brkl

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Everything posted by brkl

  1. Blade Runner 2049

    Shit. Rogerebert.com gave it four stars, but then rogerbert.com ain't no Roger Ebert. How do you guys feel about the new Blade Runner (which isn't out)? The teaser felt really good to me, but the two thirds of the trailer I saw was the opposite; what I feared, really.
  2. Idle Thumbs Hiatus

    Good bye guys, it's been swell. Thirteen years ago my first post was about cancelling my Psychonauts pre-order, apparently. I can't remember saying or thinking any of the things I wrote back then. I guess I'll notice if the Thumbs make a comeback at some point, but it's been pretty clear that the community isn't going to survive the Thumbs leaving, so I'm going to stop checking the site. Have a good one.
  3. Very happy to see Trek in the original timeline too. Stewart has been aging like fine wine. I hope the rest of what goes into the series holds up.
  4. Movie/TV recommendations

    I just watched The Expanse. There's three seasons of it so far. Oddly enough, I saw the first episode at least a year ago, and it didn't really strike me, but now I was hooked after a couple of episodes. It's different to most sci-fi I've liked over the years such as Firefly, Star Trek and Babylon Five in that it is not episodic in the least. I wouldn't say that it's all-around amazing, but compared to even the most celebrated sci-fi series I think it has less dud episodes or parts of the world I try not to notice, such as Firefly's nerd-fantasy prostitutes. I also really enjoy that the technology appears realistic compared to just about any sci-fi series. There's constant talk of G-forces, ships do breaking burns and manouver just about realistically.
  5. Robocops

    I wish the 2014 film had been stronger. There were some good ideas in it and I love Michael Keaton in it. I'm also a fan of Joel Kinnaman, but I wouldn't say it's his best performance. This visual has a lot of promise, but the film doesn't deliver. I do think the script deals with important cultural developments going on in the 2010's, so at least it tries to say something.
  6. Filmmaking

    You may want to use that money on another film project. I guess it depends on how much you think the film needs that piece of music instead of something you can get for free. My opinion would be that no one apart from yourself would ever notice.
  7. [Released] häx_processer

    This was very creative and fun. I didn't have any problems with it and didn't get stuck. Too much Blade Runner I guess.
  8. Filmmaking

    I think it's great you're doing this. It's very interesting to read these posts of yours.
  9. Have you seen Laurence Olivier's take on it?
  10. Second Language Acquisition with Games

    I teach English in Finland. I think it's easy to start thinking there's something special about games that helps people learn languages. However, I think that's largely bias that comes from our personal history as gamers. Games have a few qualities that are good for language learning, but it's mostly social interaction that you can thank for the excellent language skills some kids have. So it's not playing, usually, but participating in different communities related to gaming.
  11. Far Cry 5

    Huh. I haven't played a Far Cry game since 3 and had to watch a Youtube video and check. I'm not sure about the rest, but trees had physics and reacted to gunfire in 3 too. I see more bending than cutting off branches. Anyway, what a step down. I should fire up Far Cry 2 again
  12. Movie/TV recommendations

    I remember being disappointed in the first episode, but now that I watched the next two at least a year later I was surprised by how much I liked it. I think it's rather well shot and occasionally imaginative. To me it looks like they spent quite a lot of effort on sets and atmosphere.
  13. I should probably make a thread for this, but there's a legit, free online version of Secret Hitler on secrethitler.io. Would anyone be interested in getting together to play that? It would have to be a weekend for me.
  14. I finished it last night. I thought it was trash, really. Some individual scenes and two to three episodes of the show work, but as a whole it's a complete mess. It's one of the few cases where I felt like I actually lost something by giving it a chance. I also saw Altered Carbon, which has some pretty nice visuals and intriguing concepts, but steadily gets worse as the show goes on. It's never quite as bad, but it's pretty bad towards the end. First episodes are great.
  15. After a big Windows update (Fall Creator's Update or something like that) I can't play Youtube videos properly on Chrome anymore. Slow buffering, choppy playback, ramping etc. I have to use Edge (ugh). Of course, when playing Youtube videos on Edge, Youtube shows helpful hints that you should be using Chrome. It's annoying and I can't find anyone else who had this problem and solved it.
  16. Star Wars Episode 8

    I didn't notice anything apart from the space scene obviously. I thought Carrie Fisher stole every scene she was in.
  17. Star Wars Episode 8

    I thought this was OK, but began with a very bad sequence and in general would be better if about half an hour of action we've seen before anyway was cut. I thought the broad strokes were acceptable and despite many faults I bought into the Kylo/Rey stuff again. Very low lows but some highs as well.
  18. I've spent a couple of days in the Valley of the Kings. That place has a very otherworldly feel to it. I hope I'll be able to get some of that experience again. Trailer looks great.
  19. Mindhunter

    After a while, I'm starting to feel a bit torn about the series. The manner in which it ends makes me feel like it wasn't really about anything other than reveling in the weirdness of the killers. I did like watching the show a whole lot, but I thought it was going to have something more to say.
  20. Mindhunter

    I think Holden is well portrayed. He's not likable or genuine, but I've known people who act like him. He's out of touch with his own motivations and good at lying to himself and others.
  21. Movie/TV recommendations

    We saw Mudbound on Netflix and I thought it was terrific. The sense of place is very strong and the way it portrays intertwined lives was very interesting to me. Characters felt more lifelike than in any film I've seen in a while. We also saw Raising Arizona and it's a good dose of Cage (how have I missed it until now?) but not the Coens' best work.
  22. Stranger Things

    We finished this a week or so ago. I thought it started very boring and never got great, while there was some stuff I liked. The first season started with some pretty thrilling scenes, while now I don't know if they even tried to go for horror. Overall it was pretty pointless, just never made a good argument for existing and I was actually more annoyed by the references than the first season. I mean, I wasn't at all the first time and now all I could think of was ET, Aliens etc. I don't know why I thought this series would have totally different characters and stories each season. I must have dreamed it.
  23. Marvel movies

    I wonder if the reason I'm so cool on Marvel movies is that they exhausted Hulk with poor movies before the MCU. He was always my favourite.
  24. Blade Runner 2049

    I would dispute a few of those, but the point stands. There's a bit of sleight of hand involved in distracting the viewer from that stuff. I think 2049 has bad logic in stuff that the viewer is supposed to think about and try to figure out, not just ancillary stuff.