Patrick R

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Everything posted by Patrick R

  1. Sometimes I feel they play bad for show, because it's funnier that way. At this point I think I only listen to the Bombcast because I like staying abreast on the industry and it's the only podcast I know that cuts so wide a path between news and games they've been playing and emulation stuff and I like when Jeff talks about video game history. If someone can recommend another video game podcast that has the same approach but less of a tendency to reduce all games to "You upgrade your weapons, there's a skill tree. The shooting feels good. It feels tight. The netcode is ok." I'd check it out. Waypoint is good but more focused on a few topics per episode and I can't really get behind any of the episodes where Austin isn't there, which is disappointingly frequent (if understandable). And then Beastcast has Dan. The only other non-Thumbs video game podcast I've listened to is Crate and Crowbar, which had bad audio and seemed to focus exclusively on PC Games.
  2. Mario Bava - Godfather of Italian Horror

    Knives of the Avenger is a 1966 barbarian/fantasy film that Bava got assigned and shot in about a week. Barbarian movies have never been my thing, and this very low-budget small-scale story is no different. Maybe if there was more of a magic element other than an oracle/witch in the opening scenes. The rest of the film is just sword fights, grappling and a whole lot of knife throwing. Weirdly the trailer is in black and white, even though it's a color film. It's color choices are honestly the most interesting thing about it. Everything is orange! The eponymous Avenger has a bizarrely orange head of hair and it seems like every scene there's an orange fire or an orange sunset or an orange article of clothing.
  3. Movie/TV recommendations

    I agree entirely with juv3nal. Streets of Fire is an absolutely beautiful movie and if you have any fondness at all for Jim Steinman (songwriter behind Meatloaf's seminal 70's theater rock album Bat Out Of Hell and also the 80's hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart") it is a must see. A MUST SEE.
  4. Movie/TV recommendations

    I agree with you on Escape From LA (though I can't give it a pass in any way, I really think it is completely unredeemably awful), but I think Big Trouble in Little China is pure charm, bolstered on the running joke that big strapping all-American John Wayne-type hero is actually a total ineffectual goon and that Dennis Dun does all the work and gets the girl. There is a thoughtful subversion of the white savior trope that you don't expect out of a movie so unrelentingly silly. But I've come to understand it's more of an acquired taste, so you aren't alone in not getting the love.
  5. Mario Bava - Godfather of Italian Horror

    Black Sunday is the greatest gothic horror film of all time, what I always wished Universal's monster movies were like before I developed a taste for them. It's well-paced, gruesome, atmospheric, fevered, and insanely beautiful nightmare of a film, one that practically dares you not to cheer for the fabulously wicked witch played by Barbara Steele. The opening (which I linked to the original post) is so astounding, so strong, so perfect that it's kind of a miracle that the film can keep it up past the credits. But it does. Oh oh it does. If there's an argument to be made that Mario Bava is one of the best cinematographers of all time, this film is certainly Exhibit A.
  6. Mario Bava - Godfather of Italian Horror

    Baron Blood was Mario Bava's follow-up to Bay of Blood (AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve, the greatest horror title ever) though it has very little to do with that film other than being a proto-slasher film with some good moments of violence. As the above still may imply, Baron Blood is more of the gothic tradition, a film about a wicked torture-baron (is there any other kind of baron?) from the 16th century who is brought to life by his dopey descendant, who is fresh out of college and looking to have some fun by fucking around with seances and black magic incantations. The plot is honestly not important, and whenever a scene of exposition comes up you can tell that Mario Bava couldn't be less interested. And there's no shortage of scenes like that. But when the horror kicks off his absolutely beautiful photography elevates this into a memorable horror film. Mario Bava had a distinct style that combined chiaroscuro shadows with garish color gel lighting that can be absolutely stunning when it kicks in. Unfortunately it kicks in far less here than, say, Black Sabbath. But still, look at this! Pretty great. Tonight I'm seeing my absolute favorite Bava film, Black Sunday, on the big screen and I couldn't be more excited.
  7. Road Trip Recommendations

    Listening to an artist's entire discography in chronological order is a really fun thing to do if you have the time, and you have the time.
  8. Movie/TV recommendations

    Oh Hello is a recorded Broadway comedy special on Netflix and it's one of the funniest things I've seen in a long while. Comedians John Mulaney and Nick Kroll play Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland, two 70-something New York City weirdos who love Steely Dan and drugs. It's largely a satire of bad theater cliches and one-man shows, but it's also just fucking crazy and weird and funny. Really really amazingly funny. Steve Martin cameos.
  9. Mario Bava - Godfather of Italian Horror

    BLACK SABBATH IS SO GREAT. EVEN BETTER ON THE BIG SCREEN. AH! SO COOL. It's a three-story anthology horror film hosted by a very cheeky Boris Karloff, assuring us that some of our fellow audience members are vampires. "Il Telefono" is still the weak link, but on the big screen it's still of interest because of Bava's amazing cinematography. Even if nothing really happens, nothing really happens in an absolutely GORGEOUS way. People slowly looming, their faces going in and out of shadow...so great. "I Wurdalak" is still a banger, like a lost Hammer film with all the filler cut out, except much much more beautiful and colorful. One of the great Boris Karloff performances, with a tone and set that feel straight out of an opera. The initial moments of Karloff returning home and no one knowing how to handle it is absolutely chilling, the household of an abusive patriarch. "La goccia d'acqua" remains actually truly terrifying, a total fucking nightmare and easily some of the scariest horror of the decade. THAT FACE FLOATING AROUND JESUS. Just watch the video above! The most beautiful color photography of Bava's career, which makes it a shoe-in for most beautiful color photography of all time. And that goofy ending is one of the most endearing things I've ever seen.
  10. FUCK OFF SEAN CONNERY

    I think every Indiana Jones sequel is equally worse than the one before it, and Crystal Skull really doesn't stand out in that regard.
  11. Masculinity

    Yeah, I don't think this thread needs to necessarily turn into me picking apart this article (which is honestly more of a short piece of creative writing than an actual article) as I don't really have a problem with it on it's own, just in the context of a discussion about Nick Robinson sexually harassing people. But I disagree that it actually describes emotional abuse in any way specific enough to be meaningful. Your anecdote about your female friends is all I need to hear to know the term has meaning, even if my attempts to discern that meaning by Googling "softboy" and "softboy culture" left me way more confused than anything.
  12. Masculinity

    Those articles just did a bad job of conveying that, then, because the one linked doesn't describe emotional abuse at all.
  13. Masculinity

    I think "softboy" is like "fuckboy" where it's fine as a humorous term to express a specific frustration with male tendencies but is ultimately so vague and subjective that it means nothing to talk about "softboy culture". Then again I'm a dude who doesn't date straight dudes, so maybe I just haven't dealt with it. But both articles about "softboys" I read seem like a list of specific grievances of bad romantic partners that a) aren't the same as each other don't have anything to do with sexual harassment?
  14. I think I have also heard Austin Walker use it in jest, so it has reach.
  15. Life

    I don't think you owe it to him or yourself to have a verbal conversation. It seems like it would quickly turn into a debate and you don't need to put that pressure on yourself to out-rhetoric a childhood hero in order to defend your feelings. In some ways I think direct communication is a worse way of exchanging ideas because it can quickly turn into "who is better at talking?" and make someone person conflate their ability to speak their points with the validity of those points. "It would take a novel" seems like a cop-out to me and if he cares enough he can write a response.
  16. I Had A Random Thought...

    I think the worst category of actor is "Bland White Dude Lead In A Stephen King Adaptation".
  17. Movie/TV recommendations

    Yesterday I discovered that Martin McDonagh, the Irish playwright who wrote and directed the films In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, directed a short film with Brendan Gleason (one of the best actors around) in 2004 that won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. It's called Six Shooter and it very much operates in the pitch black tone of In Bruges, mixing a witty script with absolutely horrible things happening to already emotionally devastated people. The humor gets pretty dark but it's also really really funny, and if you liked In Bruges I'd recommend it.
  18. Masculinity

    I wrote a big long thing but ultimately I'm not invested enough to actually engage it all so I'll just say I found that "softboy" article way more confusing than clarifying, especially in how it connects to anything regarding Nick Robinson.
  19. The McElroy Family of Products

    And I personally have found most of the conversation around this respectful, measured, and helpful. Most people are not breaking any boundaries, and using this as an opportunity to examine larger issues of harrassment and silence without infringing on anyone's privacy. Sure, if you just search "Nick Robinson" on Twitter you're gonna find some real assholes, (including a contingent of gator people who are just trying to stir shit all both sides), but I've been impressed at how well everyone is handling a really shitty and painful situation. Including Nick Robinson, whose silence seems to anger some people but is probably better than any sort of immediate reaction he could have made. As a side note, I have no idea what the fuck a "soft boy" is, so this has been confusing to me on another level.
  20. Movie/TV recommendations

    Ended up seeing another Demme memorial screening and can now say the same about Melvin & Howard, a truly unique and beguiling comedy that's ostensibly about the "real life" story of Melvin Dummar, the gas station attendent who was allegedly bequeathed 1/16th of Howard Hughes' estate, but actually is an incredibly shaggy character drama/comedy about a hapless blue collar guy constantly struggling with money, no matter how much he has. The Howard Hughes will doesn't even factor into the story until the last 15 minutes. It's a beautiful human film packed with memorable scenes and interesting characters, and slowly discovering the wild winding structure of the film is a real treat. I highly recommend it, but don't go in expecting the high concept comedy the premise seems to imply.
  21. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

    I feel like with all sitcoms you have to pretend everyone has some sort of head trauma. Unless the show has no interest in warmth or character growth or "lessons" (your examples of Seinfeld and Arrested Development) the emotional age of your average sitcom character is (18-x) where x= # of seasons the show's been on. By the end of Parks and Rec it mostly felt like a show about 12 year olds singing about friendship and hugging. I think that's probably just a necessity, both for the sake of plot contrivance and mass audience appeal. But I can't think of a single comedy show interested in nurturing it's characters humanity where they don't come across as immature all the time. And I honestly think Crazy Ex-Girlfriend handles this better than most. EDIT: I should say, I think this applies to American sitcoms. I haven't seen all that many British sitcoms but it wouldn't surprise me if there was less of this there, as I can immediately think of one show (The Office) where this isn't the case.
  22. https://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/department-of-new-business-episode-0/1600-2046/ Ben and Abby's enthusiastic yet very awkward friendship is one of my favorite recent Giant Bomb developments and I think the podcasts they do are a bizarre combination of completely awful and completely compelling.
  23. Don't know if this was mentioned, but ancillary to the slowed-down Chipmunks:
  24. Blade Runner 2049

    Maybe he found a way to take it with him.