algroth

Sure thing! Though please send me the list via PM with points distributed between them! Check the OP for more info on the rules.

Damn, I missed Guillermo del Toro's AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/7hjmvn/guillermo_del_toro_here_director_gamer_tequila/

I'm annoyed by the glowing nature of the loot lying on the ground. I blame my OCD: if I see something on the ground or in a container, it doesn't matter what it is, I just *have* to pick it up. This is especially annoying in Planescape: Torment where a third of the items are literally unsellable. To echo what Wormerine's mentioned before, some changes have already been made to both the drop rate as well as the stash display, making it so that equal items are stackable and thus don't occupy two pages' worth of your inventory. I think that's the bigger issue with the first game over the abundance of items, though I do feel that the first game did have a few too many "unique" items which were really not all that special (again something that is being looked into, from what has been said in the Q&As). Generally though I don't think the stash will look or feel as bloated this time around, though those with beta access might have other opinions on the matter.

And Way Out West!

My top 10: El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007) Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García (Sam Peckinpah, 1974) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962) The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969) Let's Go with Pancho Villa! (Fernando de Fuentes, 1936) Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, 2010) Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971) The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005) HMs to The Ox-Bow Incident (William A. Wellman, 1943), The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005) and Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968).

Cool renders, but I don't see what's so interesting about this series that ought to make Obsidian (who've already stated they want to work on their own IPs instead) interested in acquiring it.

How are the lists coming along, guys?

This should replace the live-action saga.

I agree it was pretty neat and refreshing, but just almost every good scene seemed like a disjoint idea that had to be stitched together. Yeah, I agree. Generally speaking, Doctor Strange is a good case study of what mistakes to avoid whilst making a superhero origin story, especially compared to something like, say, Wonder Woman. For starters, an issue that is present in most origin stories and which is in my view at least the cardinal sin for these narratives, is that the whole first half of the story where the protagonist acquires his powers, trains them, and builds his superhero persona is often completely extraneous to the overarching conflict, responding to pretty different motivations and not really moving the actual conflict of the story forward. Doctor Strange goes to have his hands fixed, learns about magic, begins to train in this art so as to - one would presume - overcome the condition his hands are in, or just to know more because who wouldn't want to know more about magic; however, how does this tie at all with the whole plot surrounding Kaecilius and Dormammu? How does this whole sequence progress that conflict further? Contrast that with Wonder Woman: in that story the whole training montage and epiphany regarding the protagonist's powers are all in service of the primary conflict, the objective being throughout that of ending Ares and thus ending 'evil' so to speak. The villain in this case is introduced through the origin story itself, and the whole 'origin' half of the film is made in service of moving this conflict further as well as presenting and building the character of Wonder Woman. Yes, it's true that Kecilius is introduced in the very first scene of Doctor Strange, but he's then not to be seen again and not really relevant until halfway through the film, where his re-introduction sets the conflict once more in motion in some of the weirdest ways possible, involving a few location jumps and so on as well - I recall feeling like a whole reel had been removed somewhere amidst that sequence when I first saw it. And that's only one of the issues, really... Mordo and Wong's characters are all over the shop, especially during the final act. The training sequence itself does a pretty poor job in conveying *how* Strange acquires those powers, with the sequence where he is finally able to cast his first spell occuring off-screen... The film generally seems to show a bunch of things in this sequence that feel like they are there because "they should be" in an origin story but never seems to understand what they're supposed to be telling. The rules that are laid out and explained through these sequences are all set to be broken without much repercussions in the future, and all to eventually throw the rulebook off a window so as to use magic for the sake of comedic effect... It's a mess, yeah, and contrary to what Raithe says, I don't think you can forgive the film for featuring the same faults as the source material as it is its own work and should, in the hands of a more capable director or writer, have recognized and ironed out those flaws if they existed in the first place; though I do think plenty of scenes are individually worth picking out from the lot, and I do like the way the whole epiphany is handled, both visually and narratively.

I liked the final set-piece with the whole "I've come to bargain" loop. I do think the film is very creaky from a narrative perspective throughout, however.

Hmm... I thought Civil War was a major improvement over The Winter Soldier when it came to sheer style and visuals, but this just looks... Well... Drab, once more. It's a disappointment considering how one of the main qualities of recent MCU movies like Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Doctor Strange has been the sheer creativity in their aesthetic.

No rush! There's still roughly four weeks to go. Just like to make sure I've gotten all lists, and it helps me to keep track of the votes to tally and so on.

List of people who have sent me their lists so far... Bartimaeus Leferd Raithe Katphood redneckdevil Pidesco IndiraLightfoot eimatshya Fenixp ShadySands Hurlshot Keyrock Tigranes People who I still need more info from! SonicMage117 (need points!) Malcador (need points!) evilcat (need points!) melkathi (need points!) Humanoid Anyone else who I may be missing to mention, whose sent me their lists so far?

Saw a few artists live tonight, including Gilles Peterson, Pantha du Prince and Sigur Rós. Pretty damn cool shows!

Came back from seeing Reynols and Acid Mothers Temple. Damn. My ears are still ringing. What a combo.

You are dead to me. And where is *your* list, Hurlshot? I was too intimidated by the math involved. You can just assign five each, or use one of the examples I gave!

You are dead to me. And where is *your* list, Hurlshot?

Aww at people revealing their lists so soon.

I just set up a deadline for the entries, which will be on December 22nd. There will be a brief period from there on where I might be taking new lists depending on how long it takes me to calculate the results (shouldn't be over a week, though, as I'm already compiling them right now), and will then start rolling them out. So far I have entries from the following: Bartimaeus Leferd Raithe Katphood redneckdevil Pidesco SonicMage117 (incomplete - need points!) IndiraLightfoot ShadySands eimatshya Tigranes (incomplete) Malcador (incomplete - need points) Fenixp I'm leaving out melkathi and Humanoid for now who've said they'd be sending their lists with the assigned points later. If I'm missing anyone up to now, please send me your list again via PM as I have not received it!

Old news, but still super excited about it. Just got back from seeing Magma live who were supposed to score the Alejandro Jodorowsky version that never happened, so just sayin', it'd be lovely to give them the chance to share their bit for this again (not that it'd happen but oh well, it's nice to dream a little). They would only work in a Jodorowsky interpretation of Dune, but very cool to daydream about none the less. I'm not so sure about that. I think their compositions have the right amount of alien and spiritual in them to fit the source material to a tee. With the right conductor doing the arrangements for it, it could make for a wonderful mix with the source material and Villeneuve's sensibilities.

Just got back from seeing Magma live... This is what going to church should be like. Transcendent doesn't begin to cover it, it's like looking right into the aleph. They did play the entirety of this, amidst other things:

Old news, but still super excited about it. Just got back from seeing Magma live who were supposed to score the Alejandro Jodorowsky version that never happened, so just sayin', it'd be lovely to give them the chance to share their bit for this again (not that it'd happen but oh well, it's nice to dream a little).

I've seen: 12 years a Slave - good movie but I barely remember him in it. I know the role he plays but I mean he sorta disappeared from my memory after, vs. other performers. Centurion - I saw this one before I knew who he was. I enjoyed it as a weird action film and I recall I thought he was adequate for the role, but ofc not exactly an Oscar-nom type of role, heh The Counselor - Bored. Steve Jobs - My main thought was "Sure is a lot better than that horrid Ashton Kutcher film." He was decent in the role but I could feel him "trying" to be Jobs and I dunno, it just fell flat for me. Some of this however could be that I'm really not all that into the whole Job's mythology so... Assassins Creed movie - I turned it off after 20 minutes. Anyway, I'm in no way saying he's terrible in other roles. He just kind of becomes invisible/doesn't stand out enough for me to form a big, lastingimpression most of the time, for some reason. Do try to watch the others I've mentioned. Not just because they're great Fassbender performances, but because they're also very good films.

Got the list, thanks!

Finished Ori and the Blind Forest just yesterday. From a gameplay standpoint it was very enjoyable, I really liked the way it conveyed information to the player by means of early, "simple" logic puzzles that subtly illustrated how to combinate new abilities gained. From an aesthetic standpoint it's lovely, full of lush visuals and a wonderful score... The one thing I feel keeps it from greatness overall is that personally at least I was not as compelled with the story itself - despite a lovely intro and what seemed like what would be a very touching personal story, in the end I felt like a lot of the beats and turns ran in parallel with the actual gameplay or Ori's journey, especially as seen through the ending sequences (a lot of the key events occur without our involvement and are merely shown as "meanwhile in..." cutscenes). From the perspective of a Ghibli enthusiast, I also feel it falls a bit into the Pixar problem of wearing the visual/tonal influence on its sleeve but capturing none of the actual content that makes the former studio's films more than just family entertainment - it all amounts to a bit of fluff in the end, but as far as entertainment goes it's damn good one all the same.