algroth

Yeah, the cheese looks like part of a garbage bag.

That reminds me that I had some coconut ash-flavoured ice cream yesterday, which looked completely black (apparently for its use of activated charcoal as an ingredient). It was surprisingly tasty, sweet and coconut-like, but also weirdly smoked and spicy. And ice cream, yes. Kinda like this one: http://people.com/food/jet-black-ice-cream-is-officially-a-thing-we-need-to-eat/

At the risk of sounding a bit pompous with this reference, this does bring to mind the whole "tradition of quality" concept that was heavily criticized by Truffaut, Bazin and the rest of Cahiers back in the day. In a time where films that essentially took classic works of literature and theatre and reduced them to stuffy melodramas were seen as the "standards of excellence", they argued that the true auteurs and true excellence in cinema could be found in the industry filmmakers making genre films like Hitch****, Wilder and Ford. As far as I'm concerned there can be true excellence found in a genre film, in recent years Mad Max: Fury Road was one such example of a genre film nominated for Best Picture which thoroughly deserved its nominations, was incredibly creative and impressive from a sheer craftsmanship standpoint. Obviously I'll have to see Get Out before I can comment on whether it compares, but I have heard from just about everyone else, critics and audience alike, that it is a masterful film that very cleverly balances a number of genres and tones, all the while being quite relevant and poignant from a thematic/political standpoint. Based on all I've heard that *does* sound like a film which shows excellence and craftsmanship and which I'd very gladly see nominated for Best Picture over the likes of yet *another* stuffy but important period piece like Darkest Hour or The Post. With regards to your Michelin Star analogy, it's funny to note that the first restaurant in Argentina awarded a Michelin Star (at least, I think it's the first, but I might be wrong) is Carne, which specialize in premium fast food - kind of like a really really good McD's. For what it's worth, I would not award a Big Mac but I could definitely see the case for a great hamburger being deserving of recognition. With regards to how relevant the Oscars are to me, I like the Oscars inasmuch as they serve as yet another tool with which to create buzz for films that may otherwise fall off the radar or not catch on with general audiences (see this year the likes of Call Me by your Name for example). I also do like to see the films I love getting a wider recognition and all that... But as to how they influence my own tastes and how they speak to my personal view of the films, I do feel they are fairly irrelevant. That's why I don't feel like my personal opinion holds much sway as to whether I think a film ought to have been nominated or not, lest, in the case of the more technical noms, I see a film that is actually a mess from that very perspective (*cough* Hacksaw Ridge for editing *cough*), quite simply because I feel like my opinion and theirs are entirely independent (even if they may see eye to eye). Also I'm sorry if I may have come across as a bit rude earlier, to you and LadyCrimson. For what it's worth, maybe I got a bit too carried away with this argument because, even whilst you mentioned 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight and Selma in a positive light in your own post, I feel like every single year I run across the same argument made for each of these, and I don't feel like this year was any less warranted than the years prior, from what I've seen and heard from both yearly awards trajectory and very reliable sources. I'll get around to it soon. Either way, no bad blood I hope.

It won't change the fact that I won't find its nominations to be wrong, same as it hasn't for a film like The Martian.

Uh, please tell me where, exactly, that I said I think or assume others opinions for liking the film are illegitimate or less honest than mine. That feels like projecting something onto me that I never said. Art opinions (and other things) being so subjective is why I very rarely ever join in debates over whether something is awesome or not awesome, good or bad, because to me it's a waste of time at this point in my life, like arguing what color is best, blue or red. I just give an opinion and wander off again. But imo, the masses/critics liking a film (or anything else) is one topic, while (perhaps one of) the reasons for choosing to nominate it for an award is another topic - they can be two separate (if interwtined) things and the latter can/could still have political/pandering motivations behind it. Or maybe it is that the members of the AMPAS and other awards ceremonies liked it enough to vote for it and consider it one of the best films of the year - which corresponds with the critical response of the film at least too. You haven't said others' opinions for liking the film are less legitimate than yours but this whole argument about the 'political' reason of its nomination does suggest this belief, as if it could not be possible that the film was merely liked enough to be a contender, and that there must be an ulterior reason or bias, external to the film's quality or artistic achievements, to why it is being nominated. Were it that Get Out had not been recognized by any other awards ceremonies, by any other critic or industry professional or the likes and suddenly made its way into the Best Picture category, that I think would probably raise more suspicions (Denzel's nomination might be a more arguable case for example); but the fact is that Get Out has been consistently recognized by all these entities as one of the best films of the year since its release - as such I cannot see what's so weird about it that might make you guys question the legitimacy of its nomination. Anyhow, I think we're going in circles at this point so I'm dropping this. If you guys think the motivation to Get Out's nominations is political, well, I still find it a false assumption based on the year's trajectory up to this point, but fair enough.

It's a send-a-message nod. I think its odds of actually winning Best Picture are almost zero. I also liked Get Out, it was rather amusing and more intelligent than most films of its genre, but getting an Oscar nom. or calling it one of the years Top 10 best or whatever is over-rating it way too much. I know nothing about Get Out but horror, as a genre, is about as intelligent as shonen anime. So you would say the same of Cronenberg's output? Third Part of the Night? The Cremator? Shura? What about the long history of horror in literature, would you claim the same thing as well?

I think one should see it first to form their own opinion before saying any people who may think it's pandering are wrong or that such an opinion is utterly "false" or preposterous. If you know how the Oscar noms. work/come about and how political it and their Board of Governors can be, you know the Academy can very definitely pander, in many ways. And the voters are voting for peers after all, and those peers can get just as wound up into the latest peer and critical cause as anyone else. I'm not saying my opinion is somehow more "right" than anyone else's opinion, but by the same token, all those critics and the Academy voters and even my 10 best friends (if I had 10 best friends, that is, haha) opinions aren't really any more "right" either. That's why art is subjective. It's a good genre movie, I'm not knockin' it at all, but my opinion still stands. It's not anywhere near a "best of the year" sort of project. Note that I don't actually care if it is pandering, it's no skin off my nose either way. They can choose whatever they want, for whatever reasons, I have no investment in it. It was just my casual view/response tossed out one morning on a brief visit to a forum. I haven't even watched the Oscars in years. I do know how the Oscar noms work and come about, and that's the thing: they might arguably respond to politics but they respond far more often to *momentum*, and Get Out has had it for months. And whilst, yes, art is indeed subjective and one is free to think whatever they want about Get Out or any other film, but assuming that a film's nomination is purely political, or that people have rated it as one of the best of the year for purely political reasons, takes a step beyond positing one's opinion on a film and into discrediting others' through speculating on their motives for their assessment. In the same coin I could accuse you and TN of questioning the legitimacy of Get Out's nomination due to being racist and thus assuming that a black filmmaker's nomination is inherently less legitimate than that one a white one's (which, mind, I don't, but it follows the same line of thought). It's the act of speculating on the others' opinions for rating a film so highly to be political which is wrong, not a disagreement about whether it's as good as others say it is or not. That's not by the same coin at all. You don't even know what currency we're using. You're defending a film you haven't even seen, calling criticism of it false, preposterous and racist? That seems incredibly rude and pretentious to me. Get Out is okay. I enjoyed it. I didn't hate it at all, I was entertained all way through. It was, as far as horror movies go, definitly in the top 20 this year. A definite step below other heavy horror hitters like It Comes At Night, Gerald's Game, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Stephen King's It but way above Annabelle Creation, Alien: Covenant and Life. Why am I ranking it this way? To give you a better idea of the caliber of the film you're defending. I'm not arguing against the legitimacy of a black director. I love Jordan Peele. But the film he made is not oscar level. Not even CLOSE. It was never intended to be - it's essentially a Stepford Wives remake with feminism replaced with white privelege. It's competently directed (though nothing special), it's got some clever dialogue and funny cinematography and set design. I enjoyed it. The lead actress is good, everyone else is competent. It's not, however the kind of film that gets nominated for an Oscar. It's 'fine' at best. If you'd have SEEN it, you would know this and wouldn't be calling people preposterous racists for it. There is a gap in quality so obvious that it INVITES the questioning of motives. The fact this got nominated for an Oscar while clearly being a just 'okay' film at best is the thing that makes black directors look inherently worse here, I'm just pointing it out. This makes last year's fantastic Moonlight, for example, look bad - this movie has no clear reason to be nominated based on quality and the only other plausible motive looking in is politics. Based in this nomination, it becomes incredibly easy to look back and go 'oh, it must have been the same for that film too'. This would have been fine if the Academy had a history of nominating clever, decent horror films. But Scream never got nominated. Cabin in the Woods never got nominated. The only thing that sets this movie apart from those is race. Its nomination by itself makes the Academy look racist, out if touch, desperately trying to stave off the race controversy from a few years ago because nobody campaigned for a Moonlight or Boys N The Hood this year. This film wasn't nominated because it was good, it was nominated because it's black. Again, I liked this movie. But it's not Selma, or Precious. It's not 12 Years a Slave. It's not Fruitvale Station or even Creed which both should have been nominated but weren't. No, this is Scream with some clever jokes about privelege. Lets talk about films of the same caliber this year. Stephen King's IT, while also being just fine, was a better film than this. Why did Andres Muschietti get passed over and Jordan Peele get nominated? Well, only thing I can see from the outside is... Latinos aren't as important to the Academy as African-Americans. Seriously, how am I the racist for pointing out the plain as day participation trophy style tokenism on display here? The Academy is acting like the villain of the very movie we're discussing and I'M the bad guy? Seriously, watch it instead if being rude. You'll see. There simply is no way to view this nomination as anything other than the Academy going "I can't be racist, one of my best friends is black!". A couple of things I should clarify here: firstly, I didn't accuse you or LadyCrimson of racism, though bringing up that matter opened up a whole can of worms that I shouldn't have touched, so I apologize for bringing it up and if you felt I was calling you racist; however I do think the same train of logic that would lead to such a far-fetched conclusion is the same you guys are following when you essentially go "I don't think this film is that good, therefore these guys who do must have a political reason for thinking so". Which brings me to the other point that is that I'm not criticising your opinion of the film at all, but rather the assumption you're making of others who have seen it and loved it. I don't need to have seen the film to call out that attitude which I do think is wrong. There is a chance that I might agree with you when I get around to watching the film, with regards to how I find the film itself; but that won't make me consider its nomination is somehow illegitimate and based only on some political reason, and the opinions of those that did love it somehow less 'honest' or more biased than the one I hold. And I'll also add that even if it does turn out to be a solid genre film, that still gives it a better standing over many other films that have even won Best Picture in the past years which were absolute ****e (e.g Crash, A Beautiful Mind, Shakespeare in Love). I'll also add that the AMPAS have been showing a tendency to recognizing solid genre films in the past couple of years, as they have with the likes of Gravity, The Martian and Mad Max: Fury Road as some examples of Best Picture nominees that come to mind. I probably feel similar to how you do of Get Out of The Martian.

Clearly the sidekick replacing Ydwin when she gets announced as a surprise companion. That won't happen.

I thought he was very good in that film and I say that as someone who often doesn't like him (overacting is the name of the game with him), but I also think this ignores that the rest of the lead actor nominees weren't really that good. There just wasn't anyone to really claim it from him.

Possibly a crew member? After all that's what's being added to this latest beta release, and I suspect the portraits for the ogre, vithrack and xaurip characters also relate to crew members opposite to actual sidekicks/companions.

I think one should see it first to form their own opinion before saying any people who may think it's pandering are wrong or that such an opinion is utterly "false" or preposterous. If you know how the Oscar noms. work/come about and how political it and their Board of Governors can be, you know the Academy can very definitely pander, in many ways. And the voters are voting for peers after all, and those peers can get just as wound up into the latest peer and critical cause as anyone else. I'm not saying my opinion is somehow more "right" than anyone else's opinion, but by the same token, all those critics and the Academy voters and even my 10 best friends (if I had 10 best friends, that is, haha) opinions aren't really any more "right" either. That's why art is subjective. It's a good genre movie, I'm not knockin' it at all, but my opinion still stands. It's not anywhere near a "best of the year" sort of project. Note that I don't actually care if it is pandering, it's no skin off my nose either way. They can choose whatever they want, for whatever reasons, I have no investment in it. It was just my casual view/response tossed out one morning on a brief visit to a forum. I haven't even watched the Oscars in years. I do know how the Oscar noms work and come about, and that's the thing: they might arguably respond to politics but they respond far more often to *momentum*, and Get Out has had it for months. And whilst, yes, art is indeed subjective and one is free to think whatever they want about Get Out or any other film, but assuming that a film's nomination is purely political, or that people have rated it as one of the best of the year for purely political reasons, takes a step beyond positing one's opinion on a film and into discrediting others' through speculating on their motives for their assessment. In the same coin I could accuse you and TN of questioning the legitimacy of Get Out's nomination due to being racist and thus assuming that a black filmmaker's nomination is inherently less legitimate than that one a white one's (which, mind, I don't, but it follows the same line of thought). It's the act of speculating on the others' opinions for rating a film so highly to be political which is wrong, not a disagreement about whether it's as good as others say it is or not.

And this is another comment I don't get in today's context. Back in the 90s or early 00s? Sure, the Oscars used to nominate some very dodgy stuff back then. But the films being nominated through the past five years have in their great majority been legitimate film of the year contenders, and are truly at their best since the 70s. This whole "Oscars suck" mentality feels weirdly out of sync with the latest years. I don't think the Oscars suck, it's just that Shape of Water has fanteesee stuff. Outside if Lord of the Rings, well... pretty much never stood a chance traditionally. Edit: Oops, the message sent without any body. Anyhow, I assumed you meant "fantastic" as in "great" and not as in "fantasy" right there, sorry for the confusion. In which case it's true... But yeah, I was venting/ranting for a pet peeve I have about a common internet opinion. Sorry.

Yeah, I agree with this even though I'll also add that I feel more positively overall about the recent films too, so much so that I'd rank both Rogue One and The Force Awakens alongside Star Wars, and see all three as good entertainment but not really more than that. Maybe that's why I don't have such a problem with Sonic saying he prefers these newest films but clearly the way he's phrasing it is, as usual, trollish.

I didn't know that about it - that might be it. The dialogue pacing feels very different from the other Ghibli movies I've seen (which I actually kind of like), but on the other hand, it feels like some connecting scenes were missing, leading to characters acting a little...odd at times. Furthermore, the final quarter of the movie was pretty Disney-esque, which I was actually surprised (and a little disappointed) by, as none of the other Ghibli movies I've seen had been. Great first half, but not quite as great second half, I guess. Yeah, that's quite a good way to sum it up for me. It's probably one of my least-favourite Miyazaki films, which is really not saying much since it still is very enjoyable and featuring a number of moments of sheer excellence, not to mention being as creative and visually striking as ever. i can't say I noticed much with regards to the dialogue pace but it's been years since I've seen it myself, and neither did I really feel the ending was too 'Disney', rather that, as you say, the thin connective tissue towards the end made it a feel a bit more jumbled and uneven. So which ones have you seen so far, Bart?

And this is another comment I don't get in today's context. Back in the 90s or early 00s? Sure, the Oscars used to nominate some very dodgy stuff back then. But the films being nominated through the past five years have in their great majority been legitimate film of the year contenders, and are truly at their best since the 70s. This whole "Oscars suck" mentality feels weirdly out of sync with the latest years.

Critics, audiences, industry professionals... I don't think you're not entitled to disagreeing with them, by the way. I'm just saying that viewing its nominations as a political move or tokenism when it's been one of the top contenders for months, and legitimately so, is wrong.

It's a send-a-message nod. I think its odds of actually winning Best Picture are almost zero.I also liked Get Out, it was rather amusing and more intelligent than most films of its genre, but getting an Oscar nom. or calling it one of the years Top 10 best or whatever is over-rating it way too much. I haven't seen Get Out yet, but I feel the need to address the assumptions that the film's only nominated as a token entry in the Oscars, which I feel is simply false and a rather preposterous claim even. The film has repeatedly over the last few months been lauded as one of the greatest films of the year, so much so that it is currently the most awarded film of the year above the likes of every other nominee and former BP hopeful, according to RT's awards leaderboard. It's not just a random nom, it's one of the leading contenders and has been for months, and according to most I've spoken to rightly so as well. To leave it out would have been as preposterous as failing to award any of the other big players in the running this year, the likes of Lady Bird, Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, if not even more so.

Yeah, my thoughts were along these lines, as in, how many PC games have been made, or feature in Metacritic's database/charts anyways? I'd say #134 is a pretty damn good placing if you consider how vast that category could potentially be (also I believe the game would place even higher if you were to factor in the number of reviews alongside the average rating - after all several games are rated higher than Pillars in the list whilst having only a tenth of the reviews it has (see Civ II, at no. 11 but with only 7 reviews to its name)). So I don't think it's *that* big a stretch, in all fairness.

Lustmord used to have an interview section on his site with this in it (you can still see it through a WebCite citation or the Internet Archive) That sucks, and yeah, it's rather baffling to hear they wanted John Williams of all styles for this type of game. It would have definitely been interesting to hear how his score for it would have turned out. Also listening to Metavoid right now and I do reckon that trailer music is his work. There are some very similar textures and ideas in both (especially to "The Eliminating Angel" and "The Outer Shadow"): https://lustmord.bandcamp.com/album/metavoid Also derp: for some reason I keep forgetting Brian Williams = Lustmord.

Also there's The Justifier in Planescape: Torment. Not a sword, but a pretty neat talking mace with some interesting and humorous interactions to it. Easy to miss though.

That does sound more like the original concept music by Brian Williams than Mark Morgan's work - is that the case? There used to be downloads of his work for the game on the Interplay website circa the late 90s and early 2000s (that I have copies of), but this trailer's music was not included. Too bad, too, since I came in thinking that I couldn't really remember any trailers, and instantly remembered the entirety of that trailer when I saw you posted it, even though it's been forever since I saw it. This one from Icewind Dale isn't quite as memorable. I know that at some point Lustmord was in talks to scoring the game, but that eventually fell through. I wonder if he got to do any music for it at all.

I'll say that I would be very disappointed if all there was to a DLC was one single major quest with no sidequests, however small they may be, to accompany it. As Wormerine says, the many other conflicts lend the locations a lot more personality, but what's more, it's through these many quests and through your choices and interactions in them that you are able to further define and role-play your character as you wish or picture him to be. In the better RPGs, like Pillars of Eternity and its expansions, the sidequests are not merely side content but explorations into new and different facets to the themes, setting and characters, and that's what makes the experience so rich at the end of the day. Of course, if the DLC happens to be more streamlined and still features a single great quest, maybe in time I'll learn to appreciate that. But I know that at least initially I will be disappointed if all there'll be for that DLC is that one quest and no other new side-content to explore. But I don't think that's what Obsidian have aimed for so far anyhow and I don't really see it changing for Deadfire either, so I'm not particularly worried.

Seconded, it's an excellent expansion. Thirded. Great stuff and well worth your time!

This reminds me of... Which is basically me.