Gamebeast23456

You vs the guy she told you not to worry about

A question I've always had re: David Lynch, but which you guys point to in this episode, is how to regard his most eccentric decisions. I think Lynch has (rightfully) garnered a reputation for esoteric and eccentric, but usually very well tuned and focused, sensibilities. I often go into a Lynch film with the baseline understanding or heuristic that the decisions he makes are usually the right ones for what he's trying to do, and I'm in the wrong for when I can't understand them. I think there have been some notable exceptions to this, where I have no choice but to conclude that somewhere along the line one of his weird decisions just is not correct, but I think it's usually more useful to assume that he does things for a reason that is worth trying to understand, even if it's only my own perception or interpretation. (By the way, I do recognize this is how you are supposed to approach most art, especially films which take a ton of time and you should always assume are deliberately created, but very few filmmakers I've seen are quite as - well - weird, as he is, and more importantly, are weird in meaningful ways.) That being said - how do you guys think about, for example, the extremely strange and intentionally 'bad' or at the very least cheesy VFX? I feel like the standard response are references to his involvement with the visual arts, or his differing perceptions on the point of verisimilitude in film, but I've very rarely heard a compelling take on what exactly makes these moments good, or worthwhile. It feels somewhat self-referential and redundaunt to say that his odd decisions are good because he makes good odd decisions, so is there something deeper that I'm just not getting at? Is it purely a weird aesthetic thing in Lynch's own brain that we, as general Lynch fans, are just expected to grin and bear or try to enjoy in some semi-ironic, "I can't believe he's doing this" way?

The entire cold introduction of the FBI in this episode has one of my favorite jokes in the series. The agents are briefing Cole on this whole outlandish situation where the man is accused of murdering his wife, and Cole, after hearing it all, just says "The Congressman's Dilemma". Which, is now definitely going to be a term I use in my daily life. Does anyone have any thoughts on the return of Denise? I thought it was kind of odd how it almost felt like gloating about how TP had treated their trans character way better than any other 90s era soap opera possibly would, and Cole using her deadname was really straddling the line on how far you could go with Cole just being a slightly oblivious but well meaning old dude, but at the same time I was happy to see her and see that Lynch fully incorporates that character (and respect for the character) into his vision for the show. I was mostly happy to see her appearance.

The unfortunate serendipity of the fact that this finally got off the ground around 2015 is really apparent in the sorts of people you need for this show that you very soon don't have. This becomes extremely apparent when I think of Albert, who is already positioned as a major character in this season (which I'm so hyped for, as I love the cynical pacifist weirdo), but if this show got started just a little later Miguel Ferrer would've passed away in production. I'm loving the episodes so far, and I'm so glad that we get most of the cast for the show (with some glaring exceptions like Pete and Major Briggs). Also, on the subject of the musical endings, I really like them. I think it's fascinating to get a look more explicitly into what David Lynch is currently enjoying, pop-culture wise, which you otherwise only really get by observing what sorts of influences pervade his films (Lost Highway with it's weird grunge/industrial/electronic soundtrack, Inland Empire's obsession with digital photography, etc), whereas here you can just directly see Lynch saying "here's some new stuff I like". I also have to echo how impressive Kyle MacLachlan is in this season. I've always loved him as Dale Cooper, and mostly enjoy his other appearences in Lynch's canon, but I also always got the impression that some Lynch fans thought his reliance on Kyle wasn't really proportional to how good an actor he is, or that Lynch likes MacLachlan in part for aesthetic reasons outside of his acting skills (which I kind of see some merit to as an argument, as you guys notice on the episode Lynch is very interested in the 'look' of his characters and, if I was being charitable to his intent, the shorthand appearance can give the audience).

Listening to you guys talking about Jessica Jones gave me severe 2015 flashbacks to just being floored with that show. I loved it so much I went back and rewatched the first like six episodes again just because I wanted to spend more time with that character in that world. However. Marvel and comic books are just the worst. I, because I'm a creature of the internet, watched the trailer for The Defenders and wanted to sink into the core of the planet. It's taking one decent to fair show whose worst moments came when they deviated from the central premise (Daredevil) and one fantastic, beautiful show whose only mistake is maybe going an episode or two too long and getting a little in-the-weeds with Marvel Netflix world building and two shows I have not and never will watch and just making a comic book trash fire. That little shot of Jessica Jones doing weird eyes at self-serious, weird Matt Murdoch was the only thing that gave me hope about it. It just feels like such a 'oh no, big bad is coming, we have to save the whole planet again, comic book time". Like, didn't Murdoch already beat these guys once? Are we really recycling the same basic threat from Daredevil S2? All I want is a cool detective show in Jessica Jones, and a cool crime drama/faux-legal drama/Oldboy clone in Daredevil. I don't need tie-ins, I don't need all the worlds to collide, why must comic books always get in their own way?

I found a rare video of Chris's creative writing class: Chris, as another creative writing class bullshiter- I can say with some confidence that the reason we got away with this stuff is because that's what they expected. I remember through grades like 2-7 I spent most of my free time just plagiarizing wholesale whatever I was into. It was a way to work on my writing skills and patch over the fact that kids pretty much have no capacity to create stories because, well, they're kids. I remember tons of extremely specific moments where praise would be heaped upon my ability to obviously rip stuff off. I remember one time turning in a story that was like, weird semi-Starcraft fan fiction and it was gobbled up as if I was just making up weird space operas on my own. I still think this sort of writing was preferable because it meant that the kids are engaging, in some way, with the media around them and are able to recontextualize or just understand it in a way that isn't necessarily intuitive.

My general reaction to this hypothetical is always the same: I don't remember enough of anything to have my knowledge of the world be useful. Maybe I buy apple stock, mine some Bitcoin like the previous poster said. Also, can you imagine the tedium of reliving your early, empty years with a complete knowledge of the full adult life you enjoyed? It'd be awful. Wait. Is this... Is this what Boss Baby is about?

I don't pride myself on self-control, but I am proud that today I had almost prepared a whole angry rebuttal to that comment, before I realized there's no way I would ever engage this person in real life and I'd be a waste of time to do it online either. It just seemed like there was a weird sub-backlash going on against the Thumbs, how they talked more in-depth about games and whatnot. It felt like a weird meeting of 'New Games Journalism' types and the old school, long after that sort of thing was a thing.

Looking at the Bombcast's comments really bummed me out. They seemed so negative on just about everything. I thought the episode was a little awkward, but also I think Chris and Jake bailed them out. I can't imagine them getting as much out of this news week without Thumbs around.

The number of robots you guys encounter is becoming suspect. You say you fear the robot uprising, yet you sure find yourself conveniently among robots frequently. I'm not saying Jake got replaced by a robot in Hawaii, but it would explain his positive, yet inexplicable, reaction to the knife robot. A really good move is actually sliding down carpeted stairs in a sleeping bag. The polyester-y material on the outside reduces friction that should be helping to protect your kid body from doing something really dumb, and instead you can just fly based on your level of gumption.

George Clooney isn't in his late 70s. Good episode

I think it's also worth mentioning how a lot of medieval people lived in the shadow of fallen civilizations that were obviously better than them. It is something that I don't think a modern American could ever really understand. The idea of living in the shadow of people who have been dead for hundreds of years but were clearly more advanced. I have to imagine their upper boundary for possible things was pretty high, not even getting to how lots of them probably also believed in magic and stuff like that.

I'd say my desert island album would almost certainly be Godspeed You, Black Emperor's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven. It has a huge range of modes, is super long, and can function as either background or up-front music.

But what if it is high fantas-tea? Would it be high concept, or high brow? Both?

I loved Logan because I grew up a huge X-Men fan, and obviously, a Wolverine fan. However, the real pro-strat I employed in my viewing was taking my mom with me. She ended up liking the film, and I thought that served as a decent testament to how much it got right. I think it is a rare comic book movie that understands a deeper power of comic books- to present strong characters in tons of different situations that can actually inform them as human beings. Though my mom doesn't know about Professor X, or Weapon X, or the specifics of Logan's backstory, the strength of the portrayals and the writing totally brought out everything she needed to know. I would second his recommendation. To the point about bathroom signs, I think you guys are at least slightly underestimating the variability in bathroom designs. I think the detail that actually serves to seperate them is more general than a picture of a human on the sign. Rather, it's the fact that a room is labeled pictographically, as opposed to numerically or linguistically.

So, on the subject of David Bowie and posthumous releases... While Blackstar was released before his death, Bowie did plan to have something of a content drip after his death. We've gotten a few extra new songs, plus the release of the previously unreleased album The Gouster, beguilingly in the middle of a huge compilation album. So, while many artists are said to have lots of unreleased music in the vaults, like Prince, Bowie seems like he actually meant to have some of this stuff released posthumously.

I don't necessarily think of it this way, but there's a lot of games I don't finish because I think I've gotten all I want out of them, and would only be soured on the game to play more. For example, I put about sixty hours into The Phantom Pain, but I did not finish the game, or even come close, if you count in all the extra missions and nonsense like that. I got the mechanical fulfillment I really wanted, and then I ducked out, and it left me with the opinion that it's one of the greatest action games I've ever played.

I suppose I'm an Alien 3 apologist, but I really take umbrage with the idea that the death of Newt and Hicks invalidates the previous film. While it's true that it's a let-down to see the characters you cared about in the previous film dying, the Alien universe, or at least the little part of it that the films are all about, are marked by cruelty and the potential for pointlessness in death. The inevitability of death doesn't negate the value of life, of all the sacrifices and triumphs that make up a life. The fact that Newt, Hicks and Ripley are all human and therefore will die eventually, sooner or later, doesn't mean everything they did is meaningless. I think there is a certain amount of cheapness to just offing them, but I understand the narrative reasoning behind it (a trio dealing with and surviving the xenos twice feels untrue in the context of this universe), it feels weirdly pessimistic or fatalistic to say the reason the film is wrong for making that choice is that it retroactively invalidates or squashes the previous one. I think there's something risky and unique about what that film does throughout when it comes to mortality and the idea of sacrifice as a way of finding meaning in death (cut to Charles S. Dutton's "I ain't much for begging" speech). Also, regarding your talk of the erasure of the average, blue-collar kinda characters in media, I've been very slowly rewatching The Simpsons. I'm about three quarters of the way into Season Three, and it's crazy how much of that show is observational and about the fear of poverty. Money, and the lack of it, is pretty frequently a theme of these early episodes. There's no way Homer could exist in 2016 like he does in 1992. Whenever I see new episodes, I'm shocked how everybody has smart phones and all this shit. That's not the show I know at all.

As someone who grew up very into hip-hop I kinda wish Hamilton could be for me. I really respect what it's going for, but the style of spoken word rapping is just grating to my ears, unfortunately. I do really enjoy the message and the idea of recasting history in a way that sort of highlights the commonality of human experience, though I agree with Rob in fears that such media can have the unintended effect of downplaying or de-legitimizing the really bad parts of history, sort of smoothing the rough edges.

Another interesting part of a lot of hacker fantasies is the idea of technology as a uniting force for people with different backgrounds. MR. ROBOT's hacker team consists of a ambiguously ethnic lead (Rami Malek is Egyptian-American, and there's a lot of factors in the show that lead to his racial background being super ambiguous and also not really that relevant), a white woman, an Iranian-American woman, a black dude, and a more typical white guy programmer dude. Despite their differences in background, all these people are united by a vision of a future and the tools for delivering that future. Of course, what makes MR. ROBOT great, and not just a rehashing of every other Fight Club-alike story of 'bringing down the man' is that it actually does examine the ways in which these radical philosophies and worldviews can interface with damaged people who, at times, are very clearly compensating for other failures with this mission they've created for themselves. So far I'm about three hours into Quadrilateral Cowboy and I'm really enjoying it. I don't know if I'm perceptive enough to really tug at what the story actually is, but I do enjoy the loose world all of the Blendo Games' are about, and I like the unifying, lo-fi art style. I think the specific fantasy that this game is playing to, however, is different than a lot of the more egalitarian hacker stories. In this game, you are basically a gun-for-hire, you do jobs for the monied interests that will pay for your services. It is really a fantasy of ultra-competence and power, regardless of the fact that you seem to ultimately just be a tool of more powerful people. There's something slightly grittier or more human about this idea, and it provides a different kind of fantasy, one that still indulges in the more DIY and underground aspects of cyberpunk/hacker fiction.

Seems like the Escalation Missions are a good antidote to the tactics of Cheatin' Hitman.

Regarding Firewatch, that game was a rare case of semi-spoilers making my experience much better. I just played through it last week, and I came in with the pre release context that this game was NOT going to be what I thought it was. Because of this knowledge, I was able to just enjoy everything as it went by, not getting too invested in what I detected to be, most likely, false flags and red herrings. I think, also, Henry is totally changed by the events of the story, or at least finds some meaning or understanding.

So, the way I understand the console business is that, at least originally, most of these machines cost more to produce then what they are sold for. Maybe, over time, the industrial processes and the components of these machines come down in price so that eventually selling the box itself is profitable, I'm not sure. In general, though, console companies expect to make their money back on software sales, among other things. The ultimate reason that a company will move onto the next thing (beyond the very broad forces of expectation and competition), is that they think they will be able to sell more software if they update the box they are selling. If there was never any reason to upgrade, they never would. So, here comes the model of the Neo and the Xbox One Two (I genuinely blanked on the codename, because apparently I can't retain any codenames that aren't Matrix-centric). According to what we heard from those leaked Sony documents, the restrictions placed on devs on the new hardware are pretty stringent. We probably shouidn't expect massive gains in the complexity of games in this next increment, if those guidelines are followed for a long time (which, to be fair, if Sony is betting on an Apple model of production, we probably shouldn't expect them to be), then what is the sell? Why is this company revving up production for a new system, that presumably has more expensive and newer components, that will probably be sold either for the original PS4's selling price, or slightly more. I can't imagine them bumping up the price on it significantly, though, nothing is really stopping them. I don't understand what is drawing these companies towards a model like this, where they are going to take massive losses on new products year after year just to sell marginally improved software.

I grabbed the costume of the mortician dude to get into the church. All I had was my fiber wire and an exploding golf ball. I made it fairly far, getting myself into the same room as the target, but then like three different people recognized me at once and I was summarily gunned down. Sad times.

It doesn't really seem like 'nerds' as they stand are necessarily the most catered-to audience. The Marvel films do not do well because they cater exclusively to males. It's quite the opposite, these films are made to appeal to 'everyone' as much as possible within the confines of these semi-pre-defined stories. The Ghost In The Shell film, as an upcoming example, is not a film being developed for nerdy fans of the original film- if it were, Scarlett Johansson wouldn't be the lead. It's meant to target men who think Scarlett Johansson is hot, women who admire or are interested in her as a prominent actress, etc. The fact that these 'nerdier' things are being designed to be more popular is the exact opposite of pandering to the men who grew up with these properties and made up most of their fan-base. Moving on, my personal metric for how I feel about how women are portrayed in media, as a male who has an interest and pull towards femininity, is that I want to read into the characters. There are plenty of female characters that I see myself in, that I would want to "be" in the classic, escapist fiction sense. For a recent example, I look at a lot of the women in Overwatch. Tracer, Zarya and Widowmaker are all badass and distinct, when I play as them, I also want to read myself into them. Granted, there's very little to these characters in the game proper, but the strength of their designs and portrayals is enough. This test, obviously, is hugely flawed and can only be used as a personal metric.