malkav11

Re: the scene with Laura and Coop in the woods and the scene of Pete fishing... As far as I could tell at no point during this season did they use archival footage that was not previously seen in the aired Twin Peaks seasons, Fire Walk With Me, or the cut scenes that form The Missing Pieces. Since obviously Laura never interacts with a 25 years older Cooper during those scenes in Fire Walk With Me/The Missing Pieces (or indeed, with Cooper at all outside of the Red Room), it can't be Sheryl Lee in that new sequence, and it doesn't really look like her either. Similarly, the scene with Pete fishing...you have the original pilot footage of him getting ready and leaving to go fish...and then it cuts to a slightly sharper scene where he's only ever seen from behind. So that's almost certainly new footage and it's just not Jack Nance - can't be that hard to get someone who looks close enough from behind. (Speaking of Jack Nance, I had no idea but apparently he was married to Catherine E. Coulson back in the 70s.)

I loved it but it doesn't get massively less disorienting and weird from there. (Though Anna stops blacking out so much, which does help.)

Minor correction: Gatiss is playing the Prince Regent, not the King. At the time, the King was still George III, but he was plagued by mental illness and unable to rule so his son (who later became King George IV) was acting in his stead.

I can't go with you on that last bit (X3 was godawful, SR merely bad) but otherwise your list is pretty spot on. That's the sort of stuff that made me dislike Superman Returns, not it being "boring" - a criticism I honestly can't remember ever hearing although I guess I wouldn't be surprised if it was out there. I mean, my strongest takeaway from the movie was Superman being stalkery and how horribly out of character it was. Though I guess maybe I'd take that over massive-collateral-damage Superman of Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman. I don't know. On a non-reply-y note, you're partly right about Bryan Singer, Danielle. He was the director on the most recent two X-Men movies (Days of Future Past and Apocalypse), he merely produced First Class. First Class was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who I think was a bit better (though I did like Future Past okay), and who I still most fondly remember from Stardust.

Danielle, the two podcasts prior to this one, you started your Weekend Project by mentioning you wanted to recommend a book you were reading, but you weren't done so you were going to do it next week. Well, this week came and you still didn't recommend it. What gives?

I don't think Rob was snarking about the Apple decision because of some purported tie to DRM, but rather Apple's attempt to sell "now you can't use traditional headphones" as a benefit to the consumer. Which it surely is not. I mean, I'm not going to be invested in that particular decision unless the big Android manufacturers (particularly Samsung) follow suit (though they are apparently itching to do just that), and even then not super invested because I play my music (and, more importantly, podcasts) on my 160 GB iPod Classic like God intended...but I have occasionally enjoyed using Spotify on my phone, and on one or two occasions where I've forgotten my iPod, being able to substitute my phone was handy. PS: Super mad at whoever at Apple ditched the Classic, though. The Touch may do things I don't need it to, like, y'know...anything other than playing audio... but it's more expensive, has inferior capacity, and having to wake the device to use touch controls is not at all helpful when you need to rapidly pause stuff at work because a coworker needs your attention.

I mostly listen at work. I can't focus on audio content if I'm not doing something with my hands, but if it requires very much active thought that steals my focus from the audio also. So it's work (where 95% of what I do is fairly repetitive and can be handled more or less on autopilot), or playing certain types of Video game - i.e. a clickfest ARPG like Marvel Heroes or Diablo III, one of the Truck Simulators, grinding in a JRPG or unvoiced MMO, etc. But games tend to be sneaky about stealing my focus so I can only listen to non-narrative podcasts with them - chatfests and interviews and such.

I really recommend They Look Like People, currently streaming on Netflix. Very tight, subtle little indie horror film that does a lot with a few very unsettling visuals and strong casting of a few key roles.

The three main tabletop RPG podcasts I listen to are: One Shot: A revolving crew of folks, many from the improv comedy scene but roping in various other sorts of nerd from time to time, do one shot sessions of a wide variety of RPGs. More indie than traditional, but the hosts are big fans of D&D so there's off and on delves into one or another stripe of D&D and at least a couple of Dungeon World runs. A fair bit of Dread, also, the horror RPG that uses Jenga as a resolution mechanic. For the most part it's a very light-hearted podcast (the Call of Cthulhu episode was a Scooby Doo meets the Mythos take, for example), but every now and then it gets serious, like when they tried the in-development Apocalypse Engine horror game Bluebeard's Bride, run by one of the creators of the game, or their Dracula Dossier episodes, run by Ken Hite. I love both the wide range of systems they explore and their senses of humor (for the most part, at least). It's not uncommonly side-splittingly hilarious. The Jank Cast: Mainly discussion and advice, which I only listen to sporadically since I have little opportunity to play RPGs myself, but periodically they do really good actual play sessions of various indie RPGs. They've been the most mature (in the positive sense) and serious roleplayers of the casts I've listened to. Fair warning, they do get a bit dark sometimes. RPPR Actual Play: They release full sessions at a time (occasionally two at once) and tend to be at least 2.5 hours long, sometimes much longer, so keeping up is a bit of an ask, but they do a pretty solid mix of one shots and moderately lengthy campaign games. I quite enjoy everyone in their current mix of players, though they've had a couple of questionable folks over the years, mostly early on. One of their regulars does have a verbal tic that can be very distracting in the early episodes but has moderated a great deal over the years. Lots of stuff to check out but my biggest recommendations would be any campaign or one shot run by Caleb Stokes (campaigns: Know Evil, the Spared and the Spoiled, their current Brutalists and God's Teeth runs; one shots include Lover in the Ice and Bryson Springs), and the Call of Cthulhu scenarios that Adam Scott Glancy ran for them at various cons, which are full of lots of insane but true historical details.

What frustrates me about the argument surrounding difficulty/accessibility options in games like Dark Souls is that so often the people who are against it seem to be motivated by this weird, paternalistic assumption that they are protecting people from their own folly in wanting an experience other than the precise one that that person values. But the reality is, people value very different things about the games they play, and the only ones who get to define the "intended" experience are the developers.

Yeah. 12 Monkeys the series is very much an exploration of the idea behind the movie as straight time travel thriller sort of thing. Some interestingly creepy bits (Manhunter alum Tom Noonan features in a significant role, for example), but it's not the very surreal, nightmarish take of the movie. (And it doesn't even attempt to ape Gilliam's signature style.) Though, FWIW, I think the movie does come to a fairly definitive conclusion re: Cole's sanity.

So it is. Huh. I strongly suspect that that means the PS3 version will be the dramatically inferior version, but being able to run it at all is something.

That would be rad, but no, the Guild Master bonuses were 1) 10% extra exp for anyone in a guild with a Guild Master (don't have to be in charge I don't think), and 2) 3 codes for 30 set 1 packs each, as I recall. The latter were of course theoretically to hand out to your guildies to give them a leg up getting going but I confess I ended up grabbing the packs myself, and I bet most people with that tier's rewards did likewise.

I was excited for Persona 5 back when I thought it was going to be on PS3, which is a system I own. I don't have a PS4 and have no plans to get one, even for Atlus. I mean, maybe they'll get around to doing a PC version? Weirder things have happened.

It's set in the (late, I think, given that it has a Thatcher speech) 1970s. Albeit a really weird version thereof. It's pretty fucked up. I think I'm glad I saw it, but I have no idea if I would recommend it.