Bartimaeus

It probably helps that I don't think I've watched any other films of its particular subgenre, and indeed had no idea what genre it would be falling into or what it would even be about going into it. Thanks for the recommendation on Millennium Actress and The Red Shoes.

Ha! What a coincidence on Perfect Blue. Yeah, I just listened to the soundtrack by itself right before posting that, and it's actually what made me want to log in and post about the recent movies I'd seen, and boy, I love it. Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder were definitely the big parts of what made Blazing Saddles work, and without their individual performances, I don't think I would've care for this movie at all. In regards to use of...provocative language like the N word, I was a little confused at times. Having the old grandma reply to a perfectly magnanimous morning greeting with an "UP YOURS, N****R" is rather hilarious in how shocking it is, and I think I understood its use in doing so to draw a sort of character arc for the town as a whole over the course of the movie, but there were other times where I was less as sure such language was being used effectively (e.g. the ending with the play director). I still tended to give it the benefit of the doubt, especially after learning Mel Brooks seems to be a person generally sensitive to such issues and knew that, tastefully speaking, there's a line to toe in what you can - or rather should - get away with, and you can sometimes accidentally step over it without really even thinking about it. So overall, it wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but I thought it was fine, and Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little were great. I kind of knew The Wind Rises was going to be a difficult one for me for a number of reasons going into it (mainly relating to the subject matter, setting, and protagonist type). On top of that (and perhaps at least a little informed by it as well), I found that the movie ultimately just didn't end up coming together by the end of it (for example, I was really, really having trouble with the love story going on, and the way it suddenly...terminated itself was bizarre and just drove home the feeling of "this isn't working" for me), so I left a little bit dissatisfied. Perhaps I'll enjoy it more upon a re-view, though, like Only Yesterday (which I found to be way better after a re-view and one of my favorites...funny how that can happen sometimes). @ShadySands: lol. I'm sure it's basically the same!

Perfect Blue (1997). Wow! I was a bit...traumatized by this one (especially as I knew absolutely nothing about it going in), but it was great. An incredible dark synth soundtrack, too. The less you know about this going in, probably the weirder and better it will be. Psycho (1960). Very good. Still holds up great for even a first-time viewer who only vaguely knew it was something to do with a mother-gone-wrong. The last five minutes should probably be chopped off, because we're not in the 60s anymore and people can probably get the general gist of mental illness and don't need it explained to them like they're complete morons, but it's a product of the time and forgivable. The Wind Rises (2013). It was decent. The first half was stronger than the second, I think. Not one of my favorite Ghiblis, though...but I expected that from the outset, and it neither particularly overperformed or underperformed from there. Blazing Saddles (1974). I wanted to watch something with Gene Wilder in it, and looking through his movies, I was kind of surprised to see that...uh, he wasn't actually in a whole lot that's considered to be particularly good? Is his career that of one where he had individual good performances but was in mostly mediocre stuff as a whole? Whatever, it was fine. A lot of people seem to say that "'they' couldn't get away with making this today" about this one, and I see why, but I'm not sure that I agree. You'd always have dummies who immediately react to racist language being used simply for the fact that it's being used rather than looking at why it's being used and judging from there, of course, but you can safely ignore those dummies.

I guess we have different standards for when a debate turns sour, then. Something I sometimes ask myself when communication with someone(s) starts to go sour is, "Would I want everyone to act like I am currently acting?". If the answer is no, then it probably doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong, because the discussion has become miserable and toxic, which also has undoubtedly made it pointless, and so it's time to get out.

Also, Chris Avellone has said before that the Obsidian head honchos are desperate to be bought out, but also make of that what you will.

At some point, he probably just discovered that that's easier than seriously bothering with arguments anymore, which take a lot more time and energy than they're generally worth. Which I actually sort of get, but my solution for that was just being much more selective with what I argue about (and letting others bear the brunt of the arguing even when I do get involved), rather than just being toxic all the time. Different strokes for different folks and all that, though, .

I think that's slightly less than the number of Republicans that would've supported Trump suspending elections about a year ago in a poll I read, so, um, yay I guess?

Huh, I've never heard of that particular term before. Apparently originates from an old children's story.

His hypocrisy aside, that's very much a double-edged blade, since they can easily go the opposite route...but I'm sure you know that. Delicious indeed because you'd think, if they had any brains, they'd be desperately fighting to keep their platform alive and accessible instead of allowing other near-monopoly corporations to decide it for them. I guess not.

actually HA! Good Fun! ​ ​Heh, I remember that little pivot of his to Russia. That friendship and progress stuff didn't really end up working out how he probably imagined/hoped it would.

Sorry, the question is just "should I upgrade to cat6a or better"? It would probably really only be necessary if you have very long cables - not sure exactly what the cutoff would be, but unless you have some bizarre setup, it's probably overkill in a home.

It's not a real tweet by the former president, but still good for a laugh. ...And also, it wasn't really an attack on anybody else, since it's an issue central to himself. It's throwing shade at the worst. But yeah, not him.

For the most part, not really.

Totally unrelated news: Abstractism [on Steam Has] Virus Crypto Miner and TF2 Scam Items ​tl;dr: Title gore aside, Valve's quality control is so bad, they've now allowed cryptocurrency "viruses" that mine cryptocurrencies for the developer, as well as drop spoof items that look like official, valuable items from other games (such as TF2). Ahead of the curve, folks.

...Uh, did you face the final boss of the DLC before you murdered everyone, Kalameet?

What does that mean, "maps are decline"? No usage of the word "decline" is an adjective as far as I can tell.

I like Zelda II more than any of the other 2D Zeldas. IIRC, killing Dark Link consistently was doing a jump attack towards him, but you have to do the attack like a frame before you land. ​ ​(e); Or maybe that was how you consistently hit knights...or both. I don't remember for sure, .

You can also use a "-nochatui -nofriendsui" command line switch for the time being to revert back to the old UI. I'll be doing that until at least - at least! - I have the option to disable auto-loading images/videos - that crap is soooooooooo annoying.

Okay, I think it's once per install or something - when it went first down, it wanted me to hit "OK" on something, which I rapidly did because I was in the middle of a game, because now I'm actually properly testing it, and that prompt no longer appears. That's not nearly as bad, but still kind of dumb.

Steam Friends will minimize your game if it goes down while you're online. No problem, I'll just set myself to...oh, wait, no, offline status doesn't exist anymore. Thanks, Valve, .

It doesn't help that Chancellor retired(?) and Earl Thomas seems to be pretty adamant about not playing for the Seahawks as well and the offensive line is almost certainly going to be bad again.

In Eastern Europe we didn't got access to consoles you are used to. We are PC master race all the way While I'm not Barti I doubt that is what he meant by that comment. He wondered which Zelda title would actually resemble a Soulsborne game and came up with Zelda II, the red headed step child of the series (and the most difficult of them). Yep. It's super easy to die because of tiny mistakes, it can be arcane, unreasonably difficult, and the combat is pretty difficult to master (and there are parts that will still be nightmarish even when you do). Seems like the most fitting title...and I would know, having played through it.