Contentious C

I just finished The ABC Murders last night, and hoo boy, yeah, the back-walking...woof. But this was a strange show regardless of that. I hadn't read the book, so I had no idea about the plot or the twist ending, but the show itself tries really, *really* hard to behave like it's "updating" Christie's stuff. Again, since I haven't read the book (or any of hers, something I should probably remedy), I don't know how deeply she gets into the mindset of the killer, but a simple plot synopsis seems to suggest the way it's set up in the book is the trope-y way of revealing (one she's probably responsible for): gather all the suspects together, show off Poirot's skills, point a finger, Big Bad Exposition Time. The show doesn't do any of that, and that's good, because not only is it trope-y, it's a totally ridiculous trope that only "works" in a novel anyway (and even then is lame). Above and beyond that, though, there are a lot of elements that just seem anachronistic. There's a predictable - and yet wrong-feeling - stretch of discussion by the end that sounds like it's stolen straight out of the kind of "serial killer psychology" that has only truly developed within the last 40+ years, not something that was around in the 30s. Hell, psychology as a whole was still adolescent then, let alone understanding the motivations of murderers. The talks seem like they're there because today's audience would expect that, having had a belly full of police procedurals and Nightlines, not because it belongs. There are a couple of moments where it feels like there's a hint of Jack the Ripper being made up for, that Poirot is exorcising that particular demon by catching new killers, but it's only a whiff, and not a theme. Similarly, the one big stand-out piece of the show is this nagging feeling throughout as though the killer exists because someone exists to catch him: that it's all a big game because there's finally someone "worthy" to play it. For anyone who's played Arkham City, this should feel familiar, because it's more or less the entire thrust of what Hugo Strange discusses by the end of the game: the deviants exist because Batman himself is a deviant, and it casts Poirot in a totally different light as a result. Some of that is quite good, and I would have been interested in a rendition of that that didn't involve John Malkovich being on autopilot. I liked the time spent giving the smaller characters a chance to show how they're kind of all alone and screwed up in their own way, but since it's only 3 episodes, those moments almost feel out of place. It's not like they're going anywhere else with any of these characters except the central one. Then again, if the show had been any longer or had spent more time on the murders themselves, it might have done more to give away the ending.

I wouldn't go so far as to call a brother fat. I mean, he definitely had to play first base. What's the brother gonna do? He's Samoan.

And I just flipping bought the other Blu-Ray of Blue Velvet. Also, glad that that's the original Funny Games, as I have the remake on Prime. I also own a stupid number of copies of Reservoir Dogs, as "two" easily qualifies. But, I forgot I owned it on DVD when I bought the BR.

Quoted for posterity.

Danny Ferry, the guy who refused to play for the Clippers and went to Europe instead of being L.A.'s draft pick. (Granted, that was Turdling's team, so the decision kinda makes sense, but still...funny.)

Was someone using their phone here? Or voice to text? I also grew up with Friday as one of Those Movies. I also don't really care for it for basically all the reasons JH mentioned (and then kind of reneged on).

I dunno, how much do you think an NBA title ring costs on eBay?

I'm posting this under the assumption that the only person here who ever listened to all of Big Wreck's albums and/or gives a crap, but, oh man, maybe heroin is good for some people. I'm not sure why, but I occasionally go on jags of listening to these guys, even though their first 2 albums are fairly scattershot. The first half of the first album is strong, but it fades hard. The second album has a stronger set of songs, but it feels like you have to wade through some fairly pedestrian stuff to get to the tracks that are top-notch. Plus, they're not really prog, because they're stuff isn't weird enough, or long enough. But they were well past grunge and not full-on metal, either. I feel like the only description of them that made sense, especially with their second album, The Pleasure and the Greed, was "what nu-metal would have sounded like if the musicians and songwriters didn't uniformly suck." Might be hard to wrap your brain around, but if you listen to "Ladylike", or the (ugh) Nickelback song, "Good Times Gone", where Ian Thornley plays pedal steel and immolates everyone else playing, you might see why I describe them that way. If these guys had been the dominant type on the radio instead of Disturbed or Staind or whatever other waste-of-space jerkwads there were on rock radio 15-20 years ago, maybe I would listen to the radio more than once every 5 years (i.e., when someone else still listens to the radio and I have to be in their car). I was high on them in college, and then Thornley put out his first solo album, Come Again, which I own and still haven't listened to more than 2 tracks of, because, holy shit, it's fucking terrible. This was a guy who, on the first Big Wreck album, railed against sellouts and phonies on the song "Look What I Found" and then put out that turd, which instantly reeked of radio-friendly unit shifting and cash-grabbing. I still recoil from it when I see it, like a cat spotting a cucumber. Ugh. So I went through, well, a decade+ of telling friends who liked harder stuff to check them out, and lamenting their break-up, only to discover they released two albums in the last 10 years. But, well, the nostalgia was better. The only thing I can say about either the 2009 or 2012 records is I can't remember anything worth discussing about either of them, which, on some level, might be the worst thing you can say about music. Good, bad, otherwise: just don't be boring, and they were boring. It made me retreat back to the songs that were ostensibly referring to consuming every drug in sight, and wonder if maybe there isn't something to that after all. I'm kidding, of course. Don't do drugs, kids. Unless you can do all the drugs, and then do all the drugs.

Well, that might work, except I'd buy myself the vodka first. Now that I think about it, that sounds like a potentially interesting website. Boozy Thoughts, where everyone's got their drink of choice and holds forth on...whatever topic. The only rule is you get loaded. I could definitely be the Gin guy. (Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? I'd be the boxed wine guy)

And in tribute to all his actual movies, the script would have to have a white guy who only understands minorities after being horribly grafted to the shiny murder-suit.

Like I said, it learned the worst lessons it can from work stoppages, not necessarily just their own. Over-learned them, if anything.

I see what you did there.

I have no idea who that is, but it made me think of Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell dyed blue and playing the genie, and I bet that would also be more entertaining than Will Smith.

As much as I can't stand the Yankees, that's, uh, a very small sample size for making such a comparison.

Nagai started out as a RINGS dude, too, didn't he? So he was never one of "theirs", and I'm struggling to immediately think of a guy from an outside promotion who was given a real shot at being a cog. Minoru Tanaka springs to mind for the NJ Junior ranks, but that was probably based more on his looks than his work (or at least as much). Terrifying to think WWE is somehow ahead of the curve on that, having pushed the likes of Danielson & Styles over the same time frame. But mostly I'm just wondering where I'm supposed to send whiskey to @John E. Dynamite, or whether I really should contribute to someone else's alcoholism/wrestling habit. Or, for that matter, the production of whiskey, because holy shit snacks, I hate whiskey.

Because the NHL isn't a terrible parasite gorging itself on TV money and has already learned the worst lessons it can from work stoppages.

I've heard of maybe 2 of these movies so far. Also, when the reference was made to the length of the title, I was really expecting Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood to be the pick in question.

It's funny we actually have threads for Overwatch, Fortnite, and PUBG (dead ones, anyway), but *this* is when the catch-all thread appears. #firstpageproblems

It's on Netflix. It's decent. Makes me wonder 1) if there's going to be a second season of Mindhunter and 2) if that would be part of the focus.

So many people are talking about Apex Legends lately that's it's making me replace every Apex Legends with Apex Legends, until Apex Legends no longer sounds like an Apex Legends.

Maybe a Writer's Block Club is in order. I wish I had HDDs of stuff. Instead, I have one of those IKEA 14"x14" black boxes full of notebooks, with Post-It flags marking the breaks between ideas & stories. Latest bit of insanity on my end: a still-all-too-lucid dream from the other night about two of the villains of books 2 & 3 of a series that's ~50,000 words into Book 1. I suppose I should write that short story while it's still fresh. FML. Excuse me while I go walk out in front of Tweetboy's traffic over at Walter Reed.

Hire Art Shell? Also, I'm pretty sure Weird Al could share the stage with Pitbull, and not only that, but he could write a song parodying Pitbull that Pitbull wouldn't even understand was a parody. Book it, already.

Not sure Carter and Burton were ever actually married - just have kids together. Not that anyone cares.

Apparently, 2 more Clemson assistants got raises, to give them 3 assistant coaches making $1M a season. In a related idea, I would like to hereby stop referring to coaches' pay in terms of dollars and, since they are considered state employees, instead refer to it in the much more relatable metric of Public School Teachers (PSTs). So, their offensive assistants each got raises of 3 PSTs per year, up to 20.

Yep, you could just trot out the days of "say 'poontang pie' in every bit of mic work" and you'd have a 30-minute montage at least.