Now Watching

slugbait · Post by **slugbait** » 10 Sep 2023, 04:35

The first game is amazing. The second had good gameplay, but suffered from story problems and unlikable characters.

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 10 Sep 2023, 04:44

Noyka wrote: ↑
10 Sep 2023, 04:10
So the games are overhyped too?

i kinda think so yeah, ND is one of those studios that always, always, always gets massive 'critical acclaim', despite the fact that they have been flogging the uncharted template for like 16 or 17 years now with basically no meaningful revisions. TLOU was just a reskinning of "See We Can Make Hollywood Blockbusters Too" into "Please Take Us Seriously Our Videogame Is Art We Promise". they're perfectly competent games and as videogame storytelling goes, they do a good job with it. you can do a lot worse for sure, but i've always struggled to understand the love these games continue to get.

mostly i just don't feel like what you get out of it is worth the 20-30 hour investment, nor is it deserving of all the histrionic praise the semiliterate 'games journalism' world heaps on it. but if you've spent any amount of time reading the gaming press at any point in its 30ish year existence, you probably already know their critical acumen is and has always been pretty much nil, so that's to be expected i suppose

but my opinion on all of these matters is very much an outlier, so take it with the appropriate grains of salt

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 30 Sep 2023, 08:53

watched this week:

ghost in the shell
paths of glory
do the right thing
masque of the red death

User · Post by **User** » 30 Sep 2023, 09:20

slugbait wrote: ↑
09 Sep 2023, 20:35

User wrote: ↑
09 Sep 2023, 20:01
watched liquorice pizza last night
I wanted to like that but honestly couldn't get into it. I had to force myself finish the last ~45 min. Sean Penn's cameo was great, though.

it was a puzzling movie, i liked it, the overall vibes, themes, two main actors, directing, but it was way too long, and meandering

sean penn was funny yes but again that whole sequence did not need to be in the movie

Verbal · Post by **Verbal** » 01 Oct 2023, 03:54

sean penn seems profoundly unfunny from what ive seen

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 01 Oct 2023, 10:00

i watched crimes of passion tonight

User · Post by **User** » 01 Oct 2023, 10:09

did it make you feel like committing crimes passionately?

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 01 Oct 2023, 21:14

for better or worse, my criminal days are behind me

slugbait · Post by **slugbait** » 02 Oct 2023, 00:31

deckard · Post by **deckard** » 07 Oct 2023, 04:42

asokha

Noyka · Post by **Noyka** » 07 Oct 2023, 23:21

Saw the creator was ok

User · Post by **User** » 08 Oct 2023, 08:21

the creator was AI propaganda

with robot monks

i appreciated how it was set in my part of the world though

Noyka · Post by **Noyka** » 08 Oct 2023, 08:34

My dad told me it was Chinese propaganda, Barbie was gay propaganda apparently too. I blame Fox.

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 08 Oct 2023, 09:13

this week i watched

late spring
paprika
where does a body end?
sound it out
the act of killing

User · Post by **User** » 08 Oct 2023, 19:23

nice, the act of killing

Ninny · Post by **Ninny** » 09 Oct 2023, 01:54

User wrote: ↑
08 Oct 2023, 08:21
the creator was AI propaganda

with robot monks

i appreciated how it was set in my part of the world though

A bit of a bummer, not a lot of substance and that main hard-on bearer is boring

droidspawn · Post by **droidspawn** » 10 Oct 2023, 04:58

The new exorcist was hot trash. Not that I was expecting greatness but holy shit it was just bad. Fuck David Gordon Green

Noyka · Post by **Noyka** » 10 Oct 2023, 05:08

Its Blumhouse 80% of the movies they produce are snoozefests. They do have a couple goid ones and a couple so bad theyre good.

User · Post by **User** » 10 Oct 2023, 11:38

Ninny wrote: ↑
09 Oct 2023, 01:54

User wrote: ↑
08 Oct 2023, 08:21
the creator was AI propaganda

with robot monks

i appreciated how it was set in my part of the world though
A bit of a bummer, not a lot of substance and that main hard-on bearer is boring

yeah

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 14 Oct 2023, 08:03

i watched the black cat, eXistenZ and in the mouth of madness this week

User · Post by **User** » 14 Oct 2023, 12:53

existenz

super dated now but a classic

Methuselah Honeysuckle · Post by **Methuselah Honeysuckle** » 14 Oct 2023, 19:36

Mars attacks

slugbait · Post by **slugbait** » 14 Oct 2023, 21:01

jawn galliano wrote: ↑
14 Oct 2023, 08:03
i watched the black cat, eXistenZ and in the mouth of madness this week

Tooth gun and liquid Satan

I've only seen the Fulci version of The Black Cat. It was kind of weird that he didn't add a scene where something happens to an eyeball.

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 14 Oct 2023, 22:32

User wrote: ↑
14 Oct 2023, 12:53
existenz

super dated now but a classic

i absolutely loved it! disorienting in a way that feels very familiar to the hallucinogenic kaleidoscope that is today's information landscape. and i appreciate that its conception of the game allowed them to (mostly) eschew the cheesy CG representations of VR of the era, in that respect i felt it holds up well.

slugbait wrote: ↑
14 Oct 2023, 21:01

jawn galliano wrote: ↑
14 Oct 2023, 08:03
i watched the black cat, eXistenZ and in the mouth of madness this week
Tooth gun and liquid Satan

I've only seen the Fulci version of The Black Cat. It was kind of weird that he didn't add a scene where something happens to an eyeball.

definitely check the ulmer film whenever you get a chance, short but sweet. i've been mega-pleased with criterion channel these last several months, it's so nice compared to the usual streaming conundrum of 500,000 things to choose from but only two of them are any good

droidspawn · Post by **droidspawn** » 15 Oct 2023, 23:30

In the mouth of madness is a classical as a cunt. One of my favs

slugbait · Post by **slugbait** » 16 Oct 2023, 08:30

I just realized I confused In the Mouth of Madness with Prince of Darkness

Now I'll have to watch both as penance

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 16 Oct 2023, 08:43

that's the fucking way

watched a ballet last night, it was a really neat experience for someone with absolutely no conception of dance

Noyka · Post by **Noyka** » 16 Oct 2023, 12:04

Thats a hell of a confusion there haha

Were you invited by someone ir just decided itd be an experience stormy?

Im watching Haunting of Bly Manor

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 16 Oct 2023, 19:45

oh yeah i was invited, would not have thought of that on my own and i rarely go to any kind of show solo these days. we both had a blast though, there was a piece set to erik satie's trois gnossiennes that was excellent, and a piece based around sufi dance that was actually pretty incredible. there were two other pieces that didn't really do it for me, one based on bach cello suites and some multi-movement modern thing that i found mostly bemusing.

it was a very entertaining crowd-watching venue; everything from face tats to tuxes and big fur stoles to quite a few dancers showing up in stage costumes & tutus and whatnot. and also the bowing ceremonies after each performance were absurdly over-the-top, there was one that felt like the applause lasted for as long as the performance. but they did do a good job so i guess richly deserved etc

Noyka · Post by **Noyka** » 16 Oct 2023, 22:56

Never been to a professional ballet but I have taken brother to a few community ballets since he loves all music and dance. The crowd is always more diverse than you would expect like you said.

Skill wise its hard not to respect any athlete including dancers.

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 16 Oct 2023, 23:10

yeah, the athleticism and skill is sincerely mind-boggling. the sheer physical pain they have to endure to train and to do what they do is unimaginable to me, especially considering it starts at such a young age. and like professional athletes, they are extremely vulnerable to injury - there's no safety net or insurance or anything. one stroke of bad luck and your performing career is over.

User · Post by **User** » 16 Oct 2023, 23:35

knew there was a reason that i wasn't a ballet dancer

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 22 Oct 2023, 10:39

saw monster, the new one from hirokazu kore-eda at the brattle tonight. magnificent, highly recommended

slugbait · Post by **slugbait** » 22 Oct 2023, 11:14

Trick 'r Treat, and Prince of Darkness were viewed this evening.

Noyka · Post by **Noyka** » 22 Oct 2023, 22:41

That’s a fun evening there

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 23 Oct 2023, 08:35

oh i also watched air doll and wings of desire last week

User · Post by **User** » 23 Oct 2023, 15:08

i have not watched any movies in the last two weeks

Ryeknow · Post by **Ryeknow** » 30 Oct 2023, 05:29

deckard · Post by **deckard** » 05 Nov 2023, 05:06

batman: the animated series

User · Post by **User** » 11 Nov 2023, 20:56

station eleven

anyone else watch this

it's hit and miss

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 15 Nov 2023, 20:08

tokyo-ga
lynch/oz
pina

and i have notebook on cities & clothes on deck for later today

it's a (mostly) wim wenders week

i am also kind of tempted by until the end of the world, but that almost-5-hour runtime is intimidating

slugbait · Post by **slugbait** » 19 Nov 2023, 07:53

Fight Club
The Killer

The latter was ok. Not terrible but not amazing. 6.8/10

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 19 Nov 2023, 09:36

alice in the cities
vice squad story

both fantastic. excited to tackle the rest of the wenders road trilogy

jawn galliano · Post by **jawn galliano** » 27 Nov 2023, 21:05

ok i did that. i watched those films this weekend

wrong move
kings of the road

i will watch some other things this week, i think

zim · Post by **zim** » 27 Nov 2023, 22:43

oppenheimer
the imitation game

both fine

Ninny · Post by **Ninny** » 02 Dec 2023, 22:38

No one will save you

slugbait · Post by **slugbait** » 03 Dec 2023, 00:21

Ninny wrote: ↑
02 Dec 2023, 22:38
No one will save you

Was this any good? Been meaning to check it out.

Ninny · Post by **Ninny** » 03 Dec 2023, 18:34

Well… I had this ‘who cares’ type of feeling during most of it. Who cares if she lives or dies. I think it is because it has hardly any dialogue. The acting is mainly sexy leopard elevator vs cgi, so not much to win there. How this little sexy leopard elevator would get anywhere near an alien, let alone kill one. But I guess this goes for most human vs alien setups.
It improves a bit near the end. Now it seems the aliens are sympathetic towards the sexy leopard elevator so why were they so scary and mean at first

It gets a little sentimental but also really weird. There might be some kind of twist but I didn’t get it and I don’t want to think about it. And I’m not watching this again to find out
Some imagery was nice I guess. And I watched it at home, I would have liked it a little more at a cinema. But you can safely skip this one

Ninny · Post by **Ninny** » 03 Dec 2023, 18:39

No one will save you, we will dump you in a cgi-ed up set and you can try to make that work on your own

Ninny · Post by **Ninny** » 03 Dec 2023, 18:54

And she was close. Then maybe that is the win, Kaitlyn Dever