Patrick R

All this talk about the Witness (which I want to play but can't afford) makes me want to go back and see if I can finally finish Braid. I'm curious: how many of the people who played Braid beat it and how many looked up walkthroughs? I'm pretty bad at puzzle games (I don't have the patience) but I wonder if it's something I'd be able to push through or if Braid was as hard for everyone else as it was for me.

Sure. I also want to point out that I do like Inside Llewyn Davis a whole lot, just not compared to the rest of the Coen Brothers work. This was the review that ended up coming the closest to how I felt. Also, I relate to Llewyn Davis a LOT. Like, scarily so (I literally was in the local folk music scene and acted and felt how he did). So when I say I don't think he's an essentially good person, or find the time I spend with him pretty meaningless, there's probably a lot of baggage there. But speaking of meaningless, Hudsucker Proxy is a film I find so goddamned charming I can't really fault it for being a total trifle. The second Jennifer Jason Leigh pops up as a Katherine Hepburn caricature, I'm hooked.

I bolded where I think we disagree. If Burn After Reading and Inside Llewyn Davis were even halfway attempting the same thing at all, I'd say that'd be a valid equivalency. Also, I don't know where the idea that Burn After Reading is meaningless is coming from. Maybe in a vacuum, but not in 2008 after 7+ of the Bush years.

A Serious Man is a really cool movie that over-reaches, particularly in it's third act. I totally understand people loving it to death (in fact, I assumed it was among most people's favorites) but I don't think the Coens thrive in naturalistic contexts, and without genre pastiche to build on their work often feels strained. Fargo is in the same boat at times, but at least Fargo doesn't throw an apocalyptic Hail Mary in the final shot. It's hailed as such a personal movie, but I find much more personal sentiment in Barton Fink, whose apocalyptic climax feels much more earned and powerful. And I haven't seen Inside Llewyn Davis recently enough to get into a detailed debate, but I can say I definitely disagree with your take. Hundreds of people who weren't Bob Dylan came out of the folk revival with wonderful vibrant careers. They just probably weren't complete assholes like Llewyn Davis.

It just doesn't work. I don't know exactly what happened, but it feels exactly like a knock-off Coen Brothers movie that'd play at Sundance and go directly to video, except Tom Hanks is in it. It's not a horrible movie, but the Coens don't have any horrible movies. It's just totally mediocre, which they usually aren't capable of.

I believe Burn After Reading to be the single greatest satire of the 21st century. So far. And I think you've put Inside Llewyn Davis far too high for what is essentially a meaningless story in a wonderful milieu (honestly not that different than O Brother, just far less entertaining), and Blood Simple far too low for the second best neo-noir film ever. The rest I won't quibble with, as I know Raising Arizona is beloved but I just happen to find it almost entirely unfunny.

COEN BROTHERS OFFICIAL POWER RANKING 1. Barton Fink 2. Burn After Reading 3. Blood Simple 4. No Country For Old Men 5. The Big Lebowski 6. Miller's Crossing 7. Fargo 8. The Man Who Wasn't There 9. O Brother Where Art Thou 10. A Serious Man 11. The Hudsucker Proxy 12. True Grit 13. Inside Llewyn Davis 14. Raising Arizona 15. Intolerable Cruelty 20. The Ladykillers Because there's no way any of their next four movies will be as bad as The Ladykillers.

Their preferred pronoun is "slink".

On the other hand, I've never gotten past world 4 of Braid, and I've enjoyed all my time with it, and don't regret buying it. I imagine I will never finish The Witness, but I'll probably still enjoy it.

And we wanted to stop him to ask questions, but like that he was gone down the road, off to another message board that needed him. But I'll never forget that lonesome drifter, nor his wordplay.

Death of the author. Riley becomes the second gender-queer Pixar character after Slinky. EDIT: And while I'm writing fan-fiction, the Inside Out sequel is about Riley exploring their gender expression with the help of the queer community of San Francisco, and the whole film is an exploration of trans* identity and also they lose all the re-heated Psychonauts jokes.

This is jumping ahead a bit because my partner wanted to finally see Inside Out, but I had a thought. If all the emotions in Riley's dads head are men and all the emotions in Riley's mom's head are women and all the emotions in Riley's head are of mixed gender, does that mean Riley is genderqueer? Or just that, as a prepubescent, she hasn't yet been completely slammed into a gender role by society? If she grows up and gets married and becomes a housewife will Fear and Anger be dragged away by men in white suits and replaced with feminine versions?

Cops don't shoot white people unprovoked. Often they don't shoot white people when they are provoked.

Griddle I command you to check whether or not the cat is dead in the box and also to not follow my commands.

Before they were picking fruit from an orchard, now they're cutting down the trees in the orchard. I thought the lighting was much better in Bug's Life than Toy Story.

My partner pointed out something they found funny about A Bug's Life: Flick's invention to harvest the grain may be quicker when there's a limited amount of time to raise the grasshopper's tribute, but the ending with all the ants cutting down the grass implies that Flick scored a victory over sustainable food production methods. The island will be deforested in a year.

I did. What I should have asked is if it was the genesis of this specific modern trend. The same way Black Christmas came before Halloween but it was Halloween that all the early 80's slasher movies were based on.

So clearly it's existed before. And I'm sure it can all be tied back to the "ugly duckling" theme in a lot of children's literature. But I feel like I don't watch American animated films anymore because they ALL feel like this now. Every single one has this exact same theme, this same boilerplate character arc. It's one of the things that's made A Bug's Life age so terribly. It feels like a modern third-rate studio also-ran. But you look at other animated films from the mid to late 90's, were they all this? You could remake A Bug's Life now in any setting you want to. I don't think the same could be said of Pixar's better films, like Toy Story (which, as pointed out earlier, is so specific to toys that Buzz's story is almost alienating) or Ratatouille or Up or Monsters Inc or Wall-E. Finding Nemo, on the other hand, could easily translate to any animal eco-system you'd like. Probably a reason I've never liked it that much. A parent looking for a lost child in a world full of wacky characters is incredibly generic. I did appreciate that the lame John Lasseter humor in A Bug's Life is mostly relegated to the Flick's journey to find the warriors. That poo-poo platter kind of joke is the worst. I feel like once a month I think of the "STALK/DON'T STALK" gag in Monsters Inc. and get mad all over again.

Generic really is the best word. Is this the genesis of the insufferable "Hey, protagonist, you're so different! Why don't you fall in line like the rest of us? Oh! You saved the day! You're the most special of us all!" children's film structure?

I've reviewed every movie I've seen on Letterboxd since the start of 2014. 831 films in total! And made a whole bunch of lists. Check me out on Letterboxd. Apologies in advances for almost certainly not liking Mad Max: Fury Road as much as you.

I will pay ten dollars for a lock of Jake Rodkin's hair. I already have my Steve, Chris, Nick, and Sean dolls, but I cannot begin my dark work until I have the whole set.

Very important top secret thoughts under the spoiler.

There are cats in Deus Ex that can die. I think at one point you come across a dead cat as part of the set dressing for the creepy underground world of the mole people. The animals in Deus Ex have their own AI, so if a cat and rat are in the same place, the cat will try to kill the rat. But if a greasel (a mutant hopping alien lizard thing) is in the same place as a cat, it will try to kill the cat. I used to use console commands to spawn a bunch of rats, cats, and greasels in the same place and watch them fight it out.

DING What is Bubsy 3D?

DING What is Deus Ex?