Raithe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fUDIucr2eo

To keep the politics world wide... Moscow Times - Russian court bans image suggesting Putin is gay, and sentences the culprit to compulsory psychiatric care

Hm, I still have my 50% coupon off to be used, so first to pm me gets it. Edit: And there we go, the first PM has snapped it up.

Weirdly enough, I found this to be one of the more gratifying things about SR2. Often I think stories that deal with violence dwell only on the darker aspects of the story. But real life will have ups and down - moments of tragedy and moments of the absurd. SR2 better than 3 & 4 walks that line. My favorite sequence in SR2 was the Boss being kidnapped by the Sons of Samadi leader and being drugged. It was harrowing to play and funnily absurd at the same time. Yes the Boss is a criminal badass. And still I felt very conflicted about the trunk sequence - it was a horrible thing, but from a story perspective it was such an appropriate response for the character. It was cathartic to get it to work and yet it was awful too - a nice story moment to challenge the player's perception and greatly appreciated by me. I think SR4 forgets to ground itself in real emotion and resonates less for it. It also doesn't have a charming scene like SR3 between Pierce and the Boss singing 'What I Got" that is such a great character moment which pretty much made that game for me. I agree, that dance between the tones and emotional extremes worked very well in SR2 and helped sell the whole story and the characters involved. Those are the points you'll remember about the game years from now.

SR2 went through the emotional extremes. One minute it was over the top comedy violence, then it would twist to heart-wrenching seriousness. Then it would flip right back again.

I think it's also that no-one talks to coordinate or apply teamwork. They pretty much only do random commentary, heavy breathing, insults, or snark.

Okay, old film but have you ever tried Talos the Mummy ? From back in.. '98ish if I recall, with the likes of Jason Scott Lee and Sean Pertwee. Even had a pre-fame Gerard Butler, plus a bit of support from the likes of Honor Blackman and Christopher Lee. But the classic tale of Egyptian Prince, cursed tomb, archaeologists discovering and dying, then 50 years later the granddaughter of one of those archaeologists discovering the log book and re-tracing the steps back.... Cue mysticism, grisly murders, supernatural evil, and of course a trip to the British Museum in London. One of those low budget adventure-horror's that partially jumped on The Mummy bandwagon, but worked quite well and had some very un-Hollywood twists to the tale. However, there is an American version of the film which is only about 88 minutes, and then there's the European/rest of the world version that is about 2 hours. The non-American lengthier one I think is better, but some people think the pacing is off (which was the reason they gave for cutting it for American audiences), but it still has a certain element of "good parts, that don't always work as a whole film".

Okay, so April is apparently Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. The Anne Frank Centre as such doing the "We'll be highlighting 30 genocides over the 30 days of April"... Is it just me, or is it weird to pick a month like April for that? Having the various "Genocide Awareness" signs, and points being made about Native American and other groups suddenly showing up on newsfeeds and the like.. on April Fools day.

So yes, you walk past the cinema and see the billboard reading: Power Rangers Ghost in the Shell Beauty and the Beast And you have to ask yourself: "What year is this??!"

And to further heighten the potential loss of friends...

Wolverine in Japan was generally good, although let down a touch by the ending. On general film trivia (and Japan related)... Toshiro Mifune driving on the set of YOJIMBO with his sword on the dash: