Patrick R

I am confused, what is the difference between Steam Link and the Steam streaming that already exists (that Jake already talked about doing on a podcast a while back?).

Super Mario World is king.

That part made me cry out "ah ha! hahaha!" out loud. That exact series of syllables.

So actually, this is a question I had. If you aren't well-versed in the culture and tropes of VN's/dating sims, is Hatoful Boyfriend still worth playing? Or will it just be too oblique for me to appreciate?

Hahaha, I definitely warp whistled World 7, if only to save lives/power-ups for World 8. I remember when I was 6 and the first level of World 8 (which I could get to consistently thanks to the whistles) seemed like The Most Extreme Video Game Challenge Of All Time. Last time I played through SMB3 the only save scumming I used was 1) to 100% the match game every time, so I always had power-ups and 2) on the first castle in World 8, where I kept dying because I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. This time around I felt confident enough to do it straight through (still skipping World 7) but I still had to restart a couple times. Once I got through worlds 1 & 2 without dying or using a power-up, I had enough momentum (and extra lives, since it's easy to consistently get stars at the end of each level) to get through the rest. You just have to save all your clouds and P-Wings for World 8.

Super Mario Bros 3. Beat this a couple times before, but this was the first time without abusing save states in World 8.

Just play Chu-Chu Rocket. The Great Game.

I will probably fire up Super Mario Bros 3 and play it through once every 3 to 4 years for the rest of my life.

I haven't, but I've heard good things and it's definitely high up on my watch list now. The novel has a very interesting structure, jumping in and out of the lives of 5 intertwining characters, some whose connection to the two leads is fairly limited, and I'm curious to see how much of that remains in the film.

If I recall an interview I read correctly, Spielberg was totally exhausted after Schindler's List and took a long break. He wasn't sure what to follow it with, and decided Jurassic Park 2 would be a nice and easy way back. So yeah, it seems like "potential to just phone it in" was high on the list of selling points for Spielberg to do this. I still think there's a couple of sequences in it, like the truck over the cliff and the raptors in the tall grass, that are really well done and exciting.

Welp, I read The Sense of an Ending and Mysterious Skin back to back. So I guess I'm on a roll of reading melancholic meditations on the toll time takes on one's life and memory. I'm up for any suggestions of titles to continue the theme. I'm considering going back and reading Norwegian Wood again.

There's a line between "bio-pic" and "based on a true story" that feels like it's blurring, based on how specific a period of time the movie's about. I've often said that Walk Hard is one of the most influential movies of the past decade, because it shamed away that kind of soup to nuts approach to bio-pics that Ray and Walk the Line had. I bet the structure of Spielberg's Lincoln would have been way different if it came out 10 years earlier. They still try to shove a bunch of traditional bio-pic stuff in that movie, but they don't dare show his birth or his young days as a lawyer. Malcolm X is one of the only examples of a birth to death bio-pic that totally works, but that's partly because Malcolm X is one of the few figures in contemporary American history whose life actually had three acts. It doesn't hurt that Spike Lee goes really transgressive places, as far as big-budget studio fare goes. I just saw Gone Girl. Really good dark pot-boiler.

I love that any Idle Thumbs thread can turn into a Social Justice thread at a moment's notice.

It sounds like you don't support trans rights all the way?

Well my podcasting partner Jim handles all the back end stuff, so I can't give you all the details, but we've been podcasting 2+ hour shows for 4 years and some time last year we reached the point where we had so much backlog we had to pay more per month to keep every episode available on iTunes. But I don't deal with the back-end, so I'd have to consult Jim for the details.

Libsyn is the service I use, it's pretty cool. Until your back catalog gets really big hosting is fairly cheap and it automatically tracks a bunch of stats.

Ah, ok, then we just disagree what the films are about fundamentally about. I think they are literally about mortality, not about relationships. The imagery in Toy Story 2 (like all the broken toy arms dragging Woody down the black hole of the trash can) is all about oblivion and death.

In terms of the broad thematics of "accepting one's mortality" in an animated kid's movie it doesn't seem that big. It's not like Toy Story 3 is Amour and it's about the fine details of the horror of actively losing one's life. Granted I haven't seen Toy Story 3 since I saw it in theaters, so I could very well be missing something, but to the best of my memory that movie isn't about the toys dying. They don't die. If it is in fact about accepting one's mortality (as in "we'll die today") then my point about taking it back still stands because they don't die. At the end of Toy Story 3 they are in the same place as they were at the end of Toy Story 2, except with way more good years of being played with ahead of them.

The moral of Toy Story 2 is "Look, one day Andy will be done with us and leave us in a box somewhere but that is fine, we embrace that as opposed to living forever in a sealed case where no one loves us."

You can't get points for having characters accept their mortality if it's immediately reversed and they live forever and then there's another 10 minutes where they get a curtain call because let's hear it for how great these characters are, this intellectual property of Disney is, anyway here's a couple more decades of Toy Story stuff, all you wonderful people. It's weird to me that people don't get that Toy Story 2 was already about the toys accepting their mortality. Toy Story 3 is just less graceful, subtle and ballsy about it.

I really want a It's Back To The Future Day equivalent website for this screencap, so you can just claim it's Twin Peaks day any old time you want.

Before I knew many trans*/genderqueer people it seemed like learning pronouns would be a lot of work, and thought a lot of it felt ridiculous and unnecessary but in practice it's been pretty simple. My partner is genderqueer and saying "they" is just natural to me now. We have a friend who uses ze and zir. You make a few mistakes at first, you apologize, but soon you don't have to think about it. The biggest problem isn't with your use, but when you venture outside your cool trans-friendly bubble, like at work. I use the words "partner" and "they" and it feels very conspicuous. I'd say about 50% don't care and don't ask, 30% ask why I use those words and then accept the explanation no problem, and 20% keep pushing and demand to know what kind of genitals my partner has. Which can suck because at that point I just walk away and let them realize on their own they committed a big faux pas, but I still have to work with them so it can be awkward.

I bought a ticket for a movie about a cranky old man who says "farewell jerks" and fucks off in a flying balloon house, so I was not disappointed when it turned out to be fantastical and not rooted in darkness (though, at the same time, not untouched by it). Also, Up makes me cry like a baby in two separate scenes every time I see it. Ratatouille is more interesting and beautiful, but Up turns me into a soggy sobbing heap.

Up is by far my favorite Pixar movie. I strongly disagree that it starts off with a somewhat realistic premise.

Agreed. It's definitely a nice thing about having a film podcast that's not tied to new releases. The world does not need another "hot take" on 50 Shades of Grey or the Oscar race.