Bartimaeus

now just hold on, we haven't seen her in the cheerleader outfit yet

edit: I should really not tempt fate edit 2: lmao edit 3: insert bart simpson writing "I will not talk about games before they're over" on chalkboard image edit 4: ok i was right, suck it

Batman (1989). Like a minute into the film, a prostitute grabs the arm of a small boy with the apparent intent of doing business with him, and I burst out laughing, so that was a good way to start the film. More materially, this film is an absolute hot mess, but as far as hot messes go, at least it's a fun one. It's not often you see superhero films, especially first entries, where the psychotic villain gets all the character setup and the hero is relegated to receiving almost no explanation except for a total joke of a romance plot that's mercifully abridged and mostly skipped over because it sucks...but that's Batman for you, sitting around the entire film with that dumb look on his face as the Joker, meanwhile, has the time of his life. I was cheering on the Joker the whole time, and from the way Burton scripted and directed it, I can only assume that was what was intended. Hell, even his attempt to 'woo' the screaming lady was way more compelling than whatever Batman had going on. It's certainly not going to replace Begins as my favored Batman film, though it was fun. The Joker had a parade where he just danced around while tossing money into the crowd for several minutes of run time: the film could've just been an hour of that and it would've been great. Jack Nicholson's Joker...is not really what I would in any way call the definitive Joker, but it sure was a hilarious portrayal.

Do you mean Tokyo Ghoul? Or Tokyo Ghoul:re? Or Tokyo Ghoul: Jack? Or Tokyo Ghoul: Pinto? Or Tokyo Ghoul √A? Just want to make sure I have the right Tokyo Ghoul anime before I go off and have a meltdown. All kidding aside, does anyone know why anime characters sometimes have specifically this kind of eye patch? I am certain that I have seen at least a couple of other random anime characters that I wouldn't be able to name because I have no idea what they're from that have this particular eye patch, and I'm wondering if it's a medical eye patch specific to Japan, or if it really is just some kind of anime thing, because when I try to do cursory searches, I don't seem to see anything quite like it. It looks like a (presumably) poopy diaper with a local but very direct application to your eyeball, and I would have to think that I would much prefer to get just ye olde pirate eye patch instead.

The Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Adventures of Unico (1981). I had to check and make sure that Isao Takahata didn't have a writing credit for this, for multiple reasons. One reason is that it's a really quite good, very cute, and rather lovely children's movie, and the second reason is... I'm all for traumatizing children, but even I have my limits. Premise of the film is that Unico is a magical unicorn whose ability to inspire peace and friendship the gods (who it must be said appear rather Greek in both appearance and disposition) grow so envious of, they first exile and then hunt him wherever he goes. The film is animated by my guys at Madhouse, though I surprisingly did not know that before I watched it.

Both, actually. I watched the Director's Cut version first, but liked the theatrical better. Besides the obvious issue of the Director's Cut having VHS/workprint-quality footage that makes for a rough consistent cinematic experience, probably my single biggest issue with The Exorcist III is that I...just couldn't quite believe Brad Dourif, and the Director's Cut seemed to mainly restore scenes for and focus on him more. Brad Dourif is great, but there's something about him in this role that oozes comedic silliness for me, so his scenes were probably the toughest part of the film, and the Director's Cut adds even more and the quality is just not great. Watching the Director's Cut first may have actually helped the theatrical indirectly in a way, because whatever scenes might have been missing, I could kind of mentally fill in myself if I needed to, and instead it focused on more of what I liked, which was Kinderman and his turmoils. Halloween sucks monkey butt (and I didn't like Little Trouble in Big China, or They Live), but I was being perhaps a little unkind: I did like Assault on Precinct 13. I should watch Starman or Christine next, I'll probably like those.

The Exorcist III (1990). I thought it was a very enjoyable religious horror drama. The quick, razor sharp dialogue between our two old men, Kinderman and Father Dyer, for the first half of the film made for a pretty great character drama that properly sets up the second half and allows the viewer to truly invest in the film, which is a problem I very often seem to have with so-called 'fun' horror films who clearly just don't care and would prefer to film very clumsy/repetitive/cheap stabbing and strangulation scenes completely devoid of any impact. Ahem, Mr. Carpenter. Anyways, George C. Scott gave a seriously great performance in this.

Halloween (1978). Every time I watch another John Carpenter film, it seems more and more of a miracle that I like The Thing so much.

Is it that some adults forget they were ever kids, or is it that some adults never were kids?

I haven't seen that film yet and nor was I aware of its existence until just now, but I'd like to make note here that this is an extremely rare example of a trailer that I liked and actually convinced me to watch the film it was showing. I'm pretty sure I described Fargo as being a "cute, feel-good film" when I watched it for the first time like a year ago, and that really wasn't a joke. Let's see... Well...close enough, .

It's...it's an experience, that's for sure, certainly one I won't forget anytime soon. I hope your avatar was of Kung Fu, because she was great. I also had a strange pre-connection to this film: I've played the Steam indie game House...and which actually straight up stole the theme song from House the film. It was driving me crazy for a little bit as I was watching the film, I just knew that I'd heard that little melody that they start, stop, and restart like a hundred times throughout the film before, and when I finally figured it out, I was like "haha, what a weird coincidence...and that they're called the same thing...and that they look like they share similar-ish premises?". Yeah, uh, little too much to be a coincidence, methinks. I tried to look up what "Love House" was, but there weren't many films that had that name...and then I remembered that I wrote about House the previous post. Whoops.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has suspended his presidential campaign. I don't know if this really qualifies as news.

@majestic Did D3 have an active PVP scene? For as informal/unorganized and unemphasized as it was, PVP was a pretty big and lasting part of the Diablo II online community, so the thought that D4's PVP scene is completely dead on arrival seems...less than ideal.

House (1977). Look at that poster, that is what I call a masterpiece poster. Anyways, you're probably wondering what this film is about, and the answer to that is very interesting. @Gromnir Yeah, I remember you recommending Frankenweenie. I've turned it on at least a couple of times and always go "maybe some other time" a few minutes in. Yes, I am perfectly aware that I am a total bastard. My sister adored Sleepy Hollow as we were growing up, but Johnny Depp has always irrationally annoyed me so I could never really engage with it, which...definitely does not help Tim Burton and how I feel about him, seeing as Tim Burton is very obviously madly in love with that man. Probably a lost cause, that one.

I won't argue with the rest of what you said, because you're right, BUT...a $5000 fine can be a crippling debt to a poor person - another $10000 on top of that could ruin them. Simply the threat is usually very effective in preventing this kind of behavior. For a 'billionaire' like Trump, it's nothing, so of course he doesn't care: his money has bought him the right to flout the rules, as money always seems to. It'd be nice to one day see the U.S.'s fines based off of a percentage of wealth/income, it'd at least be a start in reforming our broken justice system (though even that wouldn't be nearly analogous enough, what with the disparity of disposable money between different classes of wealth).

As the man himself said - absolutely rightly, though obviously for totally wrong reasons - it's a two-tiered justice system, so until I see the man in a cell or his head on a pike, my mental health will be better if I don't read any more idiot headlines about Trump and whatever latest terrible and/or stupid thing he's done. There have been approximately a bazillion "Trump will surely face consequences for what he's done this time" headlines written over the past 8+ years, written or said by what feels like literally thousands of different journalists, politicians, historians, authors, bloggers, talking heads et al., enough that practically everyone should be completely inured to them and their utter pointlessness no matter how serious they may seem. Justice will arrive when it finally does and not a moment sooner...or not: reading speculation, opinion pieces, or expert analysis about it won't get us there any faster, and it's just not very interesting or encouraging to re-hash it again and again and again at this point.

Seeing as the picture credited to Intel shows 8 games and not only 2 as mentioned in the article, I'm guessing it hasn't received much advertising/mention because it's not fully ready yet. Though this begs the question of whether this could be used to speed up at least 13th generation CPUs as well, seeing as there's no architectural difference between the two generations...ooor whether Intel will hold on to it for exclusively 14th gen and later as a kind of weak trump card to make up for 14th otherwise being so bad.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985). I sometimes forget how good Tim Burton and the creative talents around and collaborating with him used to be. It's such a weird contrast to most everything he's made in the last 20 years being these corpulent nightmares. Maybe I'll try Batman next.

Dang, I really thought he'd suddenly be terrible for no reason this year. Well, better luck next year.

Applying death of the author to product naming is a new one for me, but it does make sense. Where's Lindsay Ellis to help me navigate through computer components and corporate marketing? tl;dr: bad, everything intel is doing with the "14th gen" is bad, it's bad

Afraid not. Recommend a specific novel from each of them, and I promise I'll at least try them out. As mentioned in the TV thread, I've been long out of the fantasy genre, but I tend to know whether I like an author's writing and am interested or not within a handful of chapters at worst, so I can certainly give them a try.

As it relates to making painfully obtuse and unlikeable characters that are being framed in a terrible light and just don't seem to be the right fit for their setting, it should not surprise anyone in the slightest: it is the very same drum I have been beating for positively ages now. Of course not: usually, someone's appearance is the first thing you see, and there's typically no harm in drawing upon your knowledge of patterns and beginning to formulate thoughts and impressions about that person, though they should ideally be thoughts and impressions lightly held that can be easily overturned given evidence to the contrary of what you initially felt. When your first thoughts are always "ooga booga big booba", that's when we start to have problems: I did not know I was signing up for a series apparently aimed at cavemen. I have never in my entire life read any other series that was so keenly focused on the things that Robert Jordan seemed to be, and for all his ability to draw me into a world and for me to actually finish the series, I hope I never do so again, because it is unpleasant and unnecessary...among the many other issues with his writing. In a world where girls and women never had any reason to ever worry about their personal appearances, either because they have the power not to, or because societal pressures are drastically different, do I believe that at least some if not most of them would not care, or that at least their behaviors revolving around such would be different? Uh, yes, yes I do. Why are they obsessed with how they present themselves and their perceived flaws? I have and do know women who don't give a ****, possibly against their 'objective' best interests, but because the price of socially conforming doesn't outweigh the costs in their time, effort, and money to do so. For goodness sake, a huge percentage of recent generations in Western society consider body hair on girls/women to be gross and unnatural. Body hair. That which literally 99.99% of us all have...naturally. That which signifies going through puberty, physical and sexual development/maturity. It's so ingrained into their thinking that girls viciously bully other girls over it, literally to the point of girls killing themselves! Why? You think that's just...a natural behavior, even though it's very obviously not always been true throughout even recent history? No, man, I'd say that's a load of crap supported by a whole bunch of other loads of crap, just like most of what we're discussing here. The idea that this is just how girls/women are and always will be regardless of historical/sociopolitical/cultural/economic reasons, or power dynamics, or an other number of things, seems so obviously silly and farcical that I can't believe we're having a discussion about it. So yes, if you write a world with completely different social structures that seem in drastic opposition to our real world ones, I do expect the people in those social structures to behave at least somewhat differently than if you didn't. Perhaps it might even be an integral part of someone's fictional fantasy setting and world, I don't know.

I've now had two people say I should like it, and two people say I'll hate it. An exhilarating curiosity indeed: who are the fools amongst me?

Well, I'm certainly not going to re-read the entire series to determine whether or not all of Jordan's awful framing of women is limited to just the male characters, I'll give you that - especially seeing as I disliked or outright hated reading most of the female characters' parts. I guess the lesson there is that I should just hate all the male characters, too? Not really helping, I'm afraid. No offense, but what does any of that have to do with The Wheel of Time? Is this a fictional high fantasy setting predominantly ruled by women set in a medieval era (i.e. completely unlike our own), or the real world? Are you honestly saying that many girls/women's preoccupation with their personal appearances is...inherent to them, and not a reflection of the kind of society that we presently live in (and who the ones that raised us and who raised them have historically lived in), the values and behaviors foisted upon them as they develop from a young age? You don't think the dynamics might be a little different in a society with opposite social structures and values? See, that's kind of exactly my problem: here are all these great and powerful women living in a women-dominated society...and yet, it can't help but feel like it was all written from the point of view of a guy who clearly did not have the appropriate breadth of perspective to really do any of it justice, to escape the trappings of his own very limited world experiences and upbringing. And for a guy writing this kind of massive fictional world that has so much focus on those exact things, it's kind of a problem. (e): @uuuhhii chimed in while I was writing this and helped further illustrate my problem here as well. No, I would not say that my immediate thoughts every time I see a person (actually, really specifically just the girls or women, because the boys and men would usually get described in a much different manner that sounded way less "HOW MUCH OF A HOT BABE IS SHE?") for the first time is precisely evaluating their measure of beauty. It will very much depend on the precise circumstances. For example, if a woman upon a horse galloped into my vicinity, I can tell you that the first thing I wouldn't do is immediately notice how round her damned boobs are and that she's pretty and maybe even beautiful but her nose is just too big...and this is coming from the perspective of another female character - thank you very much, book 8, literally one queen meeting another queen in a political meeting. Fantastic writing, so well-framed and intentioned, . I really don't think it matters if a given girl or woman can identify with a female character from The Wheel of Time, which I already talked about in my previous post: there are many real world women that can unironically identify with a number of female characters from very questionable narratives in the Old Testament, and there are many people whose favorite films have themes and messages completely opposite to their own values that they completely ignore or are blind to, either intentionally or unintentionally: it's of no matter, people enjoy and identify with what they do for whatever arbitrary reasons, and that's perfectly fine. Now if someone else's actual analysis can meaningfully explain why and thereby possibly convince me elsewise, that's a whole different thing. And never mind that even that is limited to the purview of just a single character rather than the writing and framing of the series as a whole: I can love and identify with a character from a series I explicitly think is bad and/or has subversive values as well, it really doesn't mean much.

Sweetie (1989). If all I knew of Australia was this film, I would have to think that they're all deeply disturbed and neurotic. But the truth is that I know they're all deeply disturbed and neurotic independent of watching this film, so watching it was completely unnecessary, albeit very amusing.