Erkki

I just played through the four acts in a row. Previously I had crashed in act II a couple of years ago and stopped there. I have no words for how amazing this game is. I think it might be the Citizen Kane of narrative-focused games (if we're still looking for that). The thing that appeals to me most is the little stories about people and the way they are just spread all over the place. It definitely made me reflect on my own life a few times. I also expect it to have some replayability, not necessarily to make different choices but just to explore what I missed. And I do think a lot of players will miss stuff because the plot has a sense of urgency, which is not supported by the gameplay - IMHO the only mistake in this game's design. At some point early in the game I wished it wasn't a magical realism, but I think it starts working really well.

[DELETED] Found a newer thread for the game

I feel like there's a missing hyphen

Since there are a lot of board game players here, I thought I'd ask -- has anyone tried painting board game miniatures? I have a couple of favourite games that have cool miniatures and I would love to have for example Cyclades monsters painted. And also the small plastic player units (ships, troops). Any hints on where to start? I don't have any materials or tools for this and the last time I held a brush smaller than the ones used for painting walls was probably when doing watercolors or something in school -- so I have no talent for this and kind of worry that I would just screw it up. Also, I'm a bit red-green color blind, so maybe I shouldn't even attempt this? I could mix some colors of paint that would seem totally normal to me, but would be really weird for most people. I remember one day back in art class when I had drawn a guy with green hair while I was pretty sure I had picked brown

I now saw Danger: Diabolik and I am not a big fan. It seems great fun on one hand, but has a lot of dumb things in it. For example, exaggerated special effects that feel awkward nowadays. Underdeveloped characters - although this might actually somewhat common to Bava films, this particular film seems like it really needs to do better at motivating the main characters and antagonists. I liked almost all other Bava films I saw so far better than this, including even Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Five Dolls for an August Moon, excluding only Erik the Conqueror. But what I did like was that even this film where women are clearly objectified somewhat, actually the woman (almost the only one in the movie) has some control over, and even saves the male protagonist a couple of times. Although some Bavas movies often show the female body as an object of desire, they never felt sexist to me, because there is usually still a woman who has the ultimate power. Anyway, I think this concludes my Bava streak that started in August, with him (briefly?) taking the place of my second most watched director between Jarmusch and Bergman. I might watch some more of his oeuvre, but I think I've covered most of his more popular work pretty well. But I probably won't be able to stay away entirely, I might have a Bava addiction. Even if most of the rest of his movies are not from the horror genre where he really excelled, they might still be fun and I'm willing to give them a try - Hercules in the Haunted World, Nebraska Jim, The Wonders of Aladdin, The Venus of Ille, The Road to Fort Alamo, Esther and the King, Caltiki the Immortal Monster, Four Times that Night, Knives of the Avenger, The House of Exorcism (although this one is an inferior version of Lisa and the Devil), Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, Roy Colt and Winchester Jack, etc..

Added Panic in Needle Park to watchlist. You should also watch the series based on the Cowboy Trilogy, Cowboy Bebop.

(The) Wild Boys by Bertrand Mandico was pretty wild. But I can hardly say anything about it without spoiling some of the fun. I would even recommend not searching any information at all* about the movie before seeing it, if you can. I went in because I had a free slot during the festival and I liked the trailer, but didn't know anything else. It's kind of avant gard, syrrealistic, very erotic. I guess somewhat in the same style as some Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani movies. * I think being more specific could even be considered a spoiler.

Resurrection by Kristof Hoornaert is a pretty strong feature debut - he started writing this film in 2002 and had to make short films while working in a factory to get into a position of being able to make it. He found an experienced cinematographer and made quite a strong first feature which to me reminded of Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse, but with slightly faster pace and more dialogue.

Holy crap, that's a lot to catch up with, if I'd want to. I did not know about most of your top 10+ directors that they even made this many movies.

I decided to become a Letterboxd patron and now I can see some more stats about my movie watching. For example, my most watched directors. There are some surprises here for me... Jim Jarmusch is a long-time favourite, but I hadn't realized I have seen more of his movies than anyone elses, I didn't even realize he had made this many. I think this counts shorts like Int. Trailer Night. Wow, Mario Bava has shot to the top 5 and I only found out about him in August! According to the current prognosis, he will even pass Kieslowski soon and maybe Bergman temporarily - but since Bergman made A LOT of films, I expect him to take the lead at some point. Also I think this list is telling me that I should catch up with Hitchcock, especially since I go around wearing his face on a T-shirt most of the time. And it probably wouldn't hurt getting more familiar with Kurosawa as well from the big names, at least should get him into this top. Also, Jean Painlevé doesn't really count IMHO, because I only saw a lot of his short animal movies, which were on Mubi all the time.

Hmm... I looked at the Wirecutter review and the one they are currently saying is the best TV seems like a rather good deal - I think I might get one myself. Usually I haven't gone very wrong when going with Wirecutter's pick of anything, except with some smart gloves which turned out not to last long. Sometimes their best pick is just based on internet research, though, but doesn't seem to be the case with TVs.

I don't know anything about TVs, but since projectors were mentioned I'll butt in a bit, sorry for being slightly off topic... Ultra Short Throw projection is where it's at for me at the moment - this technology means that the projector can sit very close to where the image is being projected. My projector is sitting on a device cupboard just below the screen, extending 50cm from the wall, I think. I got a 100" ALR (ambient light reflecting) screen for better contrast and a GT5500 projector. For setup purposes it's a bit harder than TV - you need to assemble the screen and after you've placed it you will need to spend up to an hour just getting the projector placement right the first time. It's really has to be placed with millimeter precision if you want it to go up to the edges of the screen. What happened to me was I even put the screen too high at first and had to lower it because this projector doesn't have any lens shift and I initially made an error in the calculations. I think right now Ultra Short Throw projection is quite a good technology for getting a big screen, but the 4K ones are still very expensive and I can't even understand how HDR with projectors work really, because projectors have trouble getting good contrast already without HDR. Since 4K projectors are so expensive, I'm thinking of getting a cheap 4K TV for another room, though - I want to experience 4K content as well, but I want to stick with a projector for watching movies and TV for the foreseeable future, even if it has to be 1080p. But eventually, in a few years, I will switch to 4K projection unless some even better TV technology comes along that gives me an affordable 100+ inch screen.

Have You Seen My Movie? is a pretty good montage film about the cinema-going experience, made out of hundreds scenes set in cinemas, cut from various well-known films. I heard it might come to Mubi, but generally it will not be commercially available because the director hasn't cleared any of the rights, so he is hoping that he is protected by fair use. Anyway, I hope it will be available in some form, because it's quite fun to watch, especially in the cinema.

Tereza Nvotová from Slovakia might be one to watch. I just saw her debut feature Filthy (2017), which seems to be touring festivals right now. It seemed to deal quite well with a serious topic, showing how severe a reaction a 17 year old girl could have to being raped. Also Welsh-Zambian Rungano Nyoni has made quite a debut with I Am Not a Witch (2017), which deals with a young girl in Zambia who is thought to be a witch (for mindboggling reasons) and sent to a government-run witch community.

Glad to hear you liked it. I want to see it again soon, might try to find it after I'm done with the ongoing festival here. In the past few days I saw Thelma, Loveless, A Fantastic Woman, which are all almost-great, but to me lacking something. Thelma is about a lesbian girl who is dealing with breaking away from bad parental influence. Good movie, but had pacing issues where the psychological puzzle in the movie consistently revealed itself 10 or so minutes ahead of what was on screen. Maybe if I was paying less attention I would have found it better paced :/ Loveless is a very powerfully acted movie about how not very loving parents about to divorce deal with their kid running away from their Moscow apartment. But there are some things that seem pretty ridiculous and almost unrealistic to me. Such as the husband (and his co-workers) believing that if he gets divorced, he'll be fired (because of very religious boss) and how some colleague took a fake family to the Christmas party due to this belief. I dunno, it didn't convince me. Also there are some references (through news playing) to Obama and the war in Ukraine is just starting - did not see the relevance. A Fantastic Woman is the best of the three, about a trans woman who loses her partner to a sudden death and encounters some serious antagonism from the family of the deceased. I can't put my finger on it, but again I thought pacing issues stop it from being great, but visually it's great and the main character is mostly convincing.

Just watched Lisa and the Devil and man, the photography in this is amazing. The DP is Cecilio Paniagua, not Bava himself, but I think he is almost as good. The main difference seems that there's not as much playing with light vs shadow - even where Bava would put half the room in pitch black darkness, everything is brightly lit here - except for a few outside night-time scenes. Unfortunately the movie’s plot is a little dull compared to Bavad best features. The Italian audio on the Blu-Ray somewhat lapses into English - maybe the English cut was longer so they used the extra audio from that. Anyway, I kind of like it, but I understand why it's not considered primary Bava.

I saw Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and I can't tell whether it's bigoted garbage or a decent attempt at black comedy. It certainly has some things very right - every character is believable, well played. The story flows in a satisfying manner. There are some good jokes. And then there are portrayals of racism, sexism, sizeism, homophobia, that are just part of the jokes, with usually the bigot getting away with it and the victim having to be the one to make concessions. I'm curious what others here think, don't know when it will be in cinemas. [edit] Also go read the New York Observer review and then look at the metacritic mathematics and realize that they counted it as positive and never trust metacritic again.

Planet of the Vampires was good! Unexpectedly, I saw another Mario Bava movie yesterday night/this morning when Mubi made Hatchet for the Honeymoon the movie of the day. I think it's kind of low key for Bava and a bit sloppy with how some scenes are staged (who would want to watch a fashion show on a stage like that, where the models are far away and often hidden by columns?). But it's not bad and Bava's skill of playing with light and shadow is still fun to watch.

Fixed

The Florida Project ★ ★ ★ ★ I have previously only seen one Sean Baker movie - Tangerine - and this was such a contrast technically. The Florida Project is shot with what I assume are big cameras with anamorphic lenses, instead of iPhones, and on 35mm film. Most of the time it looks gorgeous, but in at least one scene I noticed what seemed to be technical problems like focus hunting. Anyway, this movie is amazing at portraying the life of a community dealing with poverty, mostly through the eyes of a pre-school girl Moonee and her friends. It's hard for me to say much about it without using spoilers, but I also advise not reading the following spoiler if you want to experience the movie the way I think the director intended to make you feel. And it spoils the ending also. I would compare this to American Honey - both movies deal with similar issues, just the characters are in somewhat different stages of their lives.

I went through all the films at PÖFF 2017 and found 62 movies directed or co-directed by women (mostly solo) https://letterboxd.com/t4ffer/list/poff-2017-directed-by-women/detail/ Now I'm kind of sad that I'm only going to see 8 of them (already bought about 30 tickets and hard to make room for others now).

I tried to play the original (or the one on Steam) and show it to a friend, but I also noticed that it doesn't hold up. I think I still might get this version also, because I was such a huge fan of it back in the day.

The controls were always very imprecise, and I think there were some swampy areas where you could get stuck on some things.

Hélène Cattet directs together with her husband, and they have made artsy giallo movies like Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears. I liked Amer more than Strange Color, but my appreciation of Strange Color is growing as time passes, even without seeing it again. I just saw their new movie Let the Bodies Tan and it's absolutely brilliant. It's still an artsy movie, but also an extremely well edited and stylish thriller. I wrote a few more words in the main recommendations thread.

Let the Corpses Tan ★ ★ ★ ★ I expected something as weird as The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears, but found a movie with a very easy to follow plot that revolves around the aftermath of a robbery. Let the Bodies Tan still goes pretty weird on the audio-visual level, but it's more or less easy to understand what is going on in the narrative level. I really appreciate this combination of weirdness and normality. Non-linear editing is used in an excellent manner that helps the viewer understand the action and every character's current position; suspense is kept high throughout the movie. Occasionally some of the characters remember back to previous sexual encounters in the same location probably a few days earlier, which gives short pauses from the tension. The sound focuses on the little details, and overamplifies things such as lighting a lighter to a roaring fire. Overall, I think this is my favourite movie so far from the director duo Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani. [edit] Also I must add that in any given frame, there is *nothing* superfluous. At least that's what it felt like to me, that every tiniest object visible and every sound audible, are there for a reason, curated.