deanb

Been on a Fleetwood Mac binge of late, dabbling with the "Radio" on Spotify too to mix it up (which throws in likes of Eagles, ELO, Hall & Oates, Simon & Garfunkel, so it's a pretty good base to start from).

Anyone watching His Dark Materials? (is it out in the US? I know it's a BBC show over here). Pretty good so far, though "gobblers" when said out loud by serious actors seems very silly. (and because UK has such a small acting base it seems, most of the head gypsies are GoT actors :P). It's definitely a case where most books are better adapted into TV shows than films, given this has allowed it to breath a lot more than the film had, given one episode into these would be half the film. And the film didn't have the end of the book, which I suspect this show will given.

"Boobies. No Boobies. Boobies. No Boobies"

Bad Taste was one of my step-dads favourite cult movies and he was pretty eager to introduce me to it. It'd say it was quite enjoyable, especially with the non-budget element of it. The sheep bit is always good, and yeah it's amazing to watch with it being in mind that this was the guy who'd go on to make LotR with the scale of effects it had. Any who I'm here for The Joker. Which I gather we're all fairly middling on. Competently shot, a bit heavy handed on many elements (especially the strings in the music) and not terrible or anything just not like a movie I'd be clamouring to get to again or tell everyone else it's a must see. It ultimately felt quite "meh" and was maybe trying for some kind of anti-1% message in it but would have been better done a decade ago than now. Definitely surprised one scene was in this considering I thought the trope was well and truly killed off in Teen Titan's Go! To the Movies. And I'd say its inclusion overall made the film worse off. Also it royally fucked up a Bob Monkhouse joke which I think it can only get away with cos I'd guess his audience isn't very international. (same with the Gary Glitter thing).

The Queens Corgi My brother and step-mum wanted to see this ad now have lost movie choosing privelages. So apart from the crappy grade quality from "non-brand" kids movies you've got Jack Whitehall at his middle-class knobishness all tied with being made by a ton of people that haven't decided to go "hey, couldn't this be seen as promoting rape and dismissing 'no means no' cos like the dog clearly and explicitly doesn't want to mate with Trump's corgi". Oh and the female love interest originally dismisses the main corgi then suddenly changes her tune when she finds out he actually is a royal corgi but doesn't really change much in her response towards him. And and some light homophobia for the mix. So great lessons for the kids.

I too got a Switch. I'll be honest I'm getting an itch for pokemons. I gave my brothers OG Switch a go a couple weeks back to check things over and one of my main issues was how crappy the joycons feel, especially docked to the console (might just be my brother has kept crap care, and he is 12, but felt so diconnected. Felt as attached to the console as those mobile phone game controller dock things), and since they're built in directly that's not an issue here. Overall compared to my brothers while this feels more "plasticy" it's substantially lighter as a result and is just about the top end of "slips right into a pocket". Got it now cos 1. I had transport to a retail park where I could get it on offer and had a voucher from my bank (which meant I got Switch + Minecraft for £175). 2. I'm looking after my bro next week so can get in some quality time rather than waiting for the Pokemons to come out. Also part of why I got Minecraft since he has that (he also 'has' Fortnite too and Brawlhala so might kick his butt in those). Other games will likely arrive over time, though as I'm well aware with Nintendo the prices hold for an unreasonably long length of time. I am eyeing up diving into Fire Emblem some point and hearing good things on DQXI. Also a birdy told me of this fab JRPG I might be into...FFIX or something...

Dark Phoenix I'll be honest I expected it to be a giant shitshow given the initial reception. It's not too bad, mainly helped by First Class pulling together a really solid cast of actors. Mainly it struggles in being tied down in previous films lore which hampers an attempt at telling the Dark Phoenix saga, which means it compromises in ways that drag it down. For example: There's a weird thing where Genosha (also another thing not named) is like barely a hundred metres across, let alone the size to support a city (that could be wiped out). Like it's so small if it was the same size in the comics then post "no more mutants" the entire remaining mutant population would still struggle to fit on Genosha in this film. There is however some cool moments, especially with the likes of Magneto when taking down the aliens and just going a bit gory with it given he's a whole train of metal to work with. They do almost attempt to do "the whitehouse scene" from X2 a bit but kinda give up half heartedly within a couple seconds so don't get the full scope of what could be done with a murderous nightcrawler. The Cyclops-powered weapon on the X-jet is also kinda cool, and makes sense, though only used once. Ultimately it's a story line that, even before Last Stand, was made pretty damn competently in the animated TV show and that had "Jean" a lot more than should be legally allowed. If you've enjoyed the characters of the First Class lot then I'd say this wouldn't be a waste of your time if looking to wrap things up before we get all new x-men in the MCU.

Does seem to have some active electronics in than just being a plastic ring that fits your joycons.

If memory serves they are/were pretty much next to Naughty Dog and would overlap a fair bit anyway back in the day (hence quite strong similarities/association between Crash and Spyro and Jak n Daxter and Ratchet n Clank). It's surprising it's taken so long. Sunset Overdrive does mean Sony technically now own the rights to an Xbox One exclusive...which is an oddity.

See this is pretty much the kind of thing I think the "A Star Wars Story" stuff should have been. Set within the universe of Star Wars but distinctly separate from the main line stuff, rather than giving a feature film on "how they got the death star plans and why there's a blow-up-death-star hole" and "how Han Solo got his name and gun". Clone Wars and Rebels have introduced tons of side characters that TV/films could be made from. So fingers crossed this'll be good.

CTR is treating me well.

@Mal - Ah, the not-Rowan Atkinson guy. I am familiar. At least he's not Jamie

That's not Jamie "take-away-the-turkey-twizzlers" Oliver is it? Considering some of the massive egos in television cooking he's certainly the king prick of the bunch. Funny he's back in news again once again aiming for his 'man of the people' type shtick claiming his restaurants failed cos they weren't "posh" and not cos they were stupidly expensive for simple pasta. How far you in, enjoying it? With the discussion above on services it's a shame that Amazon is getting a few new services cos their service/platform is dire. They run adverts on much of the episodes and finding shows, especially stuff that's included with Prime Video and not a standalone rental/purchase, can be a hit or miss affair. So for example might see Akira, think "ooh", and nope it's a rent/buy situation.

The lens is a real thing and the objects are real. The 'shooting' stuff is some digital effects yes cos that's literally not how cameras 'shoot'

Actually as a Brit I am a titled gamer....

On one hand it's up to them where they choose to sell their game and where they get funding from, and some of the hate has been extreme, but on the other hand literally could have announced in any other way and go "hey we're going to be on Epic store and this gives us some financial flexibility". Doesn't help they continued to fan the flames themselves, shitting n patreons and anyone outside of Epics coverage and then also get Sweeney further fanning the flames with the "this is awesome" thing. Epic seem to be under the illusion of "bad publicity is good publicity" thing and continues to stoke up division between gamers and developers (and developers and publishers) and thinks that constantly going "Steam is bad" is their get out of jail free card.

Over her specifically it's pretty much "reet?".

Not a movie, it's in the shows. Each season they do a crossover event. This years was "Elseworlds" (which introduced Batwoman and set up the Monitor for the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" event). Gonna be in December/January (I'd guess the shows go on hiatus over xmas) and total 5 shows. It's kinda amazing how the DC TV shows are able to consistently set up 'justice league' type crossovers and the movies with massive budgets can't. And some of those crossovers were across networks too with the original Supergirl crossover.

Been working on several, the Robert Pattisson batman movie will be another one. In other, less cinematic, news the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover for this season of the Arrow/Flash/Supergirl/Legends/Batwoman(?) will be having a bunch of cameos. Previously announced was Brandon Routh as superman (last seen in that role in Superman Returns), currently he's actually The Atom in Arrow/Legends. Today they announced Kevin Conroy will be playing, on screen, an older Bruce Wayne!! (which might also mean Terry McGinnis?) https://www.eonline.com/news/1062129/longtime-batman-actor-black-lightning-characters-join-the-cw-s-crisis-crossover

Unfortunately as a Brit I can only tell you, knowing full well our own precocious situation, that your situation is pretty fucked. Guns as a method of law enforcement is f'ed up and knowing for 13% of your population calling on 911 could be a potential death sentence is not a great situation, to put it lightly.

Up to you the order you watch them in. It was always said how much Stan Lee loved doing the films, and how he kinda revered film makers (while on the otherside they're revering him :P). It really does come across in the clips how much of a delight everyone had on set when he was doing the cameos.

While Shazam wasn't the best film this is a great little video exploring....well problem solving of film making, with some examples from the film. And a well earned dig at Cinema Sins.

I've heavily binged The Boys and wrapped it up in about a day. Gotta say really quite liked it. Much like Preacher they've taken the core plot & characters then made their own thing with it. A big departure being The Boys themselves aren't powered. The Boys comic I've read in full but felt overall it was a bit...naf, and relied way too much on shock. This actually has fleshed out quite a few of the characters and made them a huge bag of loveable/scary/terrifying/amusing assholes. The plot deviations mean that even as a comic reader I'm left wondering where they're planning on going. Another change, mainly down to the comic being 10-15 years old, is they've jettisoned the 9/11 backstory(ish) and the Bush stand-in. Also Simon Pegg as Hughs dad is cool. This scene for me pretty much sums up the humour and fucked-up nature of the show and its characters The Deep is all kinds of messed up.

Now onto Cowboy Bebop. One of those seminal shows that's been on my list for a while. I believe it's getting a live action production soonish. So far I'm about 4 episodes in or so, it's defo a bit of an old style show of "bounty of the week", very little (so far) interconnecting material to keep the momentum and hungry for more. Like it feels it would easily slip in some kind of conspiracy thing (and maybe it will). Spike is all over the place too; sometimes 'heart of gold' type, other times an uncaring bastard type, frequently dumb (trying to crack open a virus vial) while at times uncannily prophetic/insightful/intuitive (like slipping virus vial into the womans pocket). The general feel of the world at large though reminds me of The Expanse, so that's cool.