Bartimaeus

I literally was thinking "well, I'm going to have to post the Dr. Phil seizure" as I was reading your first paragraph, and then it just kept going...and then you more or less beat me to it. So how about this gif I "randomly" found on Google: Eh, brutally murdering kids isn't as bad as...whatever Pegasus was getting up to. Sort of.

That's what I saw him in first (as well as Claire Foy, whose performance as Anne Boleyn was despicable and yet somehow still elicited an awful amount of sympathy on my part - she was great in the first season of The Crown as well), and I saw a couple of other things he was in afterwards as well. Yeah, great show, supposedly they're making a second part to the miniseries at some point, but there's not been much news as of the last couple of years...have to wonder if Covid silently lead to its cancellation... It does sound like a very American kind of film.

Packers are in a similar situation with David Bakhtiari, though I'd put a better outlook on someone with a torn ACL than someone with a serious neck injury. Still, Bakhtiari is absolutely needed for the playoffs (and indeed, we probably lost that NFCCG last year because of him not being in it, given the insane pressure that Rodgers faced in that game), and it was expected he'd be back long before now, and he's barely even practiced... Rodgers had an insane MVP campaign last year after having had a healthy and consistent line the entire year - it's kind of flown under the radar that he's having another MVP-like year (albeit not as great of one) while having had to replace that entire line for most of the entire season (right now, we have literally nobody left from last year's line - starting 4 backups and a rookie!). May both our All-Pros come back healthy and good, .

I haven't seen it...and I probably won't because I just saw that it stars two of my least favorite current big-time actors (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence - although it does have Mark Rylance whom I rather like)...but I was under the impression that the film was more for how little we're accomplishing in the realm of climate change and the imminent crises that are likely to occur as a result over the next handful of decades. And Wikipedia says it was written and filmed in 2019, before Covid-19 existed, before being delayed because of it...

Certifiably trash already, and it was only the first episode. You really need to work on your show-picking skills, . At least A Silent Voice is a single movie that's 2 hours long... Being aware of your own limitations in knowledge and intelligence automatically makes you less dumb than those who aren't, in my opinion. So by my estimation, Polnareff is still dumber, . This right here is the key problem with Venus Wars, because it describes the cast of protagonists to a T, and it's why even though Venus Wars had a number of other good things about it, it makes it pretty difficult to particularly like. Given how much of a mess it all was, I think I'm probably being slightly too generous to Akira in giving it a 7/10, especially because I only gave Venus Wars a 6/10 - as I usually do, I'll probably reflect back on it in like a month and consider adjusting it, most likely down to a 6.5. The initial impression is important, but so is the impact it made on you in a longer view. Some stuff really benefits from that retrospection because it turns out it stayed with me much longer and I have more positive feelings towards it than I thought or could have expected (see: NGE...or Whisper of the Heart, or Perfect Blue, or Miyu, or...), but if in a couple of months I look back and I have more negative feelings (see: Nadia) or feel it was actually perfectly forgettable (see: Soda Pop Bubbles Up Like Words), then my initial rating was too generous. Yeah, the two girls were both likeable enough, but both...not much in the film. Pretty much all testosterone besides that. And Kaori was more of a punching bag than a character, really. Hey, maybe the show is just as good reading only faces and emotions instead of words, . Yeah, I saw a few people out there who were also upset they couldn't find subs for it...some things just don't catch the attention of translators, I guess, particularly some older stuff that never got a lot of notoriety. Maybe the movie is unrepresentative of and significantly better than show, and that's why only it was translated, .

In five minutes or two hours - as long as it gets the job done, right? Akira (1988). The intro set a nice tone. Soundtrack is jamming. Animation has a strange style and level of detail that makes it unusual and fascinating to look at. I like the setting and visuals. I found the direction of the Japanese dub to be...a little lacking at times, but not too bad - I tried the (Animaze) English dub for a few minutes, and while it was competent enough, it didn't feel quite right, so I went back to the Japanese. Characters...sure are a lot of men and boys being shonen up in here. The post-apocalyptic setting...justifies that to a degree, but not to the extent of where it goes, I think - that, or I just didn't like where it went. Speaking of where it went, the plot and whatever the hell the themes were supposed to be...um... Well, it was classic 80s insanity plus a little extra, I suppose. Actually, this reminded me a lot of a cross between Venus Wars (1989) and Metropolis (2001), but better than either...and, as you can notice from the dates, released before either. It gets a "good" (7/10) for looking and sounding good and keeping me pretty entertained for most of its runtime, even if I thought it was utter nonsense by the end. Most every time I watch one of these old anime films, I can't help but keep thinking it's a bit of a shame that so much of the 80s' and 90s' fantastic animation/music/general style was used on so much silliness lacking in the departments that I value the most. ...This reminds me that Satoshi Kon died way too young - now there's a guy that knew how to do things just how I like them...and whose praises I probably won't ever stop singing. Except for Paprika, which is, ironically, his most famous and beloved, because of course it is, . I should re-watch that to see if it still doesn't appeal to me just as much as it did the first time I watched it. Poor Kaori sure got a raw deal throughout this film. Every time a character said the main character's name ("Kaneda"), it just sounded like someone exclaiming Canada. ...O.K., now I have to go re-read majestic's post with the context of having actually seen it. Hey, I liked Blade Runner. The original one, mind you - the new one bored and annoyed me to the point of openly laughing at it trying to be deep and serious. Oh, don't ever watch Venus Wars then, because it coincidentally is pretty much exactly that. Actually, I can't help but wonder if Venus Wars, which was released about a year and a half after Akira, was inspired a bunch by it, but a quick search didn't reveal when the film started development...though it is based off a 1986 manga, but Akira is a 1982 manga, so... Yeah, I can't really disagree with what you wrote, except that I guess I liked it a little more than you did. Although...I'd say I liked the first half a lot more than the second half, but that's probably because the first half was more straightforward and more grounded as opposed to the...well, borderline meaningless ridiculousness of the final act that I kinda started zoning out at parts for, but it is what it is, I guess! P.S. A note for @majestic - while glancing at the voice-cast for Azuki-chan, I couldn't help but notice that Meiling literally voices the titular character, which is hilarious because while watching it, I had actually thought that it was like watching a non-magical version of Cardcaptor with a toned down version of Meiling as the main character. Not sure if I was subconsciously influenced by the VA for Meiling literally being the main character, or...

Lmao, I was thinking that there had to be someone, but I couldn't think of whom...guess I should've just taken the time to look at the list of MVPs. RIP John Madden.

It does seem like a bad idea to ever bet against Rodgers when playing the Cowboys. It's been too many times I've thought for sure we would lose and somehow we don't. Of course, maybe the anti-Cowboys magic was actually McCarthy and not Rodgers...

I think it's not super clear-cut if we don't get the #1 seed. A poll of 25 league executives that I saw last week put the race in between Rodgers and Jonathan Taylor on the Colts, and they were just about split down the middle with a slight lean towards Rodgers, and with Brady as a distant third. If the Colts are able to secure a place in the playoffs and Taylor looks great these last two weeks while the Packers lose to either the Vikings or Bears, I could see them giving it to Taylor a la how Adrian Peterson got it in 2012 after defeating the Packers in the final game of the season to secure a spot.

Volourn was frustrating, because...he didn't used to be quite as off the walls unhinged and unpleasant as he was towards the end, and he seemed like an actual person with relatively consistent opinions but with no clue how (or at least no desire) to state them in a way that didn't have endless flaming and false equivalencies. He was a guy that was frequently getting added to and removed from my ignore list up until his last year or so of being here. That's more than I can say for a few others, whose propensity for utterly lacking any intellectual honesty or consistency from one post to the next makes a permanent ignore a relatively simple decision - there is no value to be gained for anyone in discussing matters with those who have no interest in honest discussion.

It seems likely Rodgers will win his second straight MVP at this point...and that the Packers will lose again in the NFCCG because they are precariously perched on the edge of a knife and will predictably suffer a great tumble against a more rounded and consistent team. It would be a multi-layered revenge if it were to the Cowboys, but I can't say that I expect the Cowboys to make it to the NFCCG (which is the only place the Packers and Cowboys could play assuming Packers #1 and Cowboys #2) in the first place. Famous last words, though.

You never know how far some crazies will go, and it's infinitely more difficult to be hyper-viligant about preventing someone from doing something unpleasant to you than it is for them to do it. Doesn't take that much to find and get to any arbitrary address (if the address if freely given or found), get a rental car and some gasoline and matches, and quietly wait for you to leave at some point before setting everything ablaze...if they truly are crazy and don't care about the consequences. Especially in this day and age, how confident can you really be that any given random person isn't insane? I certainly wouldn't be too keen to test it.

That means it's working. I once had a page in this politics thread (although not this particular politics thread) where the entire page was missing because it had evidently just been spammed to death by those that I have on ignore. Felt pretty amazing to just go to the next page without reading a single one. Most of the people that were destroying these threads in the past are not here as of now...most of them.

Yeah, that's one of those that I tried to watch but wanted to kill myself five minutes into and just turned off instead of going through with it. Hopefully that doesn't happen to you. I only figured out who "Cherry" was when you mentioned him moving away. Suffice to say, this film did not leave too much of an impression. Maybe I'll just unrate it entirely and call it a day...

I actually hated Words Pop Up Like Soda Bubbles, this was all an elaborate ruse to punish you for making me watch Madoka, .

Since you watched it, I guess I'll make an effort to also watch it sometime within the next couple of days. Words Pop Up Like Soda Pop: Have you considered 2x speed? I said it was "fine" and gave it a 6.5/10, you should really only try watching the things that I actually make an effort to recommend instead, .

Time Bandits with my nieces. It was just an endless chorus of "WHAT IS HAPPENING"s approximately every thirty to sixty seconds...which to be fair, sometimes I didn't know either, so I can't exactly blame them. They said they liked it but it made no sense...which I can live with just fine. I also forgot about the part where the minotaur gets his head ripped off - they weren't too keen on that part, but I guess it was silly enough because they at least didn't get scared like they usually do for anything even slightly intense. I didn't remember that Ian Holme, Shelley Duvall, Sean Connery, and Jim Broadbent were all in this, so it was weird having them pop into the movie randomly - I started to question my sanity that all of them could somehow be in this movie and I had forgotten them all.

Okay, with that context, NOW this clip is funny, . And to think, I had no interest in it because I thought the entire look of the show seemed like a bunch of cosplayers got together and didn't have a budget to make the show look nice - seems like I lucked out given that they've aborted the entire plot in addition to ruining all of my favorite characters...

The book is pretty cool, because it somehow constructs multi-layered 3D spaces out of flat 2D images, but your brain still trying to apply the effect to stuff where it doesn't work at all is not so cool - it doesn't even look neat or interesting, it just made things look a little off and wrong...and almost like I was hallucinating mildly. Not to mention the headache. Neat book, but maybe don't look at all of them in a row and at length like I did. My nieces couldn't figure out how to make the effect work, so I had to look at and describe what each picture contained. You have to focus your eyes like ten to fifteen feet beyond and through where the book actually is even though it's right in front of you, and it can be difficult to force your eyes to not automatically focus on the book instead of beyond it as you're staring through it. It's really bizarre and took me like twenty minutes to figure out how to do it and get it down.

I'm not sure who has it worse - majestic with a truly despicably bad show...but one that he has utterly no reason to care about or be invested in, or Zoraptor with a show that he should love that he...decidedly does not.

Hey, it beats having the old thinker being crushed entirely. A question all of these characters should be asking about this show every day, methinks...

I was just looking at one of those 2D -> 3D image picture books with my nieces, and I guess I looked at it too long because now I can't get the 3D effect to stop completely even when I'm looking at normal stuff, and it's disorienting and giving me a headache. Someone turn it off!

Yeah, not really sure how I feel about one little girl *watermelon squash sound*-ing another little girl's head. ...Actually, you know, now that I really think about it, probably not a great fit for a magical girl anime. It's probably a better idea to let me get back to it and watch a few more episodes before trying it out anyways...just to make sure it's not secretly terrible past the first episode.

Dennou Coil AKA Cyber Coil AKA A Circle of Children. In attempting to eliminate another show that I thought would obviously be bad, it seems like I found another good one, although I certainly wouldn't have guessed it from the premise. Stupid Madhouse, making me watch all these shows by having them be good. Wikipedia premise: Like I said, doesn't exactly seem like something I'd be interested in from the premise...not really into augmented or alternative reality stuff. But the first episode was about trying to save the main character's and her sister's dog from being eaten by some kind of glitchy void space that's made a habit of eating up all their city's pets, and I don't know, it just worked really well. Slight Paranoia Agent vibes, although I'd actually probably put this first episode ahead of anything in Paranoia Agent - I liked the characters in this way more right off the bat, and this seems like it's not going to be as thematically burdensome like Paranoia Agent was. I'm not going to watch anymore for the time being, but it's being added to the list of stuff I definitely want to watch later along with Serial Experiments Lain. Also have to get to Cowboy Bebop, Angel Layer, Princess Tutu...and some others. At least I've managed to clear out some of the crud. Slightly over halfway through Future Boy Conan. It's more or less exactly what I expected it to be, and that's O.K., but it continues to not be particularly interesting or engaging to me. Guess that happens when you have late 70s-style characters that are pretty basic and uninteresting. That uh...looks like a scene. Thank goodness that show is only 12 episodes long, .

Yeah, I saw this in my list of watched movies as well, but it didn't feel quite right to call it a movie in the first place, and never mind even remotely consider it for possible best films of 2021.