and documentaries are inherently voyeuristic and thrilling. There is entertainment to be gained from real human suffering, and while we might learn something, it becomes a hard balance to reconcile.

 

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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Sam’s first dive into fandom!

The end of summer always brings with it a sense of nostalgia. Even though I am not longer concerned with back to school or even the changing weather, the end of easy summer traffic and dearth of action movies still makes me wistful. In reflecting on summer’s past, I often find my thoughts drifting back to 2003. It was the summer before I began high school. I had just discovered my beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy and with it, one of my first celebrity crushes: Orlando Bloom. Because he was such a new presence, there was only so much I could consume, but I waited with baited breath for his next lead role: that of Will Turner in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

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