ThaOGDreamWeaver

Just rezzing this thread as the movie should be in your local flick palaces fairly soon. Reviews seem to be following a general theme "Miller's great, the OG BAT IS BACK, BAAABY, and it's one of the best cape flicks everrrr... ...buuuuuttt...." And I guess you know who the "but" is. Get me drunk enough while talking around movies and I'll probably mention my own, highly personal and fairly naff theory of "the Believability Curve". A logarithmic graph of how difficult is for an actor to convince you they're in a particular role, based on the range of flicks you've seen them in before, and also what you know about them personally. For example, you might take a lot of work to believe Keanu could do Hamlet - but according to all accounts, especially one reviewer who'd heard of the guy but never seen Bill & Ted, he was... pretty good. This is where the problem with Miller comes in. In the bit of your brain your eyes are connected to, you can see a fine young actor with decent comic timing pulling off a quite tricky dual role, based on naivete vs heroic worldweariness, and pretty much nailing it. Where your memory lives, it's screaming at your consciousness that this guy is neither naive nor heroic - in fact, probably not someone you'd want within a 500-metre exclusion zone of schools, let alone with their face on kids' branded lunchboxes. And those two things together give you a headache. Whaddyouseguysthink? IM(np)HO, the way I'm feeling right now is that the Miller issues knock this down from "queuing next weekend" to... "interesting but non-essential". If someone took me I'd happily go, but I still need to see GOTG3 and a couple of other things, and my weekend time's limited right now for reasons. Controversy is all well and good, and can boost a movie in the right circumstances. But if the audience has been shocked into indifference...?

Christina Aguilera - Candyman

So, the movie is here. And where to begin, at least without spoilers. Well, for one thing... Good Goddess, y'all. ...it's gorgeous. The light. The styles. The fluidity. The motion. The emotion. There's as much or more love, detail, and in-jokes packed into every frame as the original. On with the spoilers... So all that said - seriously, why are you still here reading this? Go see. Enjoy.

The Fratellis - Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (No, I don't know why either, but WE LIKE IT.)

I have so many favourite toons it's hard to choose. For current main, Kelsey Dagger, there are two. One obviously the inspiration: ...and then this one for the way her battle style's evolved... (DIRE WARNING, TEAM: When they say this vid is potentially seizure-inducing, THEY MEAN IT. And while it's a great tune, it's actively unpleasant to watch directly. I think it's designed for use as club background lighting.) For my OG toon DreamWeaver: And her redside equivalent Emily Anarchy (and new toon Jett Blackheart...)

As we've got a what else are you playing thread over in Games, I thought a recco thread for other fun, non-capey stuff might be a good thing to have around the place. I've finally got access to watch Poker Face (niece's husband purloined my laptop on holiday to watch sportsball... but left his Sky Go app and code keys on there. Profitez-en.) And it's good. It's another Rian Johnson joint, and it has all of the trademarks of the Knives Out series - particularly the fact that there is no cheating. The clues are there if you're watching, though marginally less obscure than the movies, and the whimsicality dialled down a fair bit. Nat Lyonne is basically... her usual charming, fast-talking self (faster with coffee). But in this setting comes over as Columbo's overtalkative little sister, with a minor-league superpower - an unerring ability to spot direct lies - which gets her into all kinds of trouble. Despite being set in the present, there's also a pleasing 70s crime-of-the-week show vibe to it, from the opening titles through to the remarkable selection of guest stars. Also - if you haven't yet, do get round to watching The Menu. And stop instagramming your damn food. What stuff have you found that's good out there lately?

Small update:

Make sure you don't get any red on you. Taking a look, they seem to be drawing heavily on the Indian Premier League format - wonder if the Super Kings are in partnership with champions Chennai? And for good reason: Brits, Aussies and Windies may snipe at each other for where the "best" teams come from, but the IPL is the richest with seriously insane fans. The TV rights alone went for $6.4 billion for four years - or at around $7m per match, substantially more than Premier League Football. Even if MLC winds up being the IPL Summer League, it'll be a fun day out and a fair bit less boring than baseball.

Happy Pride Month. Remember to equip your Prestige Glitter Slide power in June for your 2x speed buff.

I think the one that I got most into - but got most disappointed by - was Secret World. Nice power system. Great mythos. Fun (if occasionally confusing) storytelling. And a properly open-world first act in... ...a seaside town in Maine. Really? Really. (It's even called Kingsmouth, FFS.) But even Molly, The Thing Of Evil would never deny it felt like walking into her master's work. It was gloriously creepy, genuinely disturbing without over-reliance on epic bosses, jump scares or setpieces. (Though it did have some FUN stuff. ESPECIALLY the obligatory Abandoned Theme Park Of OMGDoomzor. Yes, I know, but... it's GOOD.) But after that point, once you get to Egypt, things got very much more on-rails, grindy, and shabby around the edges, and I rapidly lost interest. Apparently, so did the dev team.

Night Trap wasn't just cringeworthy. Sega CD titles generally worked better when they just used it as a storage medium to make bigger, better games (Sonic CD etc.) FMV tech at the time wasn't up to the job of pulling off the gaming experiences they wanted, so Night Trap - according to reviews you can find from the time - was also fairly unplayable because of the timing required vs response lag and bugginess of the video. Sewer Shark dodged the technical issues (mostly) by using the tech to make a straightforward rail shooter, with superimposed sprites as targets, and somehow also getting legendary VFX dude John Dykstra and Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh in on the deal. "Adult" games also generally tend not to be brilliantly designed, since they're focussing on... er... other assets to get through. Having surfed the Worst Games Of All Time wiki, Lula 3D shows up, as does at least one Leisure Suit Larry entry. Also on that list is Dungeon Keeper: iOS, and sweet Freya knows I love a dungeon. But. Aside from being quite hard to play, this was the moment EA found out what micropayments were for. Shortly afterwards, they found out what the word "free" is for, courtesy of a painful set of lessons from the UK Advertising Standards Authority.

Similar idea to Judgement Night - the Spawn movie was objectively not great, even with John Leguizamo gurning frantically as The Clown. However - if you can find it - the OST is a late-90s time capsule of metal and techno. The mix doesn't always work out - the Prodigy x Tom Morello and Metallica x DJ Spooky offerings are surprisingly tame for both partners. But when it does, like the Filter x Crystal Method opener...

Iron Maiden - Stranger In A Strange Land (2015 Remaster)

Calva Louise - Feast Is Over (Bonus points for having one of the most convoluted plotlines for a video of all time)

Therion - Son Of The Staves Of Time

I’m aware you’re not joking. The equivalent from my era would be Night Trap, which apart from being filled with technical failures was on quite dodgy ground. …boy that escalated quickly…

Fatboy Slim - Sunset (aka Bird Of Prey)

Jean Michel-Jarre - Zero Gravity (Live @ Notre-Dame)

Peggy Lee - Ain't We Got Fun?

Inspired by the comments re LOTR:Gollum on another thread, being a nostalgic bunch we talk a lot about the games we remember as kids, ones we came back to after years away, ones we'd like back. But there are some that misty-eyed recollections still can't save. In your humble opinions... what is the single worst, most toxic, unsalvageably horrific title you've ever played, let alone forked over perfectly good moolah for? For me: I never could afford a console, and have never bothered to get one as a grown-up. However: many college-era friends had them , and Michi brought one game along specifically for a laugh and to torture his friends with: SNES T2:Judgement Day. (Contrary to popular opinion, Germans DO have a sense of humour, but it's quite odd. Maybe that was just him. Dunno.) I'm not a hugely talented console controller player to start with, but was reassured that it wasn't me when Ahnold went haywire (including through a wall clip) under everyone else's command too. It was at least hilarious (with some light herbal assistance). How about everyone else? Ladies and Gentlemen... start your flamethrowers.

nah, last time I just got eaten by a Grue. Sounds more fun, to be honest.

You were killed by [WhoSayinPsPsPsPsNowYouMF]

Wondering if I should order the new LOTR game? People seem to like it… https://amp.theguardian.com/games/2023/may/25/the-lord-of-the-rings-gollum-daedalic-entertainment-nacon-video-game-review

They’re not giving much away, although I suspect we’ve got a Alien Lust Spores / Sex Virus / Accidental Love Potion #9 Replicator Incident episode on our hands. And 3D Boimler and Mariner.