Contentious C

I'm not sure what messes with my head more: getting a dark laugh out of the jittery girl seizing in the corner at the start of the rehab commercial on Hulu, or seeing Fak being not-Fak in the Doordash commercial.

More like Elder Scrolls: Buy Todd Howard's Castle for Him, Because There's One in Ellicott City That Gets Used for Kink Events and Owning It Is the Only Way He Can Get Invited. Whew, that was awfully specific, wonder where that came from.

How is this different from every other moment of his life these days?

I didn't expect to enjoy the vibe to the Hulu version of High Fidelity (nor did I expect to see *quite* so much of Zoe Kravitz) as much as I do, especially when it's so very, very, very, very, very, very similiar to the film. But, there's one tiny, eensy, miniscule, niggling, iddle-widdle problem that, uh, undermines the whole fucking show. Zoe Kravitz is one of the most beautiful women on Earth. Everyone they pair her with is like letting a pig escort a supermodel down a runway. Sorry. And the whole vibe of "self-loathing kinda-jerk who needs to pull his head out of his ass" worked better with Cusack, as at least his former-teen-heartthrob days could lead you to think he turned into a massive needledick who needed some comeuppance in his 30s. With her, all I've got is empathy and they're going to have to really shit-heel her with respect to plot to match R. Gordon. But, mostly it's the looks thing. No, you don't belong in bed with her, Clyde. CLYYYYYYYYYDE. Jesus. Well, everyone except maybe Kingsley Ben-Adir, and he's already a better "Laura" than Iben Hjejle was, so I'm kinda interested to see how they get to the obvious.

Too bad that form of brain cancer isn't called "Being a Former Teammate of Curt Schilling".

OK, well, my head canon for your member title is now, "Plays with his kettlebells at the weekend".

Then all is right with the world.

LOL, unless he was aware of me from a previous life and loathes my former Internet presence. But I don't specifically recall pissing off anyone named Ian. I finally did it. No, I didn't watch a film that's actually worse than The Crow: Wicked Prayer, because that doesn't exist within the realm of things made with legitimate budgets. But I did something related: I finally finished the, ahem, Crow "tetralogy", if you can refer to vomiting up the exact same plot 4 times in a row as a connected story, that is. I'd watched City of Angels I don't remember how long ago, and it was terrible, but I think a great deal of the vitriol thrown its way is due to "not being worthy of the first film" and not purely due to its own shortcomings, even though there are many. Because by the time you get to Crow: Salvation, which has quite possibly the worst protagonist of all 4 movies, it's like the viewing audience has realized the only way through is down, down, down, and basically nothing about it is redeemable if you limit yourself to examining the people truly "making" the movie (director/writer/producer types). What does work, as one might expect, is that Fred Ward chews scenery with the best of them, and by FSM if he isn't a smug, hammy, unlikable, miserable fuck every second he's on screen. Kirsten Dunst is also not the actual worst - you'd point to Elizabethtown as her worst role at least as often as you might point to this - and then there's William Atherton, who doesn't get much to do besides explain plot and die, but he's still someone you want to punch in the face every time he's on screen. And, for a Crow sequel, there's one clear through-line among the movies, that through-line being that the only way to stop them from being unbearably bad is to feel something besides the urge to scream at the screen, "For fuck's sake, be done already!", and guess what? Wanting to punch another grown man in the face is, well, not that urge. Mission accomplished! But, still very clearly not as bad as Wicked Prayer (the fact that there's a very old post about that movie hidden in the recesses of the board that mentions defending Wicked Prayer - search "Edward Furlong" - well, let's just say the author of the post is not going to surprise anyone with a long memory).

OK, well, I just found one of the zanier things there is on Youtube, and that's saying something. https://www.youtube.com/@JeremySockman Somehow, someone who's been around for at least 4 years and only has about twice as many subscribers as videos (and there's well over 100!). The algorithm must really not like sock puppets. But damn if the channel isn't weird and very much after my own heart with respect to breadth of viewing material. Almost, *almost* makes me wish I'd done my reviews this way (I think I could have stretched most of them into 3-5 minute segments, but the video editing would have killed me).

Well, this is totally bugfuck insane. The Celtics fan in me wants it to turn into Nash-Howard Lakers, but both Giannis & Dame are too smart to let that happen.

No, that's very much the fucking stupid one.

I finally got around to finishing Andor, and man, we need more of this. Well, not necessarily just this, per se, but things put together like it, like there's a real price to the things that are moving. Both what I expected it to be and also not at all what I expected, and it felt like it had some filler with so many eps - mostly the prison's early exposition. But my biggest structural problem with it was featuring Denise Gough so prominently, since every time she said something snide and cutting to someone, I kept expecting her to follow it up a few beats later with the filthiest, horniest thing you've ever heard, and of course that doesn't happen... This is the best thing Stellan has done in years and years; his kids were acting circles around him for 10 years, and neither Bill nor Alex are exactly consistent stalwarts in that arena. But when the old man had to bring it, by FSM did he bring it. Same for Andy Serkis by the time that arc has to wrap. I'm not as sold on the whole Mon Mothma arc, as it just feels unclear how any of that is going to meaningfully pay off with respect to the rest, short of something horrendously drastic (and my interest in SW properties is, um, low at best, given the quality of the last 2 trilogies, so it's not like I know if they do anything long-term with the character even though the name seems familiar). But I'm looking forward to the second season.

Eh, Morty sounded almost as off to me - too young in a "trying to sound like a teenager" way without any of the cracking undertones that the other guy did (and actually sort of worked for the character on a lot of levels). Then again, I would have been fine with the show ending after the way Season 3 wrapped, so, maybe I should pretend that's head canon from now on.

Tampa Bay football: "Hey, let's make a great individual play against the conference champs, no matter the score!" Also Tampa Bay: "Aw, shit."

Finished up Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, re-finished Bone Clocks, and also read Slade House, which is less a closing of a trilogy and more an accompaniment to Bone Clocks in some respects. They're...I dunno. I still think Bone Clocks is the best thing Mitchell's done besides Cloud Atlas, mostly because the characters are so much more memorable and alive and compelling than in the other things I've read. But other than the Marinus character threading through them, and the obvious-but-loose "soul carnivores" plot point, they may as well be entirely different stabs at different things with some connective tissue crammed in there. I guess what I'm saying is I didn't see any value in weaving together his works the way that Stephen King has done. I think that's especially true given the way Bone Clocks ends - and how Cloud Atlas eventually develops, too - and that the world he's building isn't entirely Fantastical or fantastical; it's Earth-Prime with a justifiably dim view of humanity, and maybe they would have worked better if Autumns was *mostly* just an historical novel, or Slade House was *mostly* just a ghost story. For me, it was hard to shake a sense of, "Well, these are victories of a sort, I suppose, but what's coming down the pipe at your ancestors is some awful stuff, so what was the point?" Probably the most interesting thing to me about Autumns, though, was that it felt like there were little nods through several of the sections to Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy. I don't know if those were intentional or I'm just picking up patterns that aren't there, but there are some similarities in overarching plot structure and in some very particular moments of this book. Having said all that, I'm still curious as to whether he's going to write another book that really dives deeper - or at least as deep as Bone Clocks - into the more magic realism/sci-fi aspects of his world-building. It won't get him listed for the Booker Prize again, and maybe that's why he avoids writing it, but I'd read it.

I ended up not being super impressed by No One Will Save You - interesting premise, great performance, but the ideas felt immature. Ultimately, it seems small-minded and maybe even a bit navel-gazing to think only one person has a rich enough internal dialogue to warrant the response that happens, and that so many others are so easily glossed over. That's 100% on the writer/director for not taking it somewhere more compelling. I also felt like it kind of gave away too much too early, instead of going for a slower build. It just jumps in tone from thriller to action in no time.

Maybe a not boring prime time game? Maybe?

Jesus, what a kick from Prater, and the hold wasn't even any good.

Well, the "bundle" locker room State Farm commercial (not the fucking stupid Andy Reid one) will probably annoy me in a month, but it got a good laugh out of me the first time I saw it.

Man, the South divisions in general are just crap after 3 weeks. Maybe instead of "Someone Has to Win This, I Guess" the name for the AFC/NFC South should be "Can We Promote Georgia and Alabama Already?"

*slaps his money on the table* (Certainly not for John, nor for Guillermo, but for Kaitlyn Dever)

How is J.C. Penney still enough of a thing to advertise on football game segments? Haven't they gone bankrupt 8 times this decade?

Sounds like the Cys are the only awards that are really up for grabs at this point, but then again they're frequently "blindfold yourself and throw a dart" compared to the others. Also kinda nuts to look at the SB leaders. A lot of guys putting up good to great overall years...and then there's the # 2 guy with his 0.0 WAR.

This could go in about 6 different threads, but I'll put it here, just for a little cross-pollination: This is Hideo Kojima in the Criterion Collection closet, picking out some of his favorite movies. He explains that 50s/60s Japanese films had a big influence on him but many of them are rarely available in Japan, so the whole lot is that stuff. Shock of the century: the man has awesome taste in movies.

Man, Belichick must've seen this thread and gotten a chuckle out of Tiebreaker 3 before designing his defense.