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Messages - Cartagia

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1
Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?
« on: March 11, 2024, 09:02:39 pm »
U.S. Marshals - It's obvious in the first 60 seconds that this quasi-sequel is inferior to the sublime The Fugitive.  It's bigger, broader, dumber, twistier, and more bombastic, but it's not necessarily a bad movie.  In fact, it's watchable as hell.  The setpieces all work, and the performances are mostly solid.  One of those flicks where the biggest crime is not being the predecessor.

Night Game - I don't know if I've ever seen a movie that was less than the sum of its parts than this. Cool conceit, fun cast, killer soundtrack, but just completely asleep at the wheel.

Dune: Part Two - I've seen this twice now, and my biggest issue is that there isn't more of it.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller - Totally delightful when it plays to Altman's strengths, like dialogue and character work (especially in the first act).  While the climax is quite revisionist for the era it is easily the weakest part of the film as it mostly does away with those aspects.

Point Blank - Way more experimental than I was expecting, but that was mostly frontloaded. It gets more straightforward as the story goes on, and it makes the pacing feel a little funky. Obviously the inspiration for a lot of crime thrillers that came after.

Love Lies Bleeding - A gorgeous, raw, seductive, and brutal film. All of the performances are top notch, and there's an amazing attention to the grit and grime of the details. And that pitch perfect soundtrack!

However, I dont know that the reveal in the climax works. I get it on a metaphorical level, and the movie was obviously foreshadowing it pretty hard, but it just didn't really land for me.

Troll (2022) - This is unfortunately really flat.  It takes itself to seriously to have fun with the premise, which is really unfortunate, because if it leaned harder into the camp it could be a good time.

Road House (2024) - This is fine. Not trying to be the original, which is good, but it also makes it have little lack of personality.

Slither - There's a lot to love here, but it's got some pacing issues, it has a little trouble balancing tone, and Fillon's character is just 'Well that happened' personified. Those are overall minor things that just stop a really good flick from being a great one.

Wonka - What were they trying to accomplish giving Willy Wonka such a depressing motivation?  I dont see a world where this sad sack Wonka becomes Gene Wilder, at least not from this pretty mediocre Timothee performance.  I just really wish they used all the obvious creativity of everyone involved to make something original.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - Better than Afterlife by virtue of the fact it feels like an actual sequel and not solely a hollow nostalgia mine - though it does have intermittent doses of that. It's definitely got problems, most notably the overabundance of characters and plotlines, but I had fun just watching a ghost busting mystery unravel.

Starman - It's might be Carpenter's most family friendly film, but it's filled with such beautiful and mature themes you'd be forgiven if you don't think of it as such.  Bridges gives a terrific showy performance, but Karen Allen's soulful and melancholic Jenny Hayden is just stunning.

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Other than looking like crap, it also doesn't specify the difference between the subtitle and edition. So can we stop with re-editing listings this way?

This change was due to a community poll: https://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,11879.0.html
You are free to request a re-vote by posting here: https://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,8361.0.html

Since the vote winner was by a large margin, a re-vote may not reproduce different results.

Maybe it's just early in the morning, but I don't see anywhere in that poll that says we would move to use colons?  It's all about dashes and descriptors.

3
General / Re: What are you playing?
« on: March 06, 2024, 10:57:18 am »
I finished Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3 last night after about 85 hours.  This game deserves all of the accolades that have been heaped on it.  I'm aiming for a kind of Neutral Good / pragmatic scoundrel playthrough, and it's working out pretty well so far.  I love it, but hate that it is eating up so much of my time.  There's still so many other games I need to get to.

I've found myself caught in the middle of watching a let's play for Baldur's Gate 3 and am having a good time experiencing the game that way, although I've only gotten through Act 1. I don't game on PC and have been waiting for the console physical release, so I'm sure I'll play it myself one of these days, hopefully sooner than later. In late 2022, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons for the first time albeit without much regularity, so both games are helping me understand another.

Setting out to play these long games is something I've found myself mostly avoiding for the same reason you're saying, that it limits the amount of total games I'm able to play. I've sidelined many RPGs that are part of my collection because of it, unfortunately.


The one Let's Play I've been watching is actually taking more time to get through than I am, so I'm managing to stay ahead of them, so I get to see a few differing outcomes and my own choices.  It's pretty nice.  I used to play D&D with friends, but that group sort of fell apart, but I also played other similar CRPGs, as well as the old D&D Icewind Dale titles, so it's kinda feeling like coming home in some ways.

4
General / Re: What are you playing?
« on: March 05, 2024, 02:13:34 pm »
I finished Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3 last night after about 85 hours.  This game deserves all of the accolades that have been heaped on it.  I'm aiming for a kind of Neutral Good / pragmatic scoundrel playthrough, and it's working out pretty well so far.  I love it, but hate that it is eating up so much of my time.  There's still so many other games I need to get to.

5
Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?
« on: March 04, 2024, 08:23:03 pm »
Kung Fu Panda 2 - A hair better than the first, I think.

Queenpins - Really great cast, but the script isn't super strong and it gets a little too outlandish and silly in spots in the back half. Fun enough all around.

The Legend of Tarzan - Yes, it is bad, and yes, it has terrible visual effects, but it's also strangely watchable?

Poor Things - Technically and aesthetically astounding, with everyone turning in stellar performances, but the script, while wildly hilarious, is super on-the-nose on not quite as clever as it thinks it is.

Brotherhood of the Wolf - Terrific action and beautiful landscapes alongside some pretty rough CGI.  There's like 30 different genres at work here, and they are each executed pretty well. They just don't always gel together, and there's not quite enough going on plotwise to fill the 2.5 hour runtime.

Caddyshack - As a kind of parody it played everything far more straightforward than I expected.  Way more of the humor actually comes from silly (usually dirty) puns or is dialogue driven than I expected.  Maybe my favorite Chevy Chase performance.

The Truman Show - One of those rare films that was acclaimed in its time and is even more widely acclaimed today. Just astonishing on a production standpoint. A complete masterclass on environmental storytelling in the first act. I would love to have gotten a little more on the crew's side because it's just so damned fascinating. Peerless filmmaking.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter - A good concept and impressive production can only get you so far when you're a 2 hour movie that should have been 90 minutes. The whole thing just feels stretched thin.

The Fugitive - I just watched this about 6 months ago, but We Hate Movies just did an episode on it and that was all the reason I needed to buy a physical copy to watch it again.

6
Modern Video Games / Re: Nintendo Switch 2
« on: March 02, 2024, 09:46:30 am »
As stated, I think 2024 will be the year we get to see the Switch 2, or whatever Nintendo calls it. I do think it'll be similar to the current Switch in terms of its hybrid handheld/console setup, however it'll have the added bonus of a 4k screen and games made to play in 4k too.


I think even a 4K screen is being optimistic Let alone games made to be played in 4K. I highly doubt it considering Nintendo's being low on them specs since Wii era.

Nintendo has always gone low end for specs.  That's their whole thing and how they cornered the handheld market.

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Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?
« on: March 01, 2024, 08:03:22 pm »
Wayne's World 2 - Broader, more commercialized, and not as slickly told as the first, but it's still extremely funny.  Also, Kim Basinger gives an all-time, under-recogized straight man role here.  Just phenomenal.

Dune: Part Two - I haven't felt quite like this leaving a movie theater since The Dark Knight- maybe since The Fellowship of the Ring (easily the best in that series). It's that kind of film - defining a genre with technical achievement, scope, world-building, and performances. It's not a perfect movie, but it's close. Better than the first in almost every way.

Kung Fu Panda - This works so well because it is a straight up kung fu film first and foremost.  It's just also happens to have cool characters and fun vibrant designs.  Plus James Hong crushing it as always!

Assault on Precinct 13 - Pure 1970s grime and grit. Carpenter is obviously still getting his legs completely under him, and it's cheap as hell, but he makes it work.

8
Topped off the 10th season of Murder, She Wrote.  Ridiculous plot twists and silly stories keep creeping in more than before, but is still pretty entertaining overall.

Amazon's A League of Their Own series is pretty good.  Doesn't hold a candle to the movie and gets a bit annoying with some of the anachronisms, but I like that it covers completely different subject matter than the film.  You can tell that there were some production issues based on how the show changes gears and drops characters at weird times, but I think a lot of that was due to shooting at the height of COVID.

Season 13 of Archer is more of the same stalwart series.  I was glad they kept mentioning Malory even though Jessica Walter passed away, as too many shows just pretend a character never existed when they have to write them out.

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Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?
« on: February 29, 2024, 08:36:56 pm »
The Package - Totally fine political thriller. Doesn't do anything especially well, but doesn't embarass itself either.  Didn't realize how much Andrew Davis liked working with Tommy Lee Jones until now.

10
Saw a decent price on Blasphemous II on PS5 so I picked that up after consulting with kashell.

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Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?
« on: February 28, 2024, 07:47:10 am »
Dune - Part One - Clicked with me in a way it didn't previously. It is cold and dispassionate, but in a way that helps to emphasize the stellar world building and pure technical prowess on display.

Cocoon - The entire Guttenberg subplot feels like a studio note. We can't have a movie that's just about aliens and horny old people! Get Guttenberg's people on the phone!

That said, pretty much everything with the retirement home is a home run until the last act, which is way too overdramatic for the film that preceded it.

12
True Detective: Night Country is fine.  Better than season 2, I think but not as good as 1 or 3.  It focused a bit too much on interpersonal drama over the mystery for me, and the actual resolution came a little too out left field for my tastes.  Same with it leaning a bit more overtly supernatural than the previous seasons. 

13
Total snoozer for me.

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Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?
« on: February 19, 2024, 08:07:39 pm »
Battle for the Planet of the Apes - Can't believe it took me so long to watch all these original sequels. They all bring something new and interesting to the table, and Roddy McDowell is incredible across the board (it's probably no coincidence that he's not in the worst one). This last entry isn't quite as good as Conquest but still finishes the franchise strong.

The Heroic Trio - I truly have no words after that absolutely demented finale.

Rollerball (2002) - It's really bad and completely stupid, but at least it's not boring?

The Edge of Seventeen - Stands up against the great teen hangout flicks like Fast Times and Dazed and Confused plus it has a killer performance from Hailee Steinfeld at the center of it.

Grumpy Old Men - Ann-Margret is the Silent Generation equivalent of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in this.

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Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?
« on: February 18, 2024, 08:29:35 pm »
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - Absolutely astounded at how good this is, but I would point out that if I were perhaps concerned about a future where apes rule the world, that I would not be purposely be breeding intelligent apes. But that's just me personally.

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