tberton

I'm assuming this was a typo, but now I really want a movie about Roland Barthes as an action hero determined to kill all authors.

The movie about Turing is called The Imitation Game and it's unfortunately only alright.

I get emails from my old university and I just graduated last year. Also, they know I have a degree in Canadian Studies - how much money could they possibly think I have?

I've been interpreting the "feminist" label here as a lens as well, not necessarily a sticker to put on the DVD case. I will say this though: there might be an argument about Ripley's gender being secondary to her interactions with the crew, but the violence in the film is unmistakably sexual. Kane dies because he was impregnated through his mouth. Ash tries to stuff a rolled magazine down RIpley's throat. The alien kills people with a phallic appendage that comes from its mouth (that is itself another mouth). I don't think I'm capable of making any deep reading of that imagery, but it's pretty clear to me what it's communicating.

It also only takes a couple of hours to complete. So worth it. One of the strongest emotional reactions I've ever had to any creative work.

Expresso is a pretty good one. Never heard "cup of chino," but I like it.

This is going off the rails slightly, but having just watched Aliens last night, I had the exact opposite reaction to Ripley's impression of Burke. She seems to dislike him right off the bat: a company man who's always looking to minimize and explain away the horrors she's faced.

She tries to get to the shuttle, but is blocked by the Alien, so she tries to cancel the self-destruct because she now has no way off the ship. Gwardinen, I noticed that stuff with Lambert too, although to defend her a bit, she, like Ripley, was one of the only characters with good ideas in the movie, although they're coded more as fear than as sound thinking. She wants to get out of the derelict as soon as the find the skeleton and once Dallas dies she's the first to suggest the shuttle. She does so because she's scared in both cases, but in both cases her idea was the right one. Does anybody have any thoughts on Mother? It seems significant for this discussion, but I can't quite wrap my head on the implications. On the final scene and the skivvies, this is just me, but it doesn't feel exploitative. It feels like somebody relaxing, trying to get rid of the burden on them. Her underwear may not be completely utilitarian, but it's not skintight either. The plumber's butt feels sloppy, in the way you are when you're taking off clothes just to get to bed. And, as mentioned, paired with the spacesuit, it really underlines the sexual assault (barely) metaphors going on - although that might not be a good thing. I don't know, I'm interested to hear more interpretations of that. Agreed on the anti-capitalist themes too. The sequel (which I know we're not supposed to talk about in here) drives that home a lot further, but the fact that the first conversation is "when and how much are we getting paid" sets the tone pretty strongly here. Speaking of conversations, did anybody notice that the dialogue is really hard to hear in a lot of places, often purposefully, like in the first medbay scene and when they're talking over the radios? That seems important to me, although maybe not for the feminist themes in particular.

I'm surprised neither Chelsea nor Adam brought up Flower and Journey in the discussion about the pure joy of flying in games. Flight is really central to both of them and they both do it extremely well.

Regarding the conversation at the beginning of the episode: have either you, Soren, or Brad actually played Depression Quest? Given the centrality of Zoe Quinn and DQ to GamerGate's "concerns," it's worth having an understanding of that game in any discussion of that "movement." Also, it's extremely relevant to any discussion about "narrative games" versus "mechanical games" since it marries its mechanics to its narrative and message about as well as any game I've ever seen.

Speaking of the Bechdel test, I don't if this was brought up when people suggested we watch Alien for this, but it's appropriate, since Alien is the punchline to the comic strip that originally introduced the Bechdel test.

Just picked up the Alien Anthology blu-ray collection today, so I think I'll get to this tonight. I'm pumped. I've only see Alien once a few years ago, so it will be fun to go back. The horror stuff will be tough though, since I'm a big baby.

Sour Patch kids are the best candy. No idea if Sean likes them, but they are the best.

I mentioned this earlier, but for me the fantastical stuff works a lot better in The Bone Clocks because it's so much more central to what the book is about, whereas in Thousand Autumns it felt more tangential and thus sillier. I agree about that chapter, though, osmosisch. Mainly, I think Marinus was the wrong character to have as a POV there. One of the younger Horologists, or even their non-immortal helper, would have been a much more interesting viewpoint to look through.

I would fucking love to have a discussion about feminism and Bitch Planet. Maybe if this is successful we could do a thread about feminism and comics, especially since I know we've had some discussions sprout up around that.

Fuck, he even has an appropriately punny name.

Honestly, if he's only 16, you should at least be able to get some counter-arguments in his head. I know I had all sorts of stupid opinions at 16, and even if hearing counters wouldn't change my mind immediately, that stuff can still stick with you and change your mind down the road.

Yeah, the Alberta election is quite heartening, although just to make a couple corrections to your post, miffy, the Parti Quebecois is actually a provincial party only - it's the Bloc Quebecois that fields candidates on a federal level. That leads me into my second point, which is that I think it's tough to draw too many straight lines between provincial parties and federal ones in Canada. There are a ton of differences between them and lots of examples of a province going one way provincially and another way federally. So I'm not too confident about what this election means for how Alberta will vote federally. Still, though, I'm happy for you guys.

In honour of J. Allard, the one vehicle should be a bike. And their should be a gang of bike thieves and you should be able to fuck them up.

This is one of the best pictures ever.

Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Ignore me then.

I'm pretty sure Miss Marvel has been doing well and it's been great PR, so I doubt Kamala will get killed. The general impression I've seen is that Secret Wars is meant to bring the comics more in line with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and since the Inhumans factor pretty heavily into that, I imagine Kamala will be sticking around.

I really like First Contact.

I'm pretty sure I've used most of those phrases in real life. I guess I'm a stereotype.

Shooting gallery minigames in Zelda always hook me. I just love shooting galleries, I guess.