Rate the latest movie you've seen.

[Baruch]

How about a pre-French Revolution script ...

"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing." -  Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Out of geese?  Got Assignats.

[SGOS]

   BBC staff set on Reg and saw his head off.
ANIMATION: Reg's head starts off by being thrown into picture.
Animation leads to an oak panelled, Civil Service committee room. A politician is addressing three officals.

Politician   Gentlemen, our MP saw the PM this AM and the PM wants more LSD from the PIB by tomorrow AM or PM at the latest. I told the PM's PPS that AM was NBG so tomorrow PM it is for the PM nem. con. Give us a fag or I'll go spare. Now, the fiscal deficit with regard to the monetary balance, the current financial year excluding invisible exports, but adjusted of course for seasonal variations and the incremental statistics of the fiscal and revenue arrangements for the forthcoming annual budgetary period terminating in April.

Somewhere in there you should insert the words "financial instruments."  It doesn't matter where, just about anywhere.  I always laugh when I hear some talking head say, "This, and other financial instruments."  It sounds so much more refined that "stack of poker chips."

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Given that I was on a cell phone and in the hospital I thought I did pretty good to get a readable copy up there.

[aitm]

Given that I was on a cell phone and in the hospital I thought I did pretty good to get a readable copy up there.

Hope you weren’t a patient, but if so, hope all is well. Can’t afford to lose our resident curmudgeon. 😉

[Hydra009]

Intersect 3/10  (watch the 2019 The Color Out Of Space instead)

I was super pumped about this Lovecraftian film with Richard Dawkins in a minor role.  I was very disappointed.

For starters, the AI that Dawkins voices isn't intelligent and therefore does not interact with any of the characters.  No Hal 9000 shenanigans here.  Not even GERTY shenanigans.  So really, Dawkins' role is more like the computer's voice on Star Trek.  And that's really a shame, because there are bible beaters out protesting and evolution even comes up and you know Dawkins would have a golden quip or two to throw down about that.  Wasted talent.

Also, the first half of the movie is shot like a student film with a $50,000 budget.  No joke.  And you can do a lot with $50,000, just ask The Blair Witch Project directors.  But they didn't really do a great job with those limited resources.  There was a lot that seemed unnecessarily shoddy, especially the characters and the dialogue - which is exactly what you absolutely need to get right in a low-budget production.

And it also appears to be shot out of order, almost like it's going backwards chronologically.  I could understand that if they were going for some trippy Memento arc, but they didn't set that up very well.  For the first half, we get an in-medias-res, then an emotional turning-point scene (a scene that the audience doesn't have enough info to understand and therefore can't possibly be invested in), a scientific breakthrough (good stuff), then copious and unnecessary backstory on said breakthrough.  That's the first half.

Imagine if I showed you some astronauts about to exit a lunar lander then I showed you some kids in school studying astrophysics for the next hour then eventually go back to the moon stuff.  You'd get bored and shut it off before it gets to the good stuff.

Now, there is a good twist towards the end, but man, you have to endure a LOT of tedium to get there.  Honestly, you could edit this down to a 20 minute short and it'd be a damn good short.  But it absolutely should never have been made feature-length.  Huge mistake.

Simply put, there were major screw-ups in both the writing and editing departments, which created a 90% boring movie with 10% good stuff.

[SGOS]

Intersect 3/10  (watch the 2019 The Color Out Of Space instead)

I remember considering renting that, but I can't remember if I did, and consequently, I have no visual flashes of, "Oh yeah, that movie!"  Maybe it got bad reviews, which ordinarily I don't pay a lot of attention to, but the new releases at Redbox have been mostly real stinkers since the theaters closed.  I've become more selective about what I rent as a result.  Since the theaters closed, I have rented maybe 10 new releases, most rather disappointing.  I've been mostly catching up on older TV series that I've missed out on.  Some I rent from Netflix, and if I'm caught up in the first season, I'll buy the whole set on ebay.  Used are fine.  I've yet to be burned on used disks.  I've got a good start on a winters supply.  My favorites so far are Smallville, Supergirl, Defiance, Gotham, and at the top of the list would be Outlander, and Homeland.  I'm binge watching Homeland right now.  As much as I try to space episodes out, I end up watching 4 in a row sometimes.  The thing never resolves and the plot keeps building with never a breather, so that one is not going to last the winter.  I'm sure I'll find more, and there's plenty there now that deserve a second watching by January.  I'm also watching American Gods right now.  I'm only on the first disk, and trying hard to figure out what it's about.  I don't know if I like it, but I keep watching.  It's mysterious weirdness.

[Hydra009]

The Lighthouse 7.5/10

This here's a two-mate movee picty-show, one wit' a horror most gradual, deepening like an oak sprout's trunk.  I liked all thems olden swabbie talk, right nice ring to it.  These two mates - an old shellback an' a youngun lean bush-whacker turned wickie - they's holiday turns brutal as a hellcat's swipe for a fortnight.  This tale t'was a mite sluggish at demi-heure - all languor-like - but it got back all me interest plus interest toward's th' terminus.

Envision thus.  Both mates heavy wet for a month o' sundays.  Raising cain.  Bunch o' fives.  And lookin' like the Devil heself, howling that his mate is selling him tha dog.  Off his chump, one or other or both!  Verily, a story worthy o' the time, but no' fit fer encore.

[Blackleaf]

Okay. I know you guys have most likely heard the controversy around the Cuties movie on Netflix, right? I was wondering, as someone without Netflix anyway, if the movie was really as bad as people say. I was searching on YouTube for any reviews from people whose opinions I trust, and I got Shoe0nHead (no), Ben Shapiro (fuck no), Tucker Carlson from Fox News (insert Titus laugh here), and a bunch of people I've never heard of.

[Baruch]

Okay. I know you guys have most likely heard the controversy around the Cuties movie on Netflix, right? I was wondering, as someone without Netflix anyway, if the movie was really as bad as people say. I was searching on YouTube for any reviews from people whose opinions I trust, and I got Shoe0nHead (no), Ben Shapiro (fuck no), Tucker Carlson from Fox News (insert Titus laugh here), and a bunch of people I've never heard of.

Haven't seen it, but there is nothing wrong with porn.  Probably rather innocent compared to Fifty Shades of Grey, which I would consider tame.  Virtue signaling SJWs are potential INCELs that Cotton Mather would approve of.  Feminists of course consider male preferred porn to be objectifying, while reading their bodice-ripping romance stories.

[Hydra009]

Okay. I know you guys have most likely heard the controversy around the Cuties movie on Netflix, right? I was wondering, as someone without Netflix anyway, if the movie was really as bad as people say. I was searching on YouTube for any reviews from people whose opinions I trust, and I got Shoe0nHead (no), Ben Shapiro (fuck no), Tucker Carlson from Fox News (insert Titus laugh here), and a bunch of people I've never heard of.

Same.  ShoeOnHead and Alteori gave it a shot and came away with some pretty negative reactions.  The general impression is that it's straight up softcore porn for pedos.  The director may or may not have had good intentions, but the finished product is not a noble endeavor.  And like 450 or so "cuties" participated, so what you see on-screen is just a drop in the bucket.  Pretty disgusting.

[GSOgymrat]

The Social Dilemma on Netflix is a movie that everyone should watch. I sincerely believe that social media is deteriorating the mental health of many of its users, particularly children, and that it is undermining civil discourse and democracies.

https://youtu.be/uaaC57tcci0

[Gawdzilla Sama]

People said the same thing about TV back in the '50s.

[Baruch]

The Social Dilemma on Netflix is a movie that everyone should watch. I sincerely believe that social media is deteriorating the mental health of many of its users, particularly children, and that it is undermining civil discourse and democracies.

https://youtu.be/uaaC57tcci0

Yes, we need the propaganda of the big three TV corps, ala 1968 (Walter Cronkite, Fr Daniel Berrigan and MLK were traitors).  My ex grew up in a small town, where there was just one of the big three TV corps, and nothing else.

Democracy = Liberal dictatorship, moving inevitably to petite bourgeoisie socialism.  Useful fools until you get a real Communist like Stalin or Mao.

[Baruch]

People said the same thing about TV back in the '50s.

It was true.  TV is evil.  Radio before that.  Newspapers/magazines before that.  Literacy itself is subversive, destructive of every society that pushes that.

[Cassia]

Lets head down to Blockbuster and grab a movie. Who is with me? The "Endling" store is in Bend, Oregon. Except we get to sleep over and have our run of the place..it is actually an Air BnB. Be kind. Please rewind

https://www.oregonlive.com/travel/2020/08/sleep-over-inside-the-worlds-only-surviving-blockbuster-store-in-bend.html