Bartimaeus

Hazbin Hotel. I really liked the pilot...that released four years ago on YouTube. It was pretty messy, it tried to do too much in too short of a time, the animation was a little janked at parts...but as someone who almost universally hates adult animated TV shows and who doesn't normally give anything they don't immediately like much of a chance, liking it at all was pretty much a miracle. A while back, it was announced that A24 had picked it up to adapt it into a full series, and I got excited for it, and there are now four episodes out, and I watched all four episodes, and...I just kind of hate it, as it pretty much categorically misses every single thing I liked about the pilot and just feels like a flanderized parody. The lesson I have learned here, for the umpteenth time, is to never get excited about anything.

Oh no, I'm not confident about anything at all. I think I was the one that immediately said after the results of the 2020 became clear that we would be doing this all over again in 2024, even while others danced on Trump's grave. I already thought he was a Hitler-esque demagogue leading up to the 2016 election - though that wasn't quite accurate at that time, as he turned out to be such a simple-minded attention seeker that didn't have basically any actual values or convictions, and he just wanted to get his way and be loved in the process. In another universe, Trump's need for pure and unadulterated adoration could've lead to him directing his energies towards doing actually great things...but uh, obviously, that did not even remotely happen, and hell hath no fury like a man-child scorned: losing the 2020 election and his ongoing legal jeopardy has left Trump feeling scorned in a bad way, and I think anyone not taking it seriously must be a rather silly person. It took the utter bungling of Covid for him to just barely not win re-election in the first place, and people seem to always forget that Biden won the 2020 election by what was effectively 30,000 votes throughout a few key battleground states. Our institutions, our norms, our traditions, our laws, and our society were all pushed to the brink under his disastrous and corrupt presidency...and while it's a credit to them that they didn't completely fail (though they did certainly weaken), our country is only as strong as we make it, and electing people whose only interest is in breaking it will certainly bear poisonous fruits sooner rather than later. My glib comment was more a reflection of just...voters either love him and actively support his desire to become a king (or whatever they think unlimited power and what he would do with it would make him), or voters fear and despise him so Trump saying the quiet part out loud doesn't feel even mildly surprising at this point, no matter how disconcerting it may be. Well, there is one other camp I didn't mention: the people who can't be motivated to care or vote no matter what, but they aren't really worth talking about at this point, since it's pretty clear they'll never see past the length of their nose. Maybe we'd finally start getting through to them if they started getting those noses punched in by reality...but probably not.

Does the field of view value affect how motion sick you get in first person games? I remember the first time I opened up Metro 2033 like a decade back I thought I was going to throw up because the FoV was so low and there wasn't any way to change it through the in-game settings (...but you could through some manual .ini editing, which fixed the issue for me). I can't tell for sure with this YouTube video, but it looks a little on the low side there.

I think I've mentioned a number of times over the years about how they must be the single worst major video game publisher in all North America and Europe for producing games that are in any way actually fun, so that really doesn't surprise me. I've always felt that if there were a single publisher I could wipe off the face of the Earth, it'd have to be Ubisoft: this new line of theirs doesn't really phase me, though it is probably indicative of a new disturbing trend that we'll be seeing more of sometime soon.

Sounds like he's another great example of Brandolini's Law in action.

No, no, they've got a point: when it comes to Ubisoft, I'm more than happy to not own their games.

Am I thinking of somebody else, or is Peterson that self-help incel who thinks men should own women? I'm pretty sure I have a distant cousin who was trying to shill him to me one time at a big family gathering some years ago, but said cousin didn't realize that them being a Trumper meant I already thought they were an unserious person. I think people are probably largely split into one of two camps here: 1. Well, duh, we already knew he wanted to be a king. 2. Well, duh, we already want him to be a king. Pretty easy to shrug off either way, really. Of course, if the Supreme Court were to accept that reasoning, I do believe it would mean Biden could just brutally massacre the Supreme Court without it being illegal - not to mention Trump or anyone else the Republican party might put up - so I think it's in everyone's best interests that they don't do that.

Run Lola Run (1998). Me from the opening scene until pretty much the end: One of the most torturous film experiences I've had...so far, and sadly not in a good way. Just trying to follow the wretched over-stylized camera work, visual effects, and editing that started within the very first scene made me literally physically ill, and it kind of snowballed out of control straight down into hell from there for various other reasons. That's gonna be a no from me, dog.

Slay the Princess. Odd little visual novel. Didn't somebody here mention it within the past couple of weeks or so? I could swear somebody here mentioned it and it's why I checked it out in the first place, but now I can find no evidence of it on the entire forums except for a post by Tale back in the middle of 2023 talking about it being in development. Weird...but also fitting, given that the game features memory loss as a reoccurring event.

I'm still waiting for them to send me one of those "you can't watch any more videos until you disable your adblock" notices that people apparently started getting a few months back. They're sure taking their sweet time. Anyways, no, no stuttering. Also, public service announcement: if you're using any adblock that isn't uBlock Origin, you're doing it wrong.

Since the Packers continue to beat the Cowboys even without Aaron Rodgers, I'm going to assume they'll also continue to lose to the 49ers until proven otherwise. In other news, the Packers play the 49ers in the Divisional Round.

It could be God and not Satan, you know. Just saying, it could be holy instead of unholy, .

20 points isn't insurmountable! But yeah, yikes. Looking like "welcome to Dallas, Coach Belichick" if they don't turn things around.

I'd like to thank the Jets for being the only team apparently interested in taking Aaron Rodgers off the Packers' hands. While his talent and skill cannot be overstated, and while the return perhaps should've been better regardless of the man going on to immediately tear his heel, I just...am appreciative of how stress and controversy-free the Green Bay Packers in the year of our lord 2023, and now 2024, are in comparison to what could have been if the Packers hadn't been able to move on. I don't know if Jordan Love is the guy yet, still much too early to know for sure, but it's a whole new damned team and I'm feeling awfully thankful about it right now, so here's to the future. Hopefully Jordan Love won't go to the Jets in like 2040 - it seems to unfortunately portend grim tidings.

Some of the more oddball-sounding stringed instruments from around the world are not used nearly enough in popular music.

Big fan of the original film, watched it and the Wallace & Gromits many times when I was young, still really like or love them even re-visiting them as an adult. Apparently, they're releasing a new W&G film in 2024, hopefully it's more sound than this was. The nature of Chicken Run was always going to make it tough for worthy sequel adaptations, whereas that's not really the case with W&G...plus, it'll probably help with the original creator and director returning for it.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023). Its uninspired title closely matches how uninspired the film itself is. There aren't very many stop-motion productions that have a budget anymore, you can't be wasting them on something as half-baked as this.

I don't expect the Packers to win, our defense is still very bad regardless of how backup QBs like Justin Fields and Nick Mullens have made it look the past two weeks, but the Packers have inexplicably beat the Cowboys in the playoffs with a terrible defense before, so I certainly won't be making any predictions.

A 2023 anime about dungeon-crawling and literal video game mechanics centered around a male character and eating food, what could go wrong? For Bartimaeus who can't think of anything that he doesn't hate about this...nothing, so let's check it out - these things have a good track record, after all. I'm exactly 2 minutes and 8 seconds into the episode and I really, really, really want to turn it off. I'm getting some painful flashbacks to the very first anime I gave an honest try, My Hero Academia, which is what lead to me instead trying Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon did not infuriate me every second of every minute like the three episodes of My Hero Academia that I watched before tossing it into the nearest incinerator did. You know, I'm pretty sure the hard drive that I used to store the first season of My Hero Academia has since died, and I'd say good riddance. I am now 3 minute and 1 seconds into the episode and I feel like my brain is going to explode from an aneurysm. I don't want to do this anymore. 4 minutes and 53 seconds, seeing this girl's stupid face matched with her boilerplate anime proclamation of not giving up has made me quit. I hope the hard drive I used to store the first episode this show also dies sometime soon. Yes, I could've easily just watched it on Netflix, but I didn't want Netflix trying to recommend any anime to me.

Ella Cinders (1926). Silent films were a mistake. A painfully mediocre variation of the Cinderella tale, except retrofitted for Hollywood and the main character going off and working her way up to becoming a starlet. It's pretty bad, don't watch it. Because I just know everyone here is waiting with bated breath for my silent film recommendations. It (1927). You know what, silent films can be alright. The main actress, Clara Bow, hard carried what would've otherwise been a rather stuffy and pedestrian 1920s comedy with her very wacky and energetic performance of a penniless store clerk trying everything to ascend the social ladder to get the guy she wants before unleashing her scorn upon him when he rejects her over a misunderstanding, and I found myself actually laughing quite a bit because of her. For a 1920s comedy, that's frankly a bit of a marvel. Speaking of and apropos to silent films, Amentep at this exact moment happens to be currently rocking my very favorite silent film actress and to whom the quote in my signature can be attributed to - not to mention she's undoubtedly the reason I continue to check out any silent films at all, as my experiences of the medium before seeing Louise Brook's films I had found to all be quite miserable. Not that that's much of a surprise, seeing as I usually have very little taste for the painfully overwrought impressionist school of acting. Being able to convey what is supposed to be going on while also coming across as perfectly natural seems to have been a very difficult craft to master in the burgeoning silent era.

According to Gamers Nexus, Starfield being nominated for and winning "Most Innovative Gameplay" was a meme campaign started on reddit to dunk on it, not that it stopped Bethesda from accepting it as sincere. Guess that's what happens when you let the common clay of video games (you know, morons) decide the awards. We all know these awards are a bit of a joke for one reason or another (simple popularity contests inevitably result in whatever's most popular winning awards rather than any honest evaluation of an entry's individual qualities in relation to what award they're up for - an especially prominent problem when most people have only played a fraction of the nominees!), but not all of us actually take the time out of our day to prove that they're a joke. Sigh. Oh, that's really soon. I can't help but notice that the main character seems to increase in size with every new game in the Momodora series...think Momodora 3 is kinda where I thought it most appropriate to stop, but certainly no farther than Reverie Under the Moonlight. Eh, as long as the developer didn't try to integrate anything from their awful Minoria spin-off, it should be fine.

I really didn't think Crimes of Passion was nearly as crazy as its billing seemed to suggest. I mean, okay, it's a little crazy, but I guess it felt a little too unserious for me to do anything but kind of laugh good-naturedly at where it went. I think a darker and more grounded/considered approach focused on Joana, as you said, instead of the boring guy with his marital problems could've had me in love with the film instead. Still, you can do a lot worse than Crimes of Passion. Man, why does my browser tell me "spelunk" isn't a word? I initially wrote it that way but I got the red underline and thought "oh, I guess the verb version is also spelunker...yeah, spelunker your way through something, I guess that sounds right". Yeah, I wish I could be a lot more tolerant, it'd make my life much easier. Oh boy, I just checked and that movie is literally already on my to-watch list. I don't feel so good...especially because it's a damned French film and I am just growing to loathe French cinema the more I experience it. Out of like the 25 French films I've seen throughout the course of my life, I think I've liked exactly one while disliking or outright hating the rest, so I don't really know why I keep bloody trying. Oh lord, it's a Godard film too...I have not had a good time with Godard films.

Whoops, I didn't really mean to imply B movies are necessarily lacking in either talent/vision...that last line/mention of them was more just meaning that when you go on and spelunker your way through old B movies, it's going to be an unfortunately common occurrence that you get films that don't quite feel complete and/or totally cohesive in one way or another - whether it's the fault of some particular failing of creative vision at the hands of the director/writer, maybe not having quite the ideal actors for the parts, not having the budget to get the right locations, sets, and props, or something else. And if they do manage all that in spite of their limitations, they're probably pretty notable cult classics. Some people are really good at taking films completely at face value and just riding with them enjoying them for what they are no matter what issues they may have, but I'm really, uh, not that kind of person, which is why I tend to have trouble with B movies. Little things that other people don't even notice, wouldn't even think as worth mentioning because they don't impact their enjoyment of the film, can take me right out of something with little to no chance of recovering...bad framing undercutting characters and/or what I think should be core themes for the sake of exploitation being a prime example. Out of lost artifacts that we happen to chance upon and which still exist by a great many circumstances of pure fortune, it doesn't seem particularly unlikely that more advanced examples of certain bits of technology were made before being lost. How much more advanced, probably not exceptionally if none of it ever became widespread and iterated upon enough to not be lost in the first place, or at least that's what I would think.

Hm, is there an alternative ending where all the boys drive off into a volcano together that I missed? I think that's the only thing that could've made that particular George Lucas film 'satisfying' for me, . Or maybe if Laurie decided to go full axe murderer and it suddenly became a slasher film. Ooh, that would've been good. I kind of always assumed that sort of thing was pretty universal to movies made by the untalented and creatively pathetic, particularly when it comes to the more shocking (i.e. sex and violence, and obviously their intersection as well). Talented minds are able to work those elements in when and where they're appropriate and can use them to create some kind of cohesive message/commentary given their framing within the context of the whole film and which will hopefully connect to audiences by being reflective of the world we ourselves live in on some level...the untalented, on the other hand, seem to so often take and remake such scenes/ideas from other works they've experienced and insert them into their films without any clear or deep authorial intent in mind, which robs them of the necessary context and subsequent impact to make them meaningful or even possibly work on any level at all. Though it must be said that some filmmakers are better at certain things than others: just because you have zero craft for themes, framing, and messaging doesn't mean you can't make a well-directed and technically sound zombie film...I'm not particularly likely to love it, but there are plenty out there who would. I don't watch very many B movies for a reason, after all.