Mangela Lansbury

Nocturne is held in the highest regard, yeah. The plot is a little vague and sparse, and it hilariously features Dante from Devil May Cry. It's frustratingly hard at times and is mostly about the gameplay, which I liked when I played it in high school but wouldn't have the time or patience for now. The Persona games are better plotted games that are actually about something. They approach some heavy topics deftly and smartly, and the portable versions are great. 3 and 4 are kind of split into two halves -- you dungeon crawl and you live as a high school student who goes to school and makes friends -- and usually people like one or the other more. They're very long, but good, games. They're more about the characters and the plot and the gameplay gets a little stale.

So this popped into my head during my commute home tonight. I hope Don ends up in California and runs into Joan and her man in LA or something and we get to see her happy and fulfilled and successful. I'm not saying we will, but it would be nice. I pretty much just want to see Joan doing well because it would make me happy to know she's alright.

SPJ is only ever really used to tear people down anymore. Just about the only time I've seen them mentioned in the last few years has been weirdly angry people citing their code of ethics to criticize first Wikileaks and Manning, then Snowden and Greenwald. Does anyone actually take them seriously?

Listening to the cast, I realized that Pete's plot mattered so little to me that I'd already mentally slotted it in an earlier episode. Everything with the Betty plot was just on point, with amazing writing and performances from everyone. When Henry goes to get Sally, that one scene develops the characters so much. You see Sally grow up in an instant, and you see Henry realize his desperation and helplessness. He's always been a character chasing power and control (obviously, he's a politician), and through the rest of the episode you see him trying to figure this out and pull strings and get everyone he knows to try and fix this for him. And then he goes to his stepdaughter and just realizes he's powerless over this horrible thing in his life. Sally's development is more poignant because we've been with her longer, but his is just as notable.

I usually just assume feminist movie to mean "easily read as a feminist text," or even just "encouraging of analysis from a feminist point of view." It's a kind of shorthand for a way to engage with the movie. And it's worthwhile to separate the text from the reading, but I don't think it's possible to really do that wholesale. But that's a whole aesthetics conversation that might derail this so I'm not sure I should go into that.

I don't have time for a full cup of coffee. Give me that little tiny one -- the express size!

I don't think making place names possessive is a uniquely New York thing. It's big in Atlanta, too. Even Ruth's Chris turns into Ruth's Chris's. It's vaguely ridiculous.

I haven't seen it since it came out, but would Triplets of Belleville be a good feminist movie? All I remember is that song that still gets stuck in my head randomly and a ridiculous chase scene. Also, if horror won't be a huge thing in this (which is understandable), I'd recommend Faculty of Horror, a monthly podcast from two women who talk about horror movies from a feminist perspective. It's pretty good, even if some of the jokes come across as super rehearsed.

My friends back home say that it's a common guerrilla marketing tactic, and the phrase guerrilla marketing makes me want to not be a part of this world anymore.

I feel the same. I read the book probably about... 9? years ago, and since I've been rereading books I've been moving around with me to see if I want to keep them, maybe it's time. The only problem is that I live in a college town and wandering a college town with Infinite Jest might solicit conversations with undergrads that I don't want, especially since that freelance life leads to me spending a lot of time in coffee shops. I'll probably suck it up and get the ebook, but I don't know how endnotes work with that.

What the fuck is with brands spray painting their shit onto random things? Do they just want to show they're hip, cool, with it brands who get down with Banks -- no, Melissa, I'm pretty sure there's no Y at the end, that sounds like something a child would say, it's just Banks -- or is this some kind of proven thing? Has this been common for a long time? It's been popping up here a whole lot lately (for a restaurant loyalty rewards app...?) over the last few weeks and it just drives me crazy to see this obnoxious fucking owl stenciled somewhere new every day. I have strong feelings about brands.

I don't really mind her as a totem, especially in this episode. Don kind of realized that he wasn't needed at work or home, that he didn't have any control anywhere in his life, and looked to Diane as something that needed him and that he could control. Her being an offscreen force worked well and led to interesting things. Her on screen is terrible and the writers should feel bad about the dialogue involving her.

I finished Otherland book one and decided to try another book from forever ago that I liked at the time but now know nothing about. Jeff Noon is not a good writer. I should have quit while I was ahead.

I think there are enough people interested to start a thread of its own. I'll participate, at least!

My friend had a party today, and my sangria was a hit! Hahaaaa it was very alcoholic. Sorry for anything else I say tonight???

Commencement was today, so my little college town was overrun by undergrads' families. Did you know they make dress shirts in camo print? They are not pretty and people wearing them apparently do not understand Hare Krishna demonstrations at all.

Jeanne Dielman has a bit of Also it's (a little over?) three hours long and drags a lot.

The story of how Inland Empire was made is way more interesting than the movie itself. There are some really good monologues in the film, but I can't remember much else about it. It alludes to a lot of his older work -- shots that reference his other movies, a mid-film fulcrum like in Mulholland Drive, even just cutting in bits from that series of rabbit shorts -- and I'm sure there's a lot of meat for a die hard fan, but it's too much for someone like me. Stories like Lynch just deciding one day, "I need a one legged woman, a lumberjack, and a monkey for this afternoon," have more entertainment value for me than the movie itself.

I started a NG+ and this game is not slow and methodical at all the second time through.

It's actually really good and I want to talk about it with smart people, which is why I brought it up... but it's a bad first movie for any film group.

More Alien than Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles? Or more fun than either?

Demon's Souls (Dark Souls predecessor (Dark Souls 2 predecessor (Bloodborne predecessor))) is a thread we should have.

So it was a success?

Did you really just compare being framed for treason to someone's ex getting a restraining order Is this level of stupidity actually something I was exposed to today

Eron is pretty obviously an obsessive stalker, and whether or not he's a sociopath isn't really that interesting a question. Him approaching his friends to get a thumbs up for what he was doing, and then getting it, says something scary about how entitled men feel in and after relationships. It's one thing to vent to your friends about how your ex cheated on you and how terrible that was and how terrible they are for doing it, but it's a whole other thing to mine for proof and write up a crazy screed about it. He's obviously unbalanced, but to get that kind of affirmation from his support group is... awful. One person being blinded by their malice is an aberration, and something that can be dealt with fairly easily. A group being blinded by one person's malice points to an underlying problem in society that's incredibly difficult to even know how to approach.