Contentious C
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Posts posted by Contentious C
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I picked a bad game to give up on in the third quarter.
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There's no such thing as "deserving" a goal, but that SOG by Kapanen in OT is about as close as I've ever seen, considering the leverage.
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A lot of the YT videos point out there's an audio cue, so turning the battle music off and trying to listen for that may help. My accessibility-needing ass may end up regretting it if I buy it.
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Man, the Muse stuff is really rubbing me the wrong way. I don't like blood stuff generally (not something being bloody, per se, but active exsanguination is something of a phobia), but what really bugged me is how Angela gets drained to the edge of death and he just CPRs her right back. That's. Not. How. Circulation. Works!
Plus, does absolutely EVERY villain have to be a proficient hand-to-hand fighter??? Can't we get one guy with a glass jaw?? Shit.
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PS5 copies of Clair Obscur are long-gone and down to the purview of scalpers. By all accounts, it's unlikely to get another printing for that console. I suppose that's just as well, since I don't want to pay Sales Tax for Dummies on it, and I have 5 other things in the PS5 backlog. But the second I'm either through that backlog or it goes on sale, I'm picking it up digital. If it does get another printing, I'll get that without a second thought.
It's weird. If I'm being clear-eyed about games that I threw a lot of hours into, FF7 is likely a top-5 entry. And yet that was nearly the end of my interest in playing anything at all turn-based. I did play most, if not all, of FF9, but I had to have started 4 or 5 separate plays of 7 in the 90s. Only took me 30 years to give a shit again.
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Also did all the X-Factor books that were a part of my X-fandom as a preteen. Jesus.
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6 hours ago, Technico Support said:
More cringeworthy than Sean Young's homemade Catwoman costume "audition" for Batman Returns on the Joan Rivers show.
At least that's still Sean Young in something like a Catwoman costume.
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I think what's really telling about that level of distance is how many times I had to be reminded that her name was Fuyuko Irie. And it wasn't an "Invisible Man"-level gimmick; you just lose touch with it. Again, that's a really tough thing to even think about pulling off, and it just happens here.
I rewatched the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children film recently and was underwhelmed, despite liking it in the theater. Totally carried by the inimitable Eva Green. But I started the first book and it's pretty good, a fairly believable YA protagonist that didn't get translated well to screen.
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Karl-Anthony Towns and ticky-tack fouls?
Tom Thibodeau and "a great defensive mind" that never actually wins titles?
Mikal Bridges and "teams that look good on paper"?
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"Yeah, Niki. Like that film, 'Mickey and Nicky' *SLAP SLAP* Did you see that picture?"
Weirdest full-circle set of movies I've watched in a while.
Lilo & Stitch (2002) - I'm not a Disney fan on a lot of different levels; I find most of their famous stuff to be too saccharine and always have, even when I was a kid. The coolest thing about them was knowing about the kamikaze pricks in the animation crew who did things like shove nude frames of Jasmine into Aladdin and whatnot, even if there'd be something pretty wrong-headed about that being done to any company other than Disney. Besides, since the advent of Pixar, they've been entirely dwarfed by the quality of their offshoot. Hell, Dreamworks has made better movies than Disney (granted, in at least one case by using the director of this film). Hell, Laika has made better movies. But, Lilo & Stitch is something like their last gasp of authenticity and emotion and magic. The alien stuff is, generally, not that good. The everything else is incredible. And the cast isn't even anyone famous! Tia Carrere and Ving Rhames are your two biggest stars? Yeesh! When you get an idea that works and a story that speaks to people, the rest of it can be figured out.
Of course Disney crassly commercialized this. I love Stitch, he's my all-time favorite extraterrestrial philosopher, but I don't love him enough to buy your stupid tchotchkes.
Jumanji - And in "More Movies Where Kids with Dead Parents Sleep with a Photograph under the Pillow"...I felt like rewatching this, too. This might have been the decoupling point for me between the Hype Train of "The Media Says You Should Like This" and me going, "Nah." It's... all right? I think I saw it in the theaters at the time mostly because Kirsten Dunst and I are close in age and I didn't mind it, but today? I dunno. The gimmick comes out of nowhere and goes back to nowhere without any depth or meaning; it's vaguely insulting in that, "non-American things are caricatures to Americans" sort of way (never mind that we're probably rightful caricatures to, well, everywhere else); and Robin Williams has Cocaine Performance # 7121 of his career. The scenes where people are looting are especially weird nowadays; feels like someone trying to, you know, say something rather specific about events in the 90s and falling flat on their faces. There'd be something interesting to say about hollowed-out towns and cost-cutting missing the point of Why We're Here, but of course the ending steps on that.
Mr. Holland's Opus - And speaking of, "We Could Say More about Hollowing Out the Important Parts of Our Lives, But the Ending Steps on It," I watched *this* movie! There are two really important decisions here that are fully, entirely believable because Richard Dreyfus is the lead. The first is that he chose to be a teacher instead of composing, because MAN does your "American Symphony" really suck, Glenn Holland! Dreyfus makes that seem like the right career move. And his other "more believable coming from Schlub Dreyfus" choice is to stay with his wife, instead of running away with jailbait (in the movie; she was IRL 23, but she was jailbait in Uncle Buck!) Jean Louisa Kelly, which, hey, I would NOT AT ALL have had the strength to resist. This is also...just OK? It's going for something big and broad and meaningful, but by being so big and broad, it ends up short-shrifting nearly every piece of it that's supposed to come together by the end and mean something more, or define the lives he touched. Granted, all of us have had teachers just like what they're *trying* to convey in this film - at least, if you aren't a rock-dwelling troglodyte who hates learning, you have - but I don't think this builds up enough to a point to make those moments as touching as they ought to be.
When it reaches the end and it scratches the surface of post-Reagan Clintonomics and how screwed up we were starting to get in the 90s, though? Yeah, then it felt awfully real.
The Brutalist - And speaking of, "Spending Too Much Time on the Wrong Things," I watched this movie!!! Whee! I'm so glad this is how I spent the last 46 years of my MID subscription, instead of doing anything else!
I really do hate Brady Corbet and the fact that he trots out every single dumb, cheesy gimmick he littered Vox Lux with for this movie, too. And of course now everyone is telling him how great he is for it. No, buddy; you could have skipped your sideways credit scrolls and your car travel shots and the film certainly wouldn't be any worse! And don't think I don't fucking SEE YOU BRADY, *still* using your damned Narration Voice to tell us extraneous shit, but now you're just doing it with epistolaries instead!! It's the same fucking gimmick!
I do, however, like Felicity Jones, and while I haven't watched A Real Pain yet to say for certain, it feels like Guy Pearce got freakin' ROBBED in this movie. Adrien Brody, on the other hand? Eh. Big damn eh. Somehow the guy has two Academy Awards for Best Actor; one time he plays quiet, persecuted genius, the next time he plays loud, twitchy, hophead formerly-persecuted genius, does the same accent in both, isn't really *that* great either time? Big eh.
I'm not saying this wasn't *good* - it is, it's just not consistently on par with the kinds of films it's trying to emulate. I felt about this the way I felt about Nomadland - it feels like it's been done before and done better. Nomadland had the unfortunate situation to be done before and done better by its own director.
The Heroic Trio - And speaking of "Done Before and Done Better"....uh, yeah, I got nothing, actually, because while EVERYTHING in this movie was done before, because there isn't a moment of this that isn't lifted from somewhere else in some form or other, I'm not sure anyone did it better by mashing it up the way Johnny To does throughout this friggin' masterpiece of cheeseball goodness. It's like if you took the bones of an MCU flick, added the B-movie sensibilities and cthonic cruddiness of Lair of the White Worm, and then threw in the Shaw Brothers for good measure. There's some stuff that's actually *too* over the top even for me, though; the one big eye roll I gave it was the stupefyingly obvious "lifted from The Terminator" moment that really does try too hard. Everything else that's silly and ridiculous is all of one piece, though, and even though you could spend your time screaming, "That's not how things work!", you'd be missing the point.
The Accountant - And speaking of, "That's Not How Things Work!" there's this! That's not how autism works! It's not a superpower! Just like your penis doesn't cure lesbians! Knock it the fuck off, Ben Affleck! Just stop!
OK, I guess I should take a little of my own advice and stop. Oh, but what's that quote from and how did I get there in the first place? Well, that's because, two weeks ago, I watched...
Mikey and Nicky - I don't know how to feel about this. I love Elaine May, but her movies are some of the most painful things to sit through. And this is as batshit crazy as anything, but somehow manages to be more real than just about anything else. I never liked Peter Falk before; I'm not sure I still really do, but at least now I know which eye I'm supposed to be looking at (the left one, he had childhood cancer, I'm an asshole for even worrying about crap like that for 40 years of seeing him in stuff), and I know he can really go in the right role. And I *definitely* didn't like John Cassavetes as an actor before, because he always played sleazeballs in the (admittedly limited) stuff I saw. But godDAMN if Nicky Godalin isn't the Ur-Sleazeball. I've seen a lot of zweihanders I loved, and this is as good as any of those. Is this the best crime movie I've ever seen? Maybe; or maybe the best one with so little actual crime in it. The crimes are their lives and their macho death drives and their shitty choices and their insecurities raging to such heights that naturally everything else seems small in comparison. Oof. OOOOOOOF. Oof.
Hardcore - And speaking of "Oof", there this, which I finished tonight. The quote came from this, and yeah, Paul fucking Schrader is probably a fan of Mikey and Nicky. Gonna take a big, big swing over a massive chasm there and say that. And I think they make an interesting pair. Don't get me wrong, this is nowhere near as good as Mikey and Nicky, or lots of other movies in the 70s; it's not aged well and is far too obvious and probably focused on the wrong things for a viewing audience. But it was clearly something Schrader had to get out of him - like, write it out and make it part of the rest of the world before you go stark raving mad holding it inside yourself every fucking day of your life - and, in that respect, it feels like a *necessary* movie of its time, if not necessarily a good movie of its time. I think the former half of that could be said for the above film, though it's one that has probably aged better instead of worse. For me, the real find here was Season Hubley, who steals half her scenes and, when she has those big sunglasses on, smiles an awful lot like Kelly Preston. Casting Boyle and Scott for this was an inspired choice, too, since they look like *the very first two* guys who would need a lot of porn if they weren't movie stars. The plot doesn't really make any sense, and we don't get anything like arc or development about, well, anyone besides Jake and Niki, but it's a compelling trip through a psychedelically-colored looking glass anyway. All that story is just there for Schrader to exorcise a lifetime of demons.
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Does Bluesky embed, I wonder?
Doesn't look like it. Oh well.
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I guess crying beats throwing up in your mouth.
Unless that's what actually made you cry.
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Minnesota may not take this series, but Terrence Shannon has had a couple of plays going right at Chet Holmgren where you can only imagine his mentality is, "Motherfucker, *I* should have been the number-two pick." A decent chance they lose Walker due to contract Hell but they may have his minutes replacement (or Conley's if the old man retires).
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God, how did Boston take their foot off the neck of this Knicks team twice? Scrubs. Then again, not much chance of beating this Indiana group without JT. Really peaking at the right time.
And Kenny Smith with the nastiest burn of his entire life: "Tom Thibodeau wouldn't play 9 guys in a baseball game."
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Nice of Minnesota to show up.
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You didn't watch a certain NeverKnowsBest video, did you?
I almost skipped the Iki Island DLC for Ghost, because after 60 hours of doing *everything* in the main game, I didn't know if I wanted to keep hiking around for what was supposed to be a harder version of more of the same.
And then I saw you can charm feral cats by playing the flute for them and subsequently pet many kitties. Clearly important. Hopefully the sequel has 4 or 5 petting animations instead of one.
The monkeys, I'm less crazy about; reaching one of the monkey sanctuaries using a controller with awful stick drift, even less so.
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Whoaaaaaaa, we're halfway there...
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3 hours ago, Travis Sheldon said:
It's both.
The "horny/racist" graph was the mask-under-the-mask-under-the-mask of the "hot/crazy" graph.
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At this point, the NBA better pray the Pacers make it out of the East, because neither of the other two teams left play with enough tempo to stand a chance against OKC right now. At least the team that keeps stealing games might keep things from getting embarrassing like that third quarter.
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On 5/21/2025 at 4:59 PM, Dolfan in NYC said:
I think it's safe to say now that Oklahoma City won the Paul George trade.
3 wins away on each side from getting the We Gave Up on Paul George Finals we deserve. Last year, it was the We Gave Up on Grant Williams Finals, which is much less interesting.
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I'm guessing you mean the ranged weapon/stance/thrown object quick switching, and yeah, even after 40 hours, it still hangs me up once in a while. The stances are probably the worst of the three just because there are times when they're necessary but relatively few of those times. But there are also the duels, where all you can do is block or dodge or fight. For me, it's the platforming I can live without.
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I'm not going to finish this season on time, because my cheap subscription from Black Friday expires, well, today, but that first scene of Ep 6???? FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU, Pig Miller. "Do a little better"? Doing better is not having kids if all you're going to do is inflict your trauma again. Like listening to my own POS excuse for a sperm donor. To me, it's akin to walking out of the crowd and onto the field of the Summer Olympics High Jump medal ceremony and awarding yourself the Gold because, along the way, you stepped over a phone book.
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Well, at least one of these series is going to be entertaining.
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Welp, guess I'm going to play Veilguard at some point, since I just found out there are all sorts of animals you can pet and hug. Giving head rubs to foxes has been a GoT highlight since the first playthrough. Just gotta wait for a PS5 copy to get cheap enough.
SUPERMAN - 7/11/2025
in "COMIC BOOK" MOVIES & TV
Posted
Hopefully him and Clark shoot the shit over a bottle of Jameson's and wonder what lake "lake trout" comes from?