twmac

I just went to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, if you like Tarantino this is more of that. I was never bored while watching it but I found myself kind of scratching my head. Also Margot Robbie is criminally under utilised in this film to the point where I couldn't understand why they bothered. One nice touch is that because of the Tarantino thing, people show up that are pretty big names to do 5 minutes of work and that worked really well for me as I struggle with other films that introduce 'incidental' characters that are big name actors that are blatantly going to come back later, because the film's budget requires it.

My current recommendations: For the King Moonlighter The Banner Saga trilogy Neon Chrome Void Bastards Old Man's Journey Descenders Steam World Dig 2 Ashen Recore Mutant Year Zero

I am here because of what Ben requested. This is just a review but it nails down why Metal Wolf Chaos is still worth playing: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-08-06-metal-wolf-chaos-xd-review-as-dazzlingly-dumb-as-its-legend-suggests

Wow, after reading that thread, I've realised that I don't really like Pixar films. I'd not made the connection but overall found myself dismissive of 3-D animated films. All of the ones I have seen have been Pixar films.

Toy Story is a series that I've never really enjoyed watching but always enjoy reading/hearing people's opinions on. Not sure what it is but I just don't like them.

I reviewed Void Bastards for Gamecritics and liked it a lot (top 5 this year for sure) https://gamecritics.com/aj-small/void-bastards-review/ I am surprised more people that like Prey/Bioshock haven't been talking about some of the emergent gameplay stuff. I played American Fugitive and have a review going out for it. The car handling was great, everything else felt very 'whatever'. Oh yeah and my Fade to Silence review finally came out, it is probably my GOTY right now: https://gamecritics.com/aj-small/fade-to-silence-review/

Game Pass is so good right now. Smoke and Sacrifice, Vampyr, Moonlighter and Void Bastards have all been on in the last few days because of it

I won't be watching another trailer - someone told me that Hobbs and Shaw gets really, really weird.

Sorry, nope. You actually made me doubt myself for a bit, and then I remembered that the original causes a very visceral reaction to it and that there is no way I can mistake the two.

Yeah, I am not sure whether Donnie Darko used the music in its trailer now that I think about it. But Gears jumped on that music for its trailer and used the Face/Off juxtaposition of slow music with ultra violence happening, muted. That trailer was such a strange thing because I sort of loved it, but felt it was completely misrepresenting Gears of War

Sorry for the double post, but surely the 'parsed down cover' started with Donnie Darko and Gears of War using it?

I have watched the Hobbs & Shaw trailer, and if there is one thing that Fast & Furious trailers have taught me is that it is impossible to put every dumb/brilliant thing that those films have into one trailer. Also, my favourite spoiler/not spoiler is in Reign of Fire: 2.22 minutes in you see a bare-chested Kratos/Matthew lunging at the screen with a battle axe. Anyone who has seen the film will laugh knowing what the context of that scene is about. Because in the trailer this has been recontextualised as 'badass'

One of my all time favourite trailers was the teaser trailer for Aliens, it actually scared me more than the actual film, the soundtrack was particularly haunting.

Sadly, I do not have Steam or anything PC related when it comes to games, or else I would wishlist it. I loved the first game a lot, I played it in a hostel in Budapest over a week of beer and takeaway food, and will always fondly remember it.

Yeah dude, that stuff always sounds terrifying. Glad it ended up being a false alarm. When it comes to things like that I would rather that medical specialists err on the side of caution and be wrong.

Yessss, it was you that recommended it! The film showed in cinemas in Wroclaw, Poland, so I caught it there.

That is high praise! I watched a series of good/ok stuff. Dead to Me - Pretty good series that suffers from awful plotting and the need for the show to be more than just two women coping with grief. The writers seem to think they everyone is going to be interested in a bunch of 'surprises' when it is really the interaction between Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini that is what works. The set up is a Applegate's husband is killed and she meets Cardellini at a group session and the show trundles on from there. What elevates the plot is the sharp dailogue and warmth between the two leads. The ending is bad, but I guess I will keep watching because the leads seem to be having fun. Minding the Gap - Documentary about 3 skater kids in Colorado and what skating and family mean to them. This film hit me so fucking hard, in the life thread a while back I talked about the dissolving of a friendship and one of the guys in the documentary I just immediately identified as him. Really simple story telling, well put together and equal parts deflating and reaffirming. Wine Party - This was one of those films that is generic (friends meet for special time, things get out of hand, they fight and then reconcile) but it basically works thanks to the scene-to-scene fun that most of the cast (Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolpho and Jason Schwartsman especially) inject into what should be super banal.

So, I just finished Fade to Silence for review on Gamecritics, and that game had me in its grips from the get go. The game is a Third Person survival game, with an emphasis on resource management. There is base building, follower management, permadeath, and some multiplayer too. I love the frozen wasteland setting and it feels rewarding to push further into the world. The thing is, there are soooo many bugs in the game, it is completely broken in places. That said I could not put it down for the 40+ hours I spent with it, even when it attempted to ruin me. Anyway, if you can put up with the numerous and vicious bugs I strongly recommend it.

Unfortunately, I am almost 40 and have been in the industry for over 15 years. This is a tick box for the government to accept my visa. For a lot of visas, no degree = no visa.

I think I mentioned it already (and is betrayed by my comment of the Guy Pierce/Sam Rockwell mixup) but Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3 were basically the same film to me - I could not tell you anything about how they differed except for the twist with the Mandarin, that I liked. Everything else was just Tony Stark quipping, there is a big bad, there is some flying/shooting and Pepper Potts is there, the end. Still, I like reading about people enthusing about a film that I have discarded.

I am still baffled by why people like Iron Man 3 (for example: I had forgotten tha Guy Pierce was in this one and had thought it was Sam Rockwell, which makes me sad as it means Sam Rockwell is in the one that most people think is not great), but I enjoyed this defence of Iron Man 3: https://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/iron-man-3/64265/the-marvel-movies-debrief-iron-man-3-recap-legacy-and-mcu-connections I have also seen Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse and I loved it.

I wonder how they are doing?

I've almost finished The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter - it is a collection of short stories with a feminist bent, that does not shy away from detailing sex and sexuality (wanted to use the term 'erotic' but that feels like the intent was to titilate, which doesn't feel right). They are retelling of fairy tales of sorts and it is interesting how things like Fables feels influenced by it, even if it wasn't. There is a line from one of the Beauty and the Beast pieces that really struck me: "I was a young girl, a virgin, and therefore men denied me rationality just as they denied it to all those who were not exactly like themselves, in all their unreason" This was written in the late 70s and is as biting as most stuff I have read. Really good stuff.

I might look into that - if I can get the other visa I want then I would have 2 years to work on it. I'd actually like to study film too! @Roderick Yeah, it is eye-rollingly annoying because I'm overly qualified for the position, but the 'easiest' visa requires a degree regardless of whether I tick all the other boxes.

Going to endorse getting a university/college degree of some sorts. If you have no interest in learning and don't know what you want to do, find something cheap, online, whatever. In recent years, as I approach 40, I've had several doors closed to me, despite over 15 years of experience in my field due to lack of university degree not allowing for a visa application. I could literally have a degree in one of those straw man targets that anti-SJWs always attack and it would make no difference to most government bodies if it was related to what I am applying for, they just want to tick a box.