Bartimaeus

Not sure whether to post here or in the anime thread... The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an official feature film coming to theatres somewhere near you this December... ...No, this isn't a joke, this is really what a Lord of the Rings feature film is actually going to look like...in theatres. Well, until it horribly flops and they release it to streaming shortly after, anyway.

Dontnod made 1 and 2, Deck Nine made Before the Storm and True Colors; they also developed the remastered version of 1, and will also be making Double Exposure. Dontnod said they were done with the series after 2, so...eh? Maybe it's a game series that'll always be a one-off for me, for largely inscrutable reasons. As an aside, remasters of games that came out not that long ago and even on the same system(s) will always be weird and kind of scummy to me.

I don't really get the best impression from this trailer either, even bringing back Max...and I sure wish they'd go back to something closer to the original game's art style. The stylized semi-painterly visuals of the first game make it a lot softer on the eyes compared to these newer entries. It's funny how near and dear to me the first game is, meanwhile everything else since then has just felt like a non-stop series of fumbles.

Got logged out again...couldn't sign back in for quite a while, kept getting this error each time I tried:

Same browser (Firefox), same device (my PC, the only device I ever login to here with), same IP*, didn't clear cookies or anything else. The second logout happened in the middle of me writing a post - I was quite confused when I tried to post it and was given a "forbidden" error. *-ish. It looks like my last two IPv4 octets changed sometime within the last two weeks from what I can tell, but I can't say for sure when the switch happened - you might have a better idea by checking some of my latest posts for their IPs with your moderator tools, if that's something possible on this forum software like it is with phpBB. I don't think the last two octets changing would affect anything, but...

i was logged out twice today pity me PITY ME

Unforgiven (1992). In theory, I should've liked the ugly story that this was trying to tell, pathetic and free from any 'glory', a solemn introspection and sunset for westerns...but the leading trio of Eastwood, Freeman, and Woolvett conspired to blow up half the film for me. They all inexplicably stunk...or maybe were trying to do or be something that I just didn't understand. Everything else about this movie was pretty enjoyable, especially with the film seeming to be a kind of reflection on Clint Eastwood's career in the genre that he helped shape and popularize. It's one of those films I wish I had liked but for some reason didn't, especially what with this being considered one of the best films of all time. Funnily, the opening of the film (i.e. the king's...uh, play, or whatever) was probably my least favorite part of the film, mainly because I was wondering what the hell was going on and just what I was getting into. I think if I re-watched the opening, I'd like it a lot more now, but it was a bad way to start the film for me. Initial impressions can be difficult to shake, so it's further credit to the film (...and the king) that it did.

And Beast Boy...inexplicably just stops doing that even though it was effective. Trigon just sits there uselessly flailing around in agony until Beast Boy decides to leave of his own accord. In video games, you keep doing what works until it stops working...in shows and movies, a character doing that to resolve every situation gets repetitive and boring awfully quickly, even if it makes the character seem stupid when they stop. Similarly, a character using one of their abilities in an unexpected way to resolve a problem can either be great or completely stupid, depending on the drama of the situation, how well it was or wasn't set up, how cool or funny it is, and probably a variety of other factors. Look at this nonsense I found in Atom Eve's Invincible wiki entry, under "weaknesses": And noted right next to it... In effect, the typical "we gave this character too powerful of an ability" combined with "so we're going to put an artificial limit on it" topped off with "but actually she can bypass it...but only when we want her to" nonsense. Is it better than not addressing it at all? Maybe, maybe not...addressing it kind of just draws more attention to how stupid it is, so maybe it's better to just not. She changes a textbook into something else entirely different and then right back again, with the textbook having completely resumed its previous form so that it can still be read, so I guess her ability to instantly analyze, memorize, and change reality is literally just about perfect, which makes her powers seem even dumber. This is precisely why I try not to think about this, it really doesn't matter and it's all a load of nonsense. I only care about something like this is if there isn't other things that I like about what I'm watching to distract me from thinking about it, which if it's not accomplishing, is usually a sign I should just stop watching.

I forgot exactly what I said about Invincible...something like "I could barely watch the first half, but by the end I'd had a pretty good time because it stopped being stupid". Common problem with a lot of shows, really, especially in this new age of low episode counts causing the front-loading of all your character and world setup right off the bat. I haven't started the second season...to be honest, all the people that I knew who liked the first season seem to have completely lost interest in the show because of the amount of time it took to make a second season, so nobody watching it and nobody caring hasn't really put me into a mood to watch it. To be honest, on the very rare occasion that I watch it, I basically don't pay attention to what anyone can do in superhero/villain stuff. The moment I start thinking about it, my suspension of disbelief can't help but go right out the window. Strengths, weaknesses, and powers/abilities come and go while new ones are made up all as the narrative demands it, and there are pretty much always obvious massive issues like the one you pointed out with Atom Eve, so does any of it really matter? It's just better not to care, if you can.

Aren't they a dice roll with OLD games, too? That's the primary I've never considered them, having heard horror stories about compatibility with old crap, especially anything DX9 and earlier. Immediate compatibility with new games doesn't really concern me.

Yeah, I don't play new AAA games basically ever, so last year I bought an RTX 2060 from EVGA for a hundred bucks and called it good. I haven't run into any games where I needed it to be more powerful than that, so... It's not as if I can't afford it, but I don't know, I've never paid more than $200 for a GPU in my life and I'm kind of inclined to keep it that way what with my faded interest in current AAA games.

The Devils (1971)...by the ever incorrigible Ken Russell. It's difficult to put into words exactly what makes Russell's films so...is "on-putting" a word? It should be: it's basically the same as "off-putting", insofar as that there's something bizarre and disconcerting experienced, except that it's interesting and entertaining instead of being unpleasant or tiresome as you would rightfully expect given the content. The man has this inexplicable superpower of making films that don't really have any right to be good...exactly that. I would say this is his best film of the ones I've watched, and I was rather enthralled by both characters, story, themes, and performances, though I think I still ultimately liked The Boyfriend a little more for subjective reasons. The Exorcist is widely remembered as one of the best films of all time while The Devils was heavily censored and disavowed by the media: it perhaps seems a strange difference in reactions, given how many similarities you might notice between the two and that they were released at close to the same time (1971 vs. 1973). I suppose The Devils has a more...dual nature, in that the audience has to grapple with the fact that it walks a very fine line in being comedic, nearly parodical, in how outrageous (though never unintelligible) it gets - in grave contrast to its all too real messaging on the harrowing and dangerous intersection of politics, religion, and human nature, among a number of other things. I could see that offending many political and religious sensibilities where The Exorcist didn't, as The Exorcist always played it straight, always treated the religious and supernatural elements very seriously while keeping any commentary it might have on them quiet enough, while The Devils most certainly did not. On the other hand, I wouldn't dream of The Devils giving up on its funnier, more sociopolitical side if it meant the film forsaking the scene where a carefree and whimsical King Louis XIII lounges around in the raving throng of "demonically possessed" nuns. Who else is going to dispel the demons from all of them with an ancient vial of Jesus' blood inside of a relic container before impishly revealing that the box was in fact completely empty, causing the possessions to resume as if they hadn't ever paused? I was quite saddened the king didn't show up at either the trial or the stake burning, but I suppose His Majesty's delightful presence there would've rather undercut the film, so it was probably all for the best.

"It isn't accurate, but it is correct." I haven't checked my YouTube subscriptions in two days and GN appears to have released six videos in that time.

Assuming it hasn't been remade into some abomination and you're talking about the 1990 OVA, I'm pretty sure I have a copy of that lying around somewhere, but I haven't checked it out yet...

Dallas vs. Boston? Um...is it too late to cheer for Denver? I think it's too late.

The Trump party leadership unilaterally deciding to kick Trump off the ballot would lead to both a total collapse of the current party structure (i.e. themselves, the leadership) as well as electoral disaster, neither of which the Trump party, in its own self-preserving interest, wants any part of. I feel confident in saying that the old Republican guard is largely just hoping that they can outlast Trump one way or another without ever having "betrayed" him - that's why, over the years, you've even seen cracks in the wall here and there, such as after January 6th, where Republican party leaders did actually attempt to pivot away...before quickly realizing that no, even that still wasn't enough to turn their core voting base against him, and attempting to pull further away would only endanger themselves instead. Powerful cults of personality do not leave easy/feasible ways of getting out once they've taken hold, and they signed an unbreakable deal with the devil by embracing Trump that they're now reaping the rotten fruits from.

For state charges, Florida defers to the state where the convicted criminal felon has been criminally convicted as a convicted criminal felon...criminally, as to whether they're allowed to exercise their right to vote as a convicted criminal felon as a result of their criminal felon conviction. So in this particular case, Donald Trump the convicted criminal felon would be allowed to vote, as a convicted criminal felon, in Florida, because his criminal felon conviction occurred in New York, where criminally convicted felons are still allowed to vote with criminal felon convictions. Woof, sorry, that was a mouthful, but I couldn't think of any other possible way to word it.

In all honesty, even though it IS 34 felonies, they're all the least serious type of felonies, and they're all for the same crime. Even though each charge carries a maximum of 4 years of prison, it's not completely unusual to avoid any prison time here. But sentencing (now announced as June 10th July 11th) is left up to the discretion of the judge and what they feel is appropriate given the general conduct of the defendant throughout the trial (as well as post-trial) as well as other considerations, such as whether it's a consistent pattern of criminal behavior. Really, all bets are off as to exactly what the sentencing will be.

He'll never be indicted, he'll never sit for trial, he'll never be convicted, he'll never see the inside of a prison cell...

From what I read, sentencing may take a few weeks, and it's not clear as of yet what kind of sentencing there may be given the extraordinary circumstances. This particular judge seems to rather explicitly hold Trump in contempt, but...again, extraordinary circumstances.

Trump has been convicted on all 34 felony charges of his hush money / election interference trial. (e): Damn it, sniped by literally like one second. Oh, it looks like the Associated Press website died anyways. Don't know if because of the news or if just coincidence...

Man, I was just talking about this in the other thread, and my guy Nerrel comes out with a video to talk about it at the exact same time. Screw you, James Cameron (and David Lynch, and Peter Jackson, and all the other hack frauds using garbage upscaling processes like this for """4K remasters"""), and screw all this AI nonsense only used to cheap out on doing actual work to sell this crap. Technology advancements seem to always just be used to make everything worse than they already were. "Vasquez starts this shot as an amorphous blob before the AI starts to put a mouth on her cheek, then realizes 'no, that's not it' and then puts a cartoon butthole in, which would be a perfect fit for a little corn cob pipe by the way, and then it gives her Pennywise makeup to cap things off. Nailed it."

He's really going to need a new audio guy/gal, the whole thing was nearly brought to its knees because of bad audio mixing and the sound effects being badly timed and put together. Hell, even the overbearing music kind of sounds like it's underwater, it's all weak and muddy. Oh, he didn't have an audio guy/gal in the first place...uh, I guess he REALLY needs a new one, then, . Woof, nothing like some really bad audio to make you consciously realize how important all the major aspects of a production are, even in just a short piece like this...it can be tough when you're a one-man (or nearly) production and a certain element is just not your specialty. Though I don't know if the creator really intends to try to sell this as a concept to a studio - from the description, it doesn't really sound like it, but maybe you know something I don't. (e): I just looked through the comments and I guess he might try to do just that, and I also wasn't surprised when he said he took inspiration from Tartakovsky's Primal for it.

No...and yes. He's one of the few auteurs to come out of the last decade that is getting actual budgets for his films. There aren't a ton of those around anymore, and most of the ones still working are ten, twenty years older. So I figure I have at least another decade, maybe two, to look forward of Dennis(sic) films, and it is a bit annoying that he's going to inevitably suck up a lot of the air in the room during that time. But like I said, I'm not going to continue to make the mistake by watching more of them, I don't really even want to talk or think about the guy anymore. Let Dennis and his films forever languish in the vast graveyards of my mind. James Cameron: At least he's only working on his cruddy video game movies these days (i.e. Avatar) - well, in between personally overseeing and approving of infamously terrible AI-upscaled re-releases of his previous films, that is. And actually, I'm okay with Terminator 1 and True Lies, which is at least something. I have to be honest, while I do really dislike James Cameron's work as a whole, I kind of forgot my actual least favorite director of all time, which is Darren Aronofsky: now there's a guy whose films have consistently and vehemently disgusted me so much that if I heard he was the victim of a grisly murder, genuinely my first thought would probably be "good!"...before I remember that, oh yeah, he just made awful movies, I don't really need to be a bloodthirsty lunatic because of it, .

I do wish I understood what other people see in his style. Here's a guy who's supposedly making some of the best films of the last decade, but I just can't invest in his stories, develop attachments to his characters, or even be taken to a different world by his visuals and environments. My whole thing is that I want to be emotionally moved one way or another by what I am watching, to actively engage with and become attached to what I'm watching...not get the very life sucked out of me as I watch. He's just one of those guys like James Cameron that no matter how many times I try their films, I really wish I could go back in time and push them off a bridge over an interstate highway so that someone else with a totally different directorial voice could've made their films. That's why I'm not going to watch any more.