Bartimaeus

Cinderella (2015). "Cinderella received generally positive reviews from critics." "On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 85% approval rating, based on 194 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10." " Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating 'generally favorable reviews'." "In CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, audiences under the age of 18 gave the film an A, aged 18–24 an A-, aged 25–34 an A, and aged 35 and up an A+, on a scale of A+ to F." "The site's critical consensus reads, 'Refreshingly traditional in a revisionist era, Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella proves Disney hasn't lost any of its old-fashioned magic.'" "[...]anyone nostalgic for childhood dreams of transformation will find something to enjoy in an uplifting movie that invests warm sentiment in universal themes of loss and resilience, experience and maturity." "Scott Mendelson of Forbes admired the film's visual effects, production design, and called the costume design as Oscar-worthy, adding, 'with an emphasis on empathy and empowerment, Walt Disney's Cinderella is the best film yet in their 'turn our animated classics into live-action blockbuster' subgenre.'" I have been mislead. I was assuming that Cinderella would be, at the very least, palatable...perhaps even half decent. Maybe I would actually really enjoy it. I didn't, and it was none of these things. From cringe-worthy beginning to cringe-worthy end, I hated the movie and detested the perfect, beautiful Cinderella and her perfect, beautiful prince. I understand that the Cinderella story is supposed to be the traditional fairy tale princess story...but this was bad. Not quite Alice levels of bad, but...I would have to be paid to see it again. Now, I'm not going to say how MUCH I would need to be paid (because I'm greedy and pragmatic), but I would need to be paid SOMEthing, alright? Cate Blanchett was probably the best part of this movie...but even she suffered the problem as did the entire movie: overdramatic theatrics and overselling their parts. There's oh so painfully little subtlety with any of the characters, with the two selfish stepsisters probably somehow having the most out of all the characters. Cinderella and her prince (and her father and her real mother) were all nauseatingly and overbearingly good and perfect. I didn't relate to a single one of these characters at pretty much any point throughout the movie...and having watched Frozen recently and become a big fan (even with Frozen's problems withstanding), you think I'd be able to, but I couldn't...I just couldn't. Helena Bonham Carter's part in the movie was absolutely atrocious, with her irritatingly soft voice and constant tittering and theatrics...I don't know why she was even in the movie at all. The Prince's "new" scenes (compared to the original cartoon) were absolutely dreadful, going on and on about swordfighting and painting and marriage and...ugh, it was just terribly boring and...meaningless. If his additional parts were supposed to make me be able to relate more with him than in the original cartoon, they really only had the opposite effect. Really, the biggest problem of this movie is Cinderella herself, though: I have the exact same problem with her that I had with Aurora in Maleficent. There's no subtlety in the slightest to her character: she is the perfect, good little girl, with such overstated and we're-gonna-drill-this-through-your-head humility and innocence, that I just find myself unable to like her in the slightest. Every single thing they say and do is done with such an air of inherent perfectness and goodliness and naive innocence...I just can't hack it. Aurora and Cinderella were not very complex characters in their respective movies: this much is absolutely true. However, nor were they usually these manufactured...sweet little portraits of perfection who smack you over the head with their goodliness every chance they can get, either. Cinderella's "worst" act throughout the entire movie was having an entire two seconds of self-pity by saying to the prince, "I am no-one of importance," when he asked for her name, and then refusing to tell him. Pfah.

Wait, seriously? Shouldn't it have a better name than just "Juneteenth"?

I love the concept art for that game every time it comes up on the Steam store...but it really just doesn't look like my type of game. Great work on selling your art for your game, Mr./Ms. Concept Artist...it's just too bad I can't bring myself to get the actual game no matter how many times I've looked at it.

I enjoyed FTL, but I hated that the ship types were locked behind completing the game with other ships (and completing certain acievements with those ships, too). I don't want to have to beat the game multiple times using the dozen or so awful (IMO) ships that focus on playing in a specific way I don't enjoy to unlock the ships I actually *would* enjoy using...why do so many developers think this type of stuff is a brilliant way of locking content?

Playing Europa Universalis 4 ruined the Total War series for forever for me. The RTS bits - which are completely optional: the turn-based strategic map part is really the main focus of the game - are literally the only attraction left for the Total War games for me (as EU4 does not bother with it)...and Rome II: Total War demonstrated that Creative Assembly (the dev) still isn't able to handle even that competently even after over a decade of trying to get it right, so forget about it. And the overall strategic map part, while having a few points of interest, is so painfully inferior in general to EU4's, that I just can't go back to it. *shrug* I'm saying this even though I hate the Renaissance (EU4) and love the Medieval and Antiquity (Medieval/Rome) time periods - probably something to do with Antiquity marking the beginning of the Roman Age (really roughly - Antiquity really actually goes a bit further back, especially when considering the Roman's Republic relative power throughout the first half of it) and the Renaissance marking the end of it.

I'm not sure I saw a single thing I was even moderately interested in. I'm not very in tune with the current gaming industry, I guess. Things I have a passing interest in but am not really expecting to like or really care about in time: 1. Dark Souls 3, because though I rather liked 1, I thought 2 was absolutely awful and it was virtually unplayable even after many, many hours of trying to like it. 2. Mirror's Edge Catalyst: I just have zero faith in EA-anything these days. This is probably the game that I have the best shot at actually liking, though. 3. The Pillars of Eternity expansion: I sunk 60 hours into trying to like PoE, but I just couldn't: am hoping that an expansion makes it...not so bad, but I'm not expecting much if J.E. Sawyer and his design philosophy remain at the helm...and the loss of MCA, one of my favorite writers, doesn't help any, either. Nothing else. Like I said, not feeling much for the current gaming industry. (e): I lied: I also have a passing interest in the new Hitman, but again, I'm not really expecting much. Maybe this is all just my annual crippling summer depression talking, though. I'm officially ready for winter!

I had previously heard he hadn't had such a great time since the Phantom Menace...guess here's more proof.

I don't know what this video is

So...ideally, we should have a more positive narrative/environment for women developers, which means that this positivity, even if it's ignoring the actual facts of the situation, could actually be good. On the other hand, it's these same people who are now celebrating this - that things have gotten better as a result of their "efforts" - who are the ones that have been actually pushing the narrative that the industry is not welcoming...and who are now reversing their positions, even though things don't really look that much different at all. What a perplexing (and perhaps paradoxical?) situation.

Just curious...do you know of any specific examples where the traditional family structure has broken down and has had clear adverse effects as a result? I would think if something like that happens, there's usually a whole bunch of other terrible crap going on at the same time.

I don't see why we're getting so stuck on her race: so what if she identified as black? I'll admit that transracialism sounds pretty silly to me, but if she identified as being more of the black ethnicity/culture than not, so what? Does it really matter that much? Isn't it some of her other craziness that we should be more concerned about?

"The Weird, Random, or and Interesting Things[...]" Isn't it more likely that kids just *seem* to get more and more obnoxious each generation...because you're getting older?

That's what we keep trying to tell you. All a matter of perspective, Bruce.

If you do it, be sure to bring back those photos for us.

This might sound stupid, but...when I was younger (about ten or so) and playing TES: Oblivion, I was always a bit miffed that you could often see the galaxy at night in game. For the longest time, I thought it was completely whack: never understood why in the world they would have such a patently unrealistic detail...just for the sake of having a pretty looking night sky? How silly! Took me many years to realize...yeah, it is actually possible to see the Milky Way in such a manner...I just haven't ever been anywhere even close to where it could happen, and there seems to be an ever-decreasing amount of places where it's possible.

Would they be wrong?

Outsourcing jobs is, in my opinion, a much more multi-facted issue than a lot of people would like to believe...there are winners and losers regardless of which side you take. Then again, I think that's true about most issues in general. Are you a horrible person for not caring? That's for you to decide, I think.

"In Turnabout, Disney Cancels Tech Worker Layoffs" http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/us/in-turnabout-disney-cancels-tech-worker-layoffs.html

Whatever you believe to be the lesser of two evils is still evil and when they start escalating their actions soon it won't be worth it. Please don't try to frame my words in support of your beliefs whatever they may be, when I make broad sweeping statements they are meant for all. Whoa, whoa, I was just trying to ask a question, because I wasn't sure what kind of radicals you were talking about...I assumed that the kind of people frequenting /r/fatpeoplehate (because they're about as anti-PC as you can get, I would think...) would be included in your theory. Personally, I would prefer if the subs had never been banned at all...but they (and some others like them, including other NSFW subs) were permanently disbarred from ever showing up on the front page. The reddit situation went way too far, in my opinion.

Clarification, Orogun...radicals like those you'd find in the recently banned reddit subs (with one in particular in mind), for example?

Sorry can you just tell me your reasons, I really don't feel like going back to read previous posts Because if the game is being designed as having both options...it's pointlessly limiting and serves practically no benefit to force one choice...unless they redesign the game around the new lack of a gender choice and actually have playing a female character mean something...because if the game is being designed around having the choice of choosing either, they're not going to develop any meaningful content around what is essentially an arbitrary choice made at character creation - nevermind that these types of games don't usually have strong characterization for protagonists to begin with, and I doubt they could write an intriguing/decent main character, regardless of gender, even if they tried. This is frustrating to me, because gender (and other things like it, including something as simple as height), are actually pretty important distinctions (or at least they CAN be important distinctions) in most other mediums (and life!)...and because of the costly nature of game development, these sorts of choices that you make as a player will never truly matter if you're being allowed to actually make them. I'll admit that I don't fully understand what Anita's reasons for this are, because she doesn't state them. If her reasons are the same as mine, then by all means, go ahead and have only a female character...but my reasons are just as good of an argument for having only a male character, so I don't think they are her reasons. I am presuming her reasons are something more along the lines of, "There aren't enough strong female protagonists in the gaming industry...and I think there should be more. Therefore, I'm going to pick on a game that is allowing both options for some inexplicable reason!"...and while I can agree with the first sentence, I just don't understand the rationale behind the second, so I can't do the same for it.

I've always wondered about your typing style and why you were always so true to it...not even oby could be so perfectly consistent. This is also about the best possible explanation I can imagine for it. I admire your dedication and general person even more now.

As I said before, for the reasons presumably implied by Anita, I definitely would. I don't think Shady said he would have a problem with "only having a female character": he said he has a preference. These are not equitable.

That's definitely a better counter article than the one I linked earlier.

Purchased AudioSurf 2 on Steam. I have several hundred hours in AudioSurf 1, and was expecting to like AudioSurf 2. I don't. Seems like the game is worst in every conceivable way that matters while improving on or adding things I don't care about. I'll be giving it another hour tomorrow, but if I still can't stand it by then, I'll likely be getting a refund.