TwinIon

2 Xboxes, one launch system and a later upgrade to the One X 1 PS4 (non-pro), never upgraded to the Pro 1 Switch

I guess I missed the part where they were expected to return. So the question becomes, where/when do they show off the PS5? Gamescom is in August and TGS is in September. I think they'll want a PS5 presence at both, but they seem a bit late for a first reveal. So they could either do their own event alongside E3, or their own event any other time. My guess would be they do their own thing sometime before E3. Get a news cycle to yourself, but don't do a full reveal. Keep the details dripping out throughout the year. Show off the box and give some more general specs, but don't give an exact date or price. A new trailer for launch games at every event this year, etc.

It really is a bit puzzling. It's an amazing performance by a big name actor that rarely does serious work, in a film that has found a ton of love from critics, and made pretty good money at the box office all things considered. It's not uncommon for worthy performances to go overlooked, it's inevitable. But when a movie is well loved, widely seen, and (perhaps most importantly) has a great story to drive nominations, it's odd that Uncut Gems would go so overlooked. I honestly think Uncut Gems' placement on this list did more to hurt it's awards chances than anything else. Wouldn't want to elevate anything so crude. Despite a great lineup, A24 just had a bad year for awards. I wonder if they were just too spread out to focus on any particular films or if they just didn't try hard this year.

I am all aboard the Titans bandwagon. The Ravens gave them opportunities, but you still have to give the Titans (or at least Henry) credit for running with them. It wasn't a great game, but it was fun to watch an upset like that. I definitely thought KC was out of the game once the score hit 24-0, and was equally sure that KC would win as soon as they got it back to 24-21, but I still thought it might be at least close. I expect the NFC game next week to be close. I guess the 49ers are favored, but I wouldn't think by much. Really hoping the Titans continue their crazy run. I would love a Super Bowl where I'm really excited to see a team win, even if it's just for comedy's sake.

I don't really mean the plots of the TV episodes, but more the characters they're centered around. You're very much right that after hundreds of episodes, Trek has covered a lot of ground, but I'd like to see the films explore new characters.

I've never heard of this character, and I feel like I don't need to learn anything else about him after this trailer.

I found 1917 to be far more impressive than anything else. It's amazing to consider the work that went into planning and executing this film, but in the end, I'm not sure it's actually a better movie for it, and I think in some ways it might actually be worse. There are plenty of times where the continuous shot mechanic increased the tension and amped up the emotion, but those were probably the times that other directors would also have put in a long take. For much of the rest of the film, it was more distracting than anything. Forcing the camera into awkward angles or 180 degree turns where a standard cut would have felt more natural. I think the primary failure of the film is that the the script is just isn't very good. Forced into a very narrow box by the aesthetic demands, it fails to effectively communicate any emotion other than exhilaration or tension, save for one scene in a basement. The ending in particular was an emotional failure. Jammed right in after another incredible action sequence, it fell completely flat in a moment that should be anything but. 1917 isn't a bad movie by any stretch. Beyond being simply a production achievement it is a beautiful film. Even without being a single shot, there are scenes here well deserving of awards consideration. There are sections of the film I had to consciously remember to breathe, such is the efficacy of the action on display. Still, it's in the light of those highs that it's failures register all the more loudly. As a "one shot" film, 1917 is also a one trick pony. Able to brilliantly portray the tensions of war, but ineffective at much else. I'll also add that the Dolby Cinema presentation was incredible, and I highly recommend seeking such a theater out if you can. The sharpness of the picture, the HDR, and the sound were all just top notch. Without seeing it in another theater I don't know how much was unique to the Dolby experience, but I felt a crispness in everything that was lacking in other Dolby films.

Yeah, I could hardly devise a worse way to watch something I'd otherwise really want to see. I also can't imagine paying a monthly fee for something that is basically mobile only. I pretty much watch zero video on my phone longer than 30 seconds. There must be some kind of generational gap here that I fall into, but I don't think my parents want to watch this stuff on their phones either. Based mostly on the names involved, I feel like they're making a lot of content aimed at people over 30, but the audience for content of this length delivered in this way is primarily appealing to much younger people. Aka, people who really won't shell out for a subscription service with ads.

Amazing that the Academy misspelled "Uncut Gems" as "Joker" eleven times. Ford v Ferrari is exactly the kind of movie that I'd expect to get nominated for Best Picture, if it was a better movie. It was perfectly adequate, but certainly not BP worthy. So many movies I'd rather see in that spot. Jennifer Lopez really should have been in there for Hustlers, and both actors from The Lighthouse should have been nominated. The Best Supporting Actor category is filled with powerhouse names, but I feel like Pesci is the stand out performance. I love that Knives Out at least got a Screenplay nom. Margot Robbie got nominated for the wrong movie, even if she was the best part of Bombshell. Oddly enough, I think Production Design is a interesting category this year. All the noms are deserving, but 1917, Once Upon a Time, and Parasite are all very deserving. I'd have liked to see Apollo 11 in Docs. After all the love for Bohemian Rhapsody, it's crazy that Rocketman didn't get any love. I'd argue it's a better movie in every way. I'm impressed that Jojo Rabbit has gotten so many awards nods this year. Not that it's entirely undeserving, but where was this love for Waititi pre Ragnarok? Hunt for the Wilderpeople had better child acting, a better supporting performance, and was a better overall movie. I guess there's something about the Academy and Nazis. I wonder if this is the year for Tarantino. Once Upon a Time is probably the most awards friendly movie he's made, even if it's not his best. I didn't realize until I just looked it up that it's the first QT movie nominated for Picture, which really makes me think he's got a good shot. I'll be rooting for Parasite, but I'd be happy enough with Once Upon a Time winning a bunch. I feel like there are certain people we should just give Oscars every year, just to spice things up. Streep (she wasn't nominated this year, but could have been), Deakins, John Williams. It might be a bit early, but we might need to put Saoirse Ronan on there too.

It looks like Noah Hawley's movie won't involve the current Kelvin cast. While I like the cast, I also wouldn't mind seeing a Trek film that wasn't about the Enterprise. Like Star Wars, it might be time to move past the same stories we've been seeing since the 60s.

Quibi has been making waves for a while now, but while they've raised $1 billion, they've been largely secretive about the final product. While we still don't know a lot, we finally got our first look at the Quibi service, and a few details about how this streaming service is trying to stand out. Quibi is being headed up by former Disney Studios boss and founder of Dreamworks Jeffrey Katzenberg, and former CEO of HP and eBay Meg Whitman. The idea is to build a streaming service focused on short (10 minutes or less) videos aimed at mobile consumption. They call these videos "quick bites," which is where the name Quibi comes from. Launching on April 6th of this year, it'll cost $5 a month with ads, or $8 a month without ads. By focusing entirely on mobile, Quibi insists that it's not competing against Netflix and Disney and HBO, but things like Tic Tock or Instagram. They're pushing the narrative that there are two things that will help them stand out. One is quality. They've been putting that billion dollars to work hiring big name stars and directors. Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Lopez, Zac Efron, Idris Elba, Kristen Bell, Chrissy Teigen, Kendall Jenner, Tyra Banks, Steph Curry, 50 Cent, and Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo all have Quibi projects in the works. Katzenberg says their competition might spend $100 a minute on content. Quibi will be spending $100,000 a minute, putting their productions on par with early Game of Thrones episodes. They're also putting out a whole lot of content. They intend to have more than 175 original shows totaling more than 8,500 quick bites in the first year. The second differentiator is a signature technology they call "Turnstyle." The idea is that Quibi doesn't just stream one video to your phone, but two simultaneous streams: one in landscape and one in portrait. You can rotate your phone any time to seamlessly switch between the two. It won't just be two differently formatted versions of the same video either, Quibi creators will ship two instances of the video that have been framed entirely differently. In one example the landscape view is shot like a typical show, but the landscape view shows you the screen of the protagonist. Regardless of who they get to make this stuff, in the end you're still asking for people to spend money on a service to watch short videos on their phones. As an elder millennial, maybe I'm just too old for that to appeal to me. If I have 10 minutes to watch something, it hardly takes any time at all to bring it up on a TV. Between apps on my streaming box, chromecast, and airplay, if Spielberg directed something, I'm probably just going to watch it on my television, not my phone. If I'm out and about, wasting time on my phone, odds are I don't want to pull out some headphones and try and take something in, I'll probably just scroll through twitter or reddit. If I click a link and a video comes up and is 10 minutes long, I'm probably just going to close it and move on. Turnstyle is an interesting tech, and I can imagine some nifty ways to use it, but it also seems like something I won't actually want to use. With shifts in distribution platforms, we've often been promised new ways to watch things. With DVDs, Blu Rays, and then with streaming we were told all the ways that they would change the viewing experience: multiple angles, picture in picture, interactivity, live commentary; gimmicks all of them. Turns out that if you have something you want to watch, especially something really well crafted, it's usually the best experience to just sit there and watch it, not constantly screwing around to see what you might be missing from some other angle. Still, a lot of money is being thrown at this, and a lot of very capable people are making things for it. Quibi is planning on raising another billion dollars to make more content. Don't you want to watch a Spielberg movie, split into a dozen 7-10 minute chunks, with a week between each one, that you can only watch at night. Well, don't you?

Looks potentially great, or at least like a ton of fun.

I don't think that's been proven out at all. If we set aside the morality of the assassination itself, the ultimate question for the US becomes "are we safer in the world having taken this action." Based on the initial blowback, I'd argue that to not be the case at all. I don't think we've seen the end of the repercussions from this act, but from what we've seen so far, it might push us out of Iraq, or at the very least severely injure our relationship with the government there. It seems to have made Iran entirely abandon the nuclear deal, and destroyed any possibility for further diplomacy under this administration (and possibly future ones). We don't yet know if the missle attack was the full extent of direct Iranian action against US forces or if it was merely an opening salvo. At the absolute least I think it's far too early to say that this has decreased proxy attacks against the US. Just because we haven't had an immediate attack doesn't indicate a real sense of ongoing security.

This is what I've suspected and it'll be interesting to see how it works out. I think it's largely up to Halo Infinite to lead the way. How do you make a title that both sells your expensive new console but also plays well on 7 year old hardware? You really don't want to just have nicer textures and a few more polygons, but if you build to a gameplay scale that requires the new CPU or SSD, it may not scale down well. If Microsoft can provide the blueprint of taking advantage of the Series X power while also building a game playable on a launch Xbox One, they could have a big advantage moving into this next generation, seamlessly transitioning players in a way consoles haven't really done before. However, if they hold back their new games and Sony doesn't, it could hamper the output of all these new Microsoft studio games. Personally, I'm not too worried, and I probably make it out as a bigger challenge than it is. PC games have been scaling across generations of hardware for forever. Most big games are cross platform anyways, and it's hard to think of too many examples of games that just straight up wouldn't work without the newest tech.

That's what doing everything the hard way and shooting it all on 66mm/IMAX film will do. It's also the kind of trust you get after having Nolan's track record and fan base.

Clearly they know right from wrong, so the logical conclusion is that it's exactly the kind of company we should let regulate themselves. Of course the reality is that Boeing is too big to fail. They're too far integrated into the US government, and they have no real competition in the states. They'll get some slap on the wrist, maybe a few more execs will get pushed out with golden parachutes, and things will continue on as usual.

I've read that they might make more Witcher games, but without Geralt. I haven't played the end of the games, but assuming that they don't want to go forward in the timeline without him, maybe it does make sense to take advantage of his newfound popularity by remastering the older games.

I don't think anything was said that would indicate too much, but I think that was the industry expectation. I don't really play Forza, but I was under the impression it kind of already is there. Halo going the Destiny route makes sense. Gears also feels like it could support that model.

No chance they keep that shape. It'll be a box, and that will be fine.

So this is about the Benioff and Weiss series? Sure seems suspect. If it is true, I'm fine with the setting. There is such a wide range of what could be done that the setting alone is far from enough to have any expectation of if it would be any good or not.

Do they know what a catch is? or what constitutes pass interference? The point after rules are fun, but it also feels like they'll end up determining a lot of games.

Finished going through The Imagineering Story and it was interesting but it also pulled some real punches. I kind of wanted them to go more in depth about the founding of Disney World and Epcot, but that wasn't really within the scope of the story they were telling, so I understand. It was pretty up front about the failures of some of the other Disney parks, but when it came to recent developments, they really didn't go into the competition at all. Still, purely as a "isn't some of this stuff cool" show, it was fun enough.

It's mostly bone stock Tegra that they grabbed off of nVidia's back shelf because they desperately needed to get the console out the door. Still, it's a chip that was always designed to be a mobile gaming platform. It's biggest sin is that it's just old, but it at least does well enough on thermals and battery life. This alienware thing, like the many that have come before it, would almost certainly just be running some random intel laptop processor.

I suppose some people do want portable gaming, but there's nothing very interesting to me about this. There's something off putting about single purpose PCs in general to me. It's like a switch, but with the overhead of windows and without any custom chips to take advantage of the form factor.

I was very wrong about how popular the Switch would become, but I do stand by my initial criticism that Nintendo should have waited and put in a better chip. 6 months and they could have had a much more powerful console, but now they're going to be stuck supporting the underpowered first gen for a long time. I just don't expect much from any update. There is a lot they could do, but they clearly don't need to push it much, so I don't believe they will.