Bartimaeus

Yeah, I got a few minutes through their video, heard Jay say "probably my favorite movie since The Witch", heard Mike say "yeah, I loved it too", and was like, okay, guess I'll go watch this even though it looks like a complete joke and finish the review later. In regards to streaming it, this is really strange, because I figured it was just widely available but currently for a price...but no, literally the only place I see where it's available to stream online is from just my local internet/cable company's on demand service for like $6, . Not on HBO, Prime, Netflix, Hulu, or anywhere else that I can see.

Pig (2021). To my great shame, this was actually a pretty good movie. I normally can't stand Nicholas Cage, but he did good here.

Yeah, I thought the first arc was goofy, weird, but enjoyable. It also mostly made sense even if it was weird. The second arc really started to go to some uncomfortable and inexplicable places...but mostly stayed sane and the same show as the first season. And then the third arc is really where the show fell off into the abyss...and it never really came back. Sort of like being hit with the entire CONGRATULATIONS sequence (both the surrealist lead-up to it and that particular scene itself) over and over and over. After Utena, it *does* kind of feel like I can feel his incredibly messed up influence on the whole Chibi-Usa/Helios saga...

Ikuhara is *hilarious*. I mean, seriously, the way he puts together scenes and dialogue is actually super funny, transcending even the language barrier. All of the actually intentionally humorous parts of this show are great and land so perfectly even when there's no reason they should. Him trying to do something serious, something thought-provoking has been a complete, unmitigated disaster of the highest order. And I thought Evangelion was frustrating...holy freaking crap.

Yeah...so, Utena's Bizarre Adventure anyone? where her giant gold chain tho

I was actually going to make a clip of either the SU congratulations (which, by the way, isn't that - that one's from the extended intro, the "congratulations" is from The Test in S1) or the actual Evangelion congratulations, but then I got distracted and realized I was going to have to watch the movie, which we're starting in just a few minutes here, please wish me luck...

I finished Neon Genesis Utena. (E): OH CRAP THERE'S A MOVIE

That's definitely another way to interpret it, but for Utena's sake (as I outlined in the double post above the one you just made), I gotta interpret it my way for the sake of my own sanity.

In her defense... ACTUAL SPOILER:

lmao USA Basketball lost to France because our players insist on bricking 3s over and over and as opposed to driving into the paint and making easy layups There was literally a situation at the end of the game where USA was down by 2 and it was 4 vs 5 with a clear lane to drive for an open 2 and instead we shot a 3, missed it and got the rebound, shot another 3 and missed it and got the rebound, and then shot another 3 and missed it. Embarrassing.

Bizarrely, there's been a few times that after Utena has won a duel that the episode is ending and Utena sees whatever character(s) dueled her and is like "well, seems like they've worked it out" or "looks like they're feeling much better today" and then Anthy will contrarily state something like, "No, they're exactly the same as before." What's up with that?

Yeah. Chu-Chu, probably. Probably. Because who cares about characters making sense when you can a mercurial plot instead?

Won a Newegg shuffle for a 3070 TI yesterday, but forgot to check my email in the 3 hour slot. Whoops. I wouldn't have bought it for myself anyways (I have literally no need of it), but I'm quite certain that I know someone that would've. Oh well.

Yeah, Utena doesn't even tell you what happened...a series of extremely ambiguous and seemingly mostly unrelated events occur, and it leaves you to try to figure out what the heck happened. If it straight up told us it was reincarnation, that would at least be a clear answer to what happened - instead it's just unexplained nonsense just like everything else.

We thought he died and reincarnated somehow or something, .

Mm, while the themes of it appeal to me, I don't think the film itself will. You never know, it's possible it might work better actually seeing it, but... *removes bookmark* Ah, Nanami's Egg, the episode that made me bring up this stupid show in this thread way back when and post that hilarious clip of it. I feel like Ikuhara should just stick to making surrealist...not comedy, but definitely comedic something, and not something like this that's instead all serious themes except for when it's not, which, by the way, is a terrible marriage for a show.

Midsommar (2019). It was fine. Kind of knew how almost everything (almost, but not quite) everything would go from the very beginning after you figure out the premise, so not very many surprises, but even with that said, I guess it was a pretty film and executed well enough. Characters kind of left me wanting for more, though. Eh.

I forgot Eraserhead was by him too - the other one I've seen is Blue Velvet, which is probably tame by David Lynch standards, and yet I still just didn't like it. I plan on giving Mulholland Drive a try at some point and if I don't at least like that, David Lynch will be dead to me, . Boring movies I can take, ones that actively annoy me with just silly nonsense not so much. Yeah, so, your post two posts ago is exactly why I have no idea what's going on. Have to pay attention to and connect all that random crap in this highly chaotic, non-linear, and surrealist style in order to make even a smidgen of sense out of what characters are doing and saying? I don't think so! Guess I'll just read the CliffNotes version of the show after I've finished it, . I only have 4 episodes left, and yet it seems like you're way ahead of me...

Dak Prescott refuses to disclose vaccination status, claiming it would be a HIPAA violation for him to do so. That's a double oof there - almost definitely not vaccinated, and...yeah, that is not how HIPAA works. Some people's children, .

I don't think I could (accurately) spoil this show even if I wanted to. You're understanding a lot more (or at least making a lot more intelligible interpretation) of this show than I am - I'm just trying to follow the literal events that are happening in this show, and even just that is proving to be a struggle. Case in point: episodes 22-23 I got literally almost nothing out of it. Dude somehow was a prison of his own memories so badly that he not only stopped aging (since he was "stuck" in them, whatever the hell that means), but he also turns out to be an unreliable narrator because of false memories he's been telling us, including having invented an entire character that's apparently been dead the whole time? The most critical point I've been getting out of this show is that Anthy somehow sets people "free" from their defining memories that are holding them back, but that's impossible to parse in a literal sense since what literally happens has zero relation to what you're supposed to have interpreted to have happened - trying to use themes to explain what actually happened (instead of the more normie reverse of that) makes my brain hurt and I don't like it! ...I've only watched one David Lynch film and I didn't much care for it, . (e): I was wrong: TWO David Lynch films, and I didn't like either! (e): Lmao, speaking of, I found this line on Ikuhara's wikipedia: "He has expressed interest in the possibility of collaborating on a project with David Lynch someday." Ah, the "make a formerly mysterious and cunning character look like a clueless clown for the sake of another mysterious and cunning character you're trying to prop up" trick - always a classic, .

Planned on it, and I know majestic will because he has a compulsory thing where he has to finish everything he started...although it might take him a bit if he's really started to actively not enjoy any of it, .

Yeah, no kidding. When Nanami is your best written character (she's actually pretty consistently written, more straightforward than most other characters, she has SOME although not enough character development, and her character itself is very...DISTINCT, can't be any doubt about that), you have a serious problem with your characters. And it's a good thing she's mostly only around in the more comedic absurdist episodes, because that very "distinct" character would probably be the worst in the more important episodes. Nanami is also who convinced me to try out this show, because there was a clip of her on the Sailor Moon Says channel that was just hilarious. RIP Sailor Moon Says. I'm actually not as down on the show as you are, but I am watching it with someone else and the sheer unintelligible absurdity of everything frequently breaks our brains and provides many laugh-out-loud and/or facepalm moments. The actual thematic stuff...the stuff that the show is so desperately trying to impart at the expense of literally everything else for some goshforsaken reason, is mostly flying over our heads entirely. Like, there's a vague sense of the themes...but trying to actually understand all the details would be like staring straight into the abyss. Just can't do it, it's utter madness. There's a reason I made that comparison to Evangelion once I got around episode 23...what the hell are we even doing here, guys? (e): Although maybe that's a disservice to Evangelion - I think Evangelion's easier to understand and follow, especially on just a surface level when you're just trying to make sense of the literal events that occurred. There have been a few parts in Utena where I can't do even that... (e): Also, in regards to essays and such - to be fair, what I wrote really applies to general film/TV shows and not just cartoons, .

So, just some general thoughts on...film theory (or whatever you want to call it) from having watched Steven Universe, Sailor Moon, and now Utena (though I still haven't finished Utena). There are a few distinct elements in shows like these: plot (both main as well as smaller individual ones), themes, and characters. There are others, such as the world and setting among other things, but these are the three I'm going to examine. This might get a little lengthy (but absolutely no spoilers on any of these shows, especially because I really only mention Sailor Moon at length), but I promise that there's a point to it all and I think it helps explain why some shows (or parts of shows) are written inconsistently or bizarrely and yet other parts are written brilliantly with even the same sets of writers. Okay, dissertation over, tl;dr: good characters should pretty much always come first, good plots/themes second and only where they're natural and actually work.