ThaOGDreamWeaver

Yep. Reviews are in and, much like kiddie arcade pizza, lukewarm and a bit stodgy. It's also either had some savage edits or was deliberately tamed in the script, as it's PG-13 stateside and a 15 in the UK.

FEUERSCHWANZ and friends - Warriors Of The World, Unite

Rob Zombie - Dragula

Kim Petras ft. Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark - Turn Off The Light

"Just how fast were you going, Sir? You were really shifting..."

Quick forum game. There are many fairly pathetic movie pitches out there - and sometimes it's mysterious as to why they get made. Other than some oddly inventive kills, this goes in the C- could do better box... Given that there's been a horror spin on pretty much every American holiday, I'd quite like to see... Black Friday (2024) w: E. Watson d: M. Flanagan Twelve lucky, lucky shoppers are invited to an extra-special preview night at one of America's greatest malls. Not only that, it's streamed live. And the team of six with the most "steals" in one night can leave with whatever they can carry on their bodies. Of course, it might not be quite that easy. And if they don't stop that mysterious thirteenth guest who's in to make some bargains, there are twenty thousand eager souls outside who will stream in at 6am... ....so what movie concept could you guys upgrade?

Great writing, goes for the throat both philosophically (the Sacklers, greed, and the concepts of fate) and literally (neeever going to clubs with foam parties or shower props again. Nuh-uh.) Loved it right up to the end... And amongst a pretty damn great cast, please give your propers to Carla Gugino for Verna, in all her incarnations, and Mark Hamill's terrifyingly efficient Arthur Pym. And while I know you shouldn't really ask for more when something rounded off so well, you could hang a Tales Of The Unexpected style series off other people who ran into Verna.

Thoughts:

Ghost - Dance Macabre

Ghost Hounds - Last Train To Nowhere

Leila K - Ça Plane Pour Moi (FYI: '90s rave video, avoid if sensitive to flashing images or abuse of classic vehicles)

So, anyone wanna go out for pizza? Definitely not gonna be seeing this one in a darkened theatre. But curious to know what any fans think of what they've done with the place. It's a Blumhouse joint, and written in collaboration with Scott Cawthorn, so it should be pretty darn nasty. Whether or not they stick to, change or add to the existing game lore - which seems to be pretty much laid out in the open from that trailer - is a good question. The animatronic suits are apparently a Henson job too, so it's a quality build... but a good finished product?

It'd certainly be fun if they went that way. Not least because Polarity (c'mon, guys, give him a first name - or do Vought take that too?) told his kid to drop it in no uncertain terms. And while we thought it's just because (a) dad's mixed up in it and (b) Vought has no problem offing anyone who breaks security, even future stars of the Seven... is there a (c)?

I keep getting offered free or discounted trials, but there's nothing essential enough to merit yet another damn streaming service. The offering does feel very Apple: shiny, very cerebral, highbrow, neat, big star power and endorsements... and reassuringly expensive. Ted Lasso - which doesn't quite fit that mould - is their only show I would know and name as an Apple series, or that my family have talked about / heard about / engineered matches on FIFA23 against Wrexham for. None of which are my kinda thing - though all credit to their writers for not taking the easy path out of the series. But maybe they need to take more risks with the brand to pull a wider audience?

Replies to yours..

Bumping for part 5:

thoughts on ep2:

In my headcanon, the Sundown event was an actual Nemesis conspiracy that worked... and like the Blip, characters have a vague memory of a life before, of people and heroes they met, though they are somehow different now... They can't quite remember the event itself, or what happened next, or why life resumed. Just that somewhere, there are heroes that made it happen. But some of the originals vanished to other dimensions, especially those who were in and around Portal Corp at the time. The original Emily Watson/Dreamweaver is now 50 - she's kind of getting used to the idea of aging at all, if disgracefully - and runs an occult shop / cat café in Earth-616 Apponaug, Rhode Island. Some people still grumble, but they can't deny the neighbourhood's improved since she moved in. As if criminals just turn round and walk away without knowing why...

]Just dropping this into your field of vision if you haven't run across it yet, as it's been released just in time for Halloween. And if there's a comic book connection, or a Paragon one, every good comic needs the Creys of the world. This follows the (mis)fortunes of the Sackler Usher family as they negotiate a make-or-break drug trial. It's got vibes of Succession, a touch of Mad Men as it flashes back through time, heavy elements of madness and obsession, Mark Hamill guesting as an absolutely terrifying golem of a lawyer... ...oh, and some out and out nasty horror, with great slow-burn setups, and some wonderful, elegantly evil touches. Plus a whole bunch of Edgar Allen Poe references from subtle to obvious to slightly damn dumb, but the Red Death episode takes the whole idea and rolls with it spectacularly. Even giving Prospero the chance to stop everything and avoid the fate he's due. You can almost guess what's going to happen before it does but it doesn't stop you tensing up ready for it. And you still won't get it right. Dear Sweet Freya in Asgard... Oh, and Bruce Greenwood's "lemons" speech is almost as good as the "forces of Nature" speech from Network. The kind of writing actors would kill for. And Carla Gugino is amazing in her multiple, multiple roles, from seductive strangers to animalistic, screaming visions of pain. And you can't say she didn't warn 'em... EDIT: finished the series now. For the most part, a nicely balanced blend of psychological and actual full-on hand-over-mouth-gutwrenching... Stellar casting - once again, all plaudits to Gugino: and that one last point in the spoiler box aside, cracking script, direction and... executions. Recommended.

If we're talking about Cryptic / NCSoft's mistakes through history... ...did anyone else ever play Auto Assault or Wildstar? AA was clearly a SJ Games Car Wars "homage" with quite a lot of Carmageddon thrown in, but the controls were appalling and the GFX needed serious work. Wildstar was gorgeous, lovely toony style, but needed quite a lot of time, involvement and practice to get anywhere serious with the content.

Heh. Wine lets you run more or less anything as Mac native these days, including CoH. There's now also an official Porting Kit (which is... well, still basically Wine plus some better instruction manuals). https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10123/ Something graphics-heavy works better with a couple tweaks so that it can use the Metal onboard GPU allocation. But there's not the barrier to build that there used to be, and there's a whole audience out there ready to goof off at work enjoy relaxing gaming time. And besides... it's set on a spaceship/generation ship, and all decent spacecraft are Mac-compatible. Even alien ones.

Technomagic? Golemborgs? Voice work (per the Steam trailer) is clearly from a speech reader, and an older model - but not bad for one that's rendering on the fly. Sounds a little like Balabolka. You can get better quality TTS than this these days: but not for free, and they tend to create out finished files that you can post on websites or social media rather than work as a plugin to another app. After 5-6 years of amateur development - with a pandemic on the way - this is still not a bad bit of work and it's got plenty of imagination in terms of setting and design. But it's going to need some serious polish before it's ready to have the Steam community unleashed on it. ...and a Mac client.