Greatoneshere

I think the Doug Liman/Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt movie is actually a lot of fun, but I saw they changed the premise here some. Is it still good compared to that? Did you like the movie?

The weekend recap: -Life of Pi (2012; dir. Ang Lee): 7/10 -A Knight's Tale (2001; dir. Brian Helgeland): 7/10 -The Equalizer 2 (2018; dir. Antoine Fuqua): 6.5/10 -The Equalizer 3 (2023; dir. Antoine Fuqua): 6.5/10 -One Piece: Movie 6 - Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island (2005; dir. Mamoru Hosoda): 7.5/10 -The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006; dir. Mamoru Hosoda): 7.5/10

Is it ridiculous when it's Henry Kissinger? I guess not every time then.

Imagine caring and wanting to be plugged into things that affect us all on both macro and micro levels.

They've confirmed they'll have custom modes like the StarCraft/Brood War days, but not sure how robust it will be yet.

I mean, it is by the guy who did Sexy Beast, Birth and Under the Skin. That being said, I hope to check this out soon.

Yeah I'm with you at this point. Still good but now wasting time. Episode 4 meandered a little too much, repeating plot beats from the first three episodes. With only 6 episodes total as opposed to the usual 8 for True Detective, they'll have to wrap up at least some plotlines in the next episode if they hope to have enough time to stick the landing. It's definitely possible, hope these last two end the season strong.

Right after my post making clear the guys making this are WarCraft III and StarCraft II vets, not StarCraft/Brood War vets. Go figure.

For those who may not know, Stormgate is from ex-StarCraft II and WarCraft III devs, not StarCraft/Brood War devs. I don't think that means anything (those games were great) but founders/developers Tim Morten and Tim Campbell joined Blizzard after StarCraft/Brood War came out. This still looks good, though ZeroSpace may be looking better. This game also has some old school Command & Conquer alumni as well.

Man, I'm going to miss this show when it's gone. Even though it hasn't been as tightly written in later seasons (due to longer episode runtimes I think), it's still great. This was a great opener, nice to see Sharlto Copley in something mainstream, some banger lines tonight: "You know what I mean?" "I know what you mean. Why do you keep asking me if I know what you mean? It wasn't that difficult. It's not science. You made a very simply statement. Yeah, I know what you mean." "Have you noticed that when you take a picture, you don't look nearly as good as you do when you look in the mirror? Because the mirror is how you see yourself and the photo is how you're seen." *moving on* "We can't both be Tutu. We can't have two Tutu's." "No, you can't have two Tutu's." "I'm disappointed. I was expecting more from my childhood hero." "I've been expecting more from myself my whole life and it's just not there."

This movie was darkly hilarious to me and John Leguizamo was great in this.

You are correct - of the two episodes he wrote, the second one was the season 1 finale. I believe he wanted to resolve the case but whoever instead forced the same case to continue into season 2, ala Twin Peaks, and Pizzolatto balked and walked away and created True Detective instead in response, a show whose season 1 case is resolved in the same season.

I'm pretty sure Schitt's Creek and Ted Lasso are comedies or comedy-dramas at best (known as a dramedy). What other genres could even apply to them? Schitt's Creek and Ted Lasso aren't doing anything that different than Parks and Rec, The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, etc. They are all primarily comedies with some heart/feels to them, that's all.

I agree, but his ire should be directed at the studio for making a season without him. But now that it's done, shitting on the other creator's actual work when it's clear they loved his show seems petty. I mean, it could be done to him, since he co-wrote the screenplay to the Chris Pratt/Antoine Fuqua The Magnificent Seven remake. Say William Roberts, who solely wrote the screenplay to the original 1960 The Magnificent Seven, or Akira Kurosawa, who co-wrote and directed Seven Samurai; either/or came out and was told, without having seen Pizzolatto's version of The Magnificent Seven, that "such and such" happened in it that was different than their work and they responded with: "haha, so stupid". It's a dismissive thing to say, obviously both those people are dead but if they were alive. So it comes off as hypocritical to be insulting towards someone doing a good job building on your work while you write a remake of someone else's work at the same time and doing that worse. Pizzolatto is now trying to get a Magnificent Seven TV show off the ground (or was) so he's really all in on laying his work on top of someone else's. I like Pizzolatto's work (generally), but this is the same guy who butted heads so much with director Cary Joji Fukunaga during season 1 to the point he wrote a caricature of him in True Detective season 2 (the director character in that season). And I'm pretty sure having three seasons of Pizzolatto's True Detective out now it's become clear that a lot of season 1's greatness was just as much thanks to Fukunaga in retrospect as it was Pizzolatto. It's pretty clear Pizzolatto is a petty guy (he's probably mad that it's true Fukunaga, and not just him, was a significant part of what made season 1 such a stone cold classic). This is also the guy who wrote (before True Detective) two episodes in the first season of the show The Killing and got so fed up writing for that show he left to go do True Detective instead (I think because they dragged out the mystery of the killer in that show and he didn't want to do that, which is fair, I haven't seen the show). The guy clearly doesn't work well with others.

Well, Nic Pizzolatto has made it clear he hates making the supernatural real because it dulls critical thinking (which his what Rust says in season 1). Which is why he "pumped the brakes on it". I don't disagree with him despite enjoying the supernatural material in this season. He has come out with some pretty aggressive responses to fans who aren't liking this newest season (calling some story choices this season "stupid" despite not watching the newest season) and Issa Lopez has responded (very classy response compared to Pizzolatto's bitterness). ‘True Detective’ Creator Nic Pizzolatto Dissed Season 4; New Boss Issa López Says He’s ‘Entitled’ to His Beliefs: ‘That’s His Prerogative’ VARIETY.COM "True Detective: Night Country" boss Issa Lopez says show creator Nic Pizzolatto is "entitled" to his beliefs and if he wants to diss Season 4 he can.

That and I'm sure they'll be ending his character in this one so he doesn't have to keep coming back. It's great for him to come back for one more go around to close his character out though.

I quote it all the time.

That's an excellent addition - happens a lot. Just a certain vindictiveness there and cognitive dissonance.

Not being for a child tax credit when you don't have kids is sort of like being against student loan forgiveness for those who already paid back all of their student loans. There's this backhanded vindictive quality that: "others should suffer like I did" rather than anyone getting any relief, even if you won't either way. Bitterness is not good policy.

Agreed but if you're saying that makes all of his work "nonsensical bullshit" because of that I'd say you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Right, but it's not trying to be Control. Again, it may just not be for you (like walking simulators), but there's a difference between calling something like Death Stranding or Alan Wake II as "just not for me" and how EvilAsh put it, which is "nonsensical bullshit". There's nothing all that nonsensical about Death Stranding. Weird/strange isn't the same as nonsensical. We can but there's more to be said on the topic, how can there be any discourse if no one discusses anything with examples and in detail? But okay, you just don't like the games due to story vs. gameplay ratio, that's all well and good, but that doesn't make them objectively bad either. I don't care if you like the games, I'm not trying to get you to like them. A game that isn't for you doesn't mean it isn't good is all I'm saying. That's the distinction I'm drawing here between this stuff and actual nonsensical bullshit. But anyways all good.

That's crazy it passed the House, but now for the Senate . . .

But we love plenty of games with little to no traditional gameplay like Life is Strange or Soma or the Telltale games like The Walking Dead where the general lack of gameplay was found wanting (which I don't believe holds water for Alan Wake II - you do plenty of exploring and light puzzle solving throughout the game regardless of combat; exploring and solving puzzles and finding collectables all count as gameplay). So we heap praise on plenty of games with hardly any gameplay but when we get a full on triple AAA slick experience of the same suddenly it's a problem? Why single out Death Stranding and Alan Wake II (for example)? I do agree that's what peoples' problem is with Alan Wake II but I'm not sure it holds water and even if it did, who cares there's a lack of gameplay when its got plenty else going for it, just like Life is Strange and Soma, etc.

I'll try to address each of your points in turn. Yes, a failure is still a failure but a failure can have more artistic value to the viewer than a safe, predictable success. Obviously an interesting success is preferable, and to be clear I think Death Stranding and Alan Wake II are interesting successes, not interesting failures. I only said interesting failures to make the point clear that even an interesting failure, much less an interesting success, will be a more diverse and unpredictable experience than yet another safe success that does everything it does well but plays it safe where everything is straightforward. If you don't see a clear maturation of storytelling going from Metal Gear to MGS to MGS3 to MGS5 to Death Stranding, I think we might be playing different games. Death Stranding's storytelling is a good bit more human, dramatic, better shot and directed and written. His storytelling has improved immensely from the MGS1/MGS2 days. He has more discipline than ever in terms of the issues people have lobbied at him (too many cutscenes) by having his last two games, MGS5 and Death Stranding, both be sandbox open worlds where there is 3-4 more times gameplay than there are cutscenes. Before that wasn't the case, and he's refined his gameplay and opened it up with each passing game, especially since Peace Walker. Okay, you say a lot here without actually saying a lot. You just say this stuff is shit without naming examples within either game as to how or in what ways are they shit? I played both games in full and I don't see what you're seeing. I don't have low expectations for storytelling in games, many people watch Youtube videos of just all the cutscenes strung together of these games because they are that enjoyable/interesting to watch, pretty sure that means the storytelling is engaging for all kinds of people, not just gamers with low expectations. And naming Naughty Dog reiterates a point that's not relevant here - Naughty Dog makes a very different kind of game than Hideo Kojima or Sam Lake. Again, you just picked a rather straightforward storytelling game studio and game series (both Uncharted and TLOU; both of which I love). Like, what Kojima and Lake are doing for video games is akin to what filmmakers like David Lynch or David Cronenberg or Alejandro Jodorowsky or Gaspar Noe or Nicolas Winding Refn (who shows up in Death Stranding) are doing for films at a triple AAA level. These are all arthouse/avante garde directors whose work sometimes has mass crossover appeal but can also frequently be divisive and alienating. Are they all shit filmmakers when they get too weird or abstract or strange? I'm not seeing what Kojima or Lake are doing as much different. Are they as good? Hard to say since it's different mediums (films vs. games) but I think they have done as good a job as you can at marrying the two (avante garde storytelling and games) at a triple AAA level as things currently stand (just getting funding for such strange projects alone these days is very hard to do). Just saying: "these games are shit because there's way more story than gameplay" and "the storytelling is shit" are not real criticisms.

Which website are you using specifically? For Berserk the one I used got me the JP blurays with the English dub added in - looked pretty amazing, was a pretty hefty download.