Messages

31

/dev/random / Re: The Man Thread

« on: January 07, 2025, 04:04:46 AM »

How much engine is too much engine? Is there such a thing?

Well when merely starting the car is blood-curdlingly terrifying... yeah, you might've found the edge of sanity. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73s5sPyBMoE

32

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: December 31, 2024, 02:38:32 AM »

I came across clips of this show browsing shorts on youtube. It's called Mr. Inbetween.

Mr. Inbetween (TV Series, FX, 2018–2021)




An Australian made show I guess, set in Australia I think. It's a partly gritty action, partly crime-thriller, partly drama, partly comedy kind of show. It ran for 3 seasons from 2018 to 2021 on FX. It's really good, one of the best shows you probably never heard of. 30 minute episodes, so it's easy to find time to watch.

IMDB synopsis says: Ray Shoesmith is a father, ex-husband, boyfriend, brother and best friend; tough roles to juggle in the modern age. Especially, when you're also a criminal for hire.

My synopsis: It's about a hitman/enforcer for hire, divorced, has shared custody of his 8yr old daughter. Wants to raise his daughter right and be a good role model for her, but still leads a life of crime and violence. It's not really a "comedy", but every so often veers that way when absurd and awkward moments occur. It goes from action to funny to sad and everywhere else in a natural well-written way, interesting characters, good character development. I'm about halfway through the last season now (s03) and so far I'd rate it a 9 out of 10 - one of the best shows I've ever seen. It's so good, it's a shame there's only 3 seasons. But I suppose a good show running too long can be as bad as a bad show. I watched The Walking Dead for all of it's first 9 seasons before I got bored and stopped following it. Just recently got around to finally downloading seasons 10 and 11, the last 2 seasons. Pretty soon I'll start re-watching that show start to finish... and I'm not entirely looking forward to it. 

Some of the Aussie accents are a little thick. I can understand 99% of it, but some Americans have trouble understanding some British, Irish, Aussie, or Scottish accents. If this is you, I'd recommend streaming it directly from some paid service that offers english subtitles.

33

/dev/random / Re: The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 Thread (and 2023 also)

« on: December 28, 2024, 03:38:58 PM »

Corona Extra "O Tannenpalm" Christmas commercial turns 34 this year.

• First aired in 1990. It remains the longest running beer ad of all time.
• It was filmed in Akumal, Mexico. - The ad's creator, Mike Rogers, chose the location on the Yucatan Peninsula after a family vacation there where he was struck by the town decorated in Christmas lights.
• It cost less than $50,000 to make. - Or approximately 1,852 packs of 24 Corona Extra bottles. Even better, because there were no actors, the company hasn't had to pay any residuals, effectively making it one of the cheapest commercials ever made and making it easier to stay on the air for 30-plus years.
• Alligators kept invading the set. - According to the ad’s creator, Mike Rogers, the area in Akumal where they were filming was very marshy and home to large numbers of alligators. They kept wranglers on set to keep the reptiles away from the crew. "We had to scoop the alligators out of the way and keep them out of the way," Rogers recalled in 2015. "The cameraman was petrified." Thankfully, they only needed 10 takes.
• Corona has considered replacing the commercial. - But they couldn't come up with a better idea, according to Jim Sabia, the chief marketing officer of Constellation Brands Inc's beer division. "We've tried over the years to come up with another holiday ad, and every time we look at the storyboards and concepts, we go back to this," Sabia told the Wall Street Journal in 2015. "It's so simple, powerful and emotional. It's extremely hard to beat."

https://youtu.be/7xSrXpYGXCg?si=xHz5NKghKeyzSEFz

34

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: December 27, 2024, 06:43:26 PM »

CHOO-CHOO!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvAqn_kCSss&ab_channel=JoeFusco

35

/dev/random / Re: The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 Thread (and 2023 also)

« on: December 09, 2024, 06:21:20 AM »

I love Christmas movies. Maybe not as much as I love horror and Halloween movies. I already have all the best ones in my collection. Back in October I did a search through a movie torrent site and downloaded a few things I hadn't seen. I'm not afraid to watch something that might suck. Sometimes you get lucky and find something cool. And even if it turns out that it sucks, at the very least, it's something DIFFERENT.

The worst comes first...


Carol for Another Christmas (1964)



Starring Sterling Hayden (played Police Capt. McCluskey in The Godfather), Ben Gazzara (played Brad Wesley in Road House), Pat Hingle (played Commissioner Gordon in 1989's Batman), Peter Sellers (played Insp. Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies). Written by Rod Serling, narrorator/host/writer on the old Twilight Zone tv show. That said... it's VERY Rod Serling/Twilight Zone-esque. If The Twilight Zone was going to have a Christmas special, this would be it. It also credits Charles Dickens as writer because it's based on A Christmas Carol. It's got the three ghosts, all the same story elements that any Christmas Carol clone would have... eh, sort of.

I suppose the whole thing had some personal political connotations for Rod Serling when he wrote it... and it's really not a good twist on the Christmas Carol story in my opinion. The "Scrooge" character, Daniel Grudge (played by Sterling Hayden) is a bitter old man, mad that his only son died in WW2 (mind you this came out in 1964), and now preaches that America should've always practiced a strict isolationist policy, and that would've kept his son from having to die. The three ghosts come, one of them shows him a prison camp, blah blah blah,... and in the future portion, nuclear war has killed 99.99% of earths population, and some crazy maniac (played by Peter Sellers) leads the survivors of one town and tells them that they need to kill all the people in the next town rather than co-existing with them. So... I guess the point being that "isolationism is bad" and "we need dialogue because when we stop talking, we start fighting." I dunno, perhaps it was more politically relevant back in 1964 when communism was spreading. But in the end... he doesn't change all that much. It feels very non-climactic. Just a very very awkward Christmas movie. I can't even say that it's terrible. The first half of the movie is actually okay. But somewhere in the middle, it just loses you and feels really "off". I guess there's not enough of a solid relatable "moral of the story" underneath it all to make it feel like a competent Christmas movie.

So... if you want something "different", oh yeah, it's different alright. But it's not a "good" kind of different, at least in my opinion.


A Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986)



Starring Dolly Parton, Lee Majors, John Ritter, other people you probably don't know. It was a made-for-TV thing back in the mid-80's that was pretty well known. I never saw it back then, but I definitely remember seeing it listed in the TV Guide on ABC every year at some point in December. That's the only thing that made me think to download it.

Dolly plays Lorna Davis, a country singer doppleganger of herself basically, that is lonely and tired of her life of fame. She wants to get away from it all for a while. She calls up a friend and asks to stay in her old cabin in the mountains. When she gets there, she discovers a bunch of runaway orphan kids living in the cabin. She lets them stay and takes care of them. Blah blah blah, won't give away the ending (cuz I know you're just dying to see it fer yerself, right?).

Not terrible. Dolly Parton sings a lot in it though. I've never been a fan of her. I like old country music, and she's always been a pretty good singer, but she's just not the kind of country music I'd ever listen to by choice. Not my cup of tea. I won't delete it, I'll keep it in my collection, but it'll probably be a few Decembers away before I'm bored enough to watch it again.


It Happened One Christmas (1977)



Starring Marlo Thomas, Wayne Rogers (player Trapper on the first few seasons of MASH), Orson Welles. It's a not-very-good remake of the old James Stewart and Donna Reed Christmas classic, It's A Wonderful Life. But in this one, they made the woman the lead by flipping the names: Mary is Mary Bailey, and George is George Hatch. And from there, pretty much everything is copied from the original movie.

Again... not really terrible, I'll keep it in the collection, but it's not good enough that I'd want to watch it every year. I'd much rather watch the original.


The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas (1996)



Starring Sam McMurray as Herman Munster, Elaine Hendrix as Marilyn Munster, Mary Woronov as Mrs. Dimwitty. Other than Sam McMurray (who's always had small bit parts in a lot of movies) and Mary Woronov, it's a bunch of nobodies.

Really goofy. But it's the Munsters - par for the course. Little Eddie gets bummed out at Christmas, Grandpa tries to help by conjuring Santa Claus... elves mess in Grandpa's lab and find a potion to turn Santa into a Christmas fruit cake... Lilly has to make a potion to turn him back... the Munsters decorate the house in a ghastly fashion in order to compete in the neighborhood decorating contest, which makes the neighbor Mrs Dimwitty (Mary Woronov) angry because she wins every year.

It's silly. It's pointless. It's not very good (unless you really want some silly pointless shit). But it's something different.


Spirited (2022)



Starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds... and whooooooole bunch of diversity hires.

First of all... it's a fucking MUSICAL. I HATE MUSICALS. Without Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, there'd be literally ZERO REASON to watch this movie.

When I said "diversity hires" ...My god. This movie definitely had a DEI department. The amount of conspicuously pre-fabricated diversity in the extended cast and background extras is as noticeable as glittery nipple tassels painted on the Mona Lisa. WOW, YOU PEOPLE ARE REALLY DOING THE WORK TO HELP RACIAL MINORITIES FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES BY SEEING MORE REPRESENTATION ON THE SCREEN, HUH? Only... you still got two fuckin' white dudes and ONLY TWO WHITE DUDES on the cover of the movie. Sorry, but this DEI and woke bullshit is just a retarded circle jerk that the idiots of this world perform to make them feel like they're good people so they can feel better about themselves (or feel like they're better than others, like the arrogant pricks they are) ... rather than actually going out and doing GOOD THINGS FOR REAL PEOPLE. Anyway... enough about that shit.

Basically a mixed up modernized re-working of the Dickens Christmas Carol. And above all, it's a MUSICAL. For that reason, it's a little painful to sit through. Like I said, without Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, this would be unwatchable and excruciating. But they're kinda funny, so it prevents you from turning it off because you want to see how it ends.

Not good though. If you never get to see it, no problemo, you really didn't miss anything. This one's probably getting deleted.


A Christmas Story 2 (2012)



Starring Daniel Stern as the dad... bunch of others I'm not familiar with.

A Christmas Story from 1983 is a classic. One of the best Christmas movies EVER. I saw the "official" sequel with Peter Billingsly playing adult Ralphie, A Christmas Story Christmas, when it came out a couple years ago. I thought it was pretty good. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 6.3/10. I'd mostly agree with that, maybe as high as 7. But I think Christmas Story 2 was considered the "unofficial" sequel by most people. It seemed to have gotten mostly negative reviews, which is what I always heard about it, which is what kept me from bothering to watch it until now. But...

I was very surprised. I really liked it. It's definitely not as good as the original, but it's not the pile of crap that I always heard it was. It has more of a silly cartoonish feel to it than the original, but not in an altogether bad way. I don't think I like it as much as the Peter Billingsly sequel, but it's not far behind. This one's definitely a keeper in my collection.

36

/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: December 08, 2024, 04:29:02 AM »

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022)



The most profoundly moving and deeply emotional movie I've ever seen. A very cerebral examination of the frailty of the human condition, the corruptibility of innocence, and the nature of sin within the modern societal construct.

No, just kidding.

It's a bunch of dick and fart jokes. All the shit you always loved about Beavis and Butt-Head but in a modern setting. It's stupid... but that's why it's funny.

9 out of 10 dentists would recommend this movie! The one dentist that wouldn't... is an asshole. Fuck that dentist. Let's kill him.

37

/dev/random / Re: The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 Thread (and 2023 also)

« on: November 28, 2024, 01:11:05 AM »

38

/dev/random / Re: The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 Thread (and 2023 also)

« on: November 14, 2024, 11:35:28 PM »

I started to rename this the "Christmas in perpetuity thread" but... whatever.

I know I know... it ain't even thanksgiving yet. But I've been hauling up the 900-thousand boxes of Christmas decorations from the basement. I get into Christmas a little more than I used to. Been downloading a bunch of Christmas tunes. Classic shit mostly - stuff my family always listened to through the 80's.

When I was a kid, sometime just before Christmas, we'd load up in the car and go riding around all over the place looking at Christmas lights on peoples houses. Usually the tape playing in the cassette player was Nat King Cole christmas songs or one of those Mannheim Steamroller christmas albums that were all the rage in the 80's.


https://youtu.be/yzGFPQQj9BQ?si=sbhYxrt_gRP3-HnP

39

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha listening to?

« on: November 05, 2024, 12:29:56 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuAat82uCCM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjD5wn1YnsQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrIRMktvRM8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W9PuLcoZMM

40

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: November 01, 2024, 08:02:43 AM »

October is horror movie marathon month for me.

In the past week, I've watched all 11 of the Friday the 13th movies in order. There's technically 12 of them if you count the 2009 remake (which I've never seen). I remember seeing #10 Jason X (2001) and #11 Freddy vs Jason (2003) when they came out in theaters. It's hard to believe that Freddy vs Jason was TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO! Damn that makes me feel old.

The earlier ones were pretty good. Personally, I think I liked #3 the best (the first film where Jason gets the hockey mask), perhaps tied with #4..

When Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982) originally came out in theaters, it was in 3-D. It would be great to see it on a big screen in 3-D again.

Back in the early to mid-1980's, 3-D was a big thing. I saw at least 3 different movies this October that were originally in 3-D. One was a lesser-known slasher called Silent Madness (1984). Also saw the 3rd movie in the Amityville series, Amityville 3-D (1983), which wasn't too bad. 3-D movies were supposed to revolutionize the movie-going experience forever, but... after the mid-80's, they just stopped filming them that way. I'm not sure why. I know it takes special multi-camera setups to film it. Perhaps the special cameras and methods for getting the shots were just too difficult or too expensive. I wish they'd bring them back and make more of them, though. It would be great for horror movies,... but on the other hand... the kinds of horror movies they're making these days aren't the same kinds of horror movies they were making in the 80's. These days, they seem to make nothing but awful teenage date night types of horror movies - a silly juvenile plot and premise with copious amounts of long drawn out suspense shots followed by screamy stupid jump scares. Shit like Scream or Final Destination.    



A yearly tradition for me, on Halloween night I always watch From Hell (2001), a movie about Jack the Ripper starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, and Robbie Coltrane, based on an old graphic novel that was apparently pretty popular - never read it myself. Definitely my favorite horror movie of all time. Me and my best friend (who passed away a few years ago) saw it together probably 10 times while it was out in theaters, and I saw it probably 10 more times all by myself when I didn't have anyone to go with me. Back in the early 2000's when we lived in our old neighborhood closer to Atlanta, When I'd have nights off and no one else was available, I'd stop by the bar and have a few pints then head over to the theater and go see From Hell again. One time I brought a bottle of Jagermeister in with me and finished it off and ended up falling asleep in the middle of the movie. I woke up at about 1 or 2am, NOBODY in the whole theater except some hispanic lady from a cleaning contractor running a carpet cleaning zamboni machine.

Anyway, yeah, From Hell, GREAT movie. Well acted, brilliantly cast, great screenplay, and great stylish cinematography. The story is fiction, but most of the characters are real and most of the fine details about the murders are based on real facts of the Ripper case. Some people think it's a bit of a "gory" movie, but I don't really think so. It doesn't really show any close detailed shots of any particularly gory parts of any murder scenes. One or two scenes of throats being slashed. Again, the cast, the acting, the screenplay, the detailed sets, the fact that it's a historical period piece... it's great. A very very underrated movie, and my favorite horror film ever.

41

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: October 19, 2024, 03:09:21 PM »

October is horror movie marathon month for me. I've downloaded probably 60 or more movies to watch. I won't list them all but here's some of them:

...

• Vampyr (1932) old black & white 1930's German-made vampire movie... if you couldn't tell from the title. No idea what it's about, will be the first time I've ever seen it. Watch it here.

I am somewhat of a horror movie fan, but at the same time, I find most of the movies labelled as "horror" to be pretty ridiculous, so I also tend to avoid horror movies... until October rolls around, and then I binge the living hell out of them, assuring that I don't feel the need to watch them any other time of the year unless I really want to.

Vampyr (1932) -
I didn't get to watch this one last year so I just kept it in the folder and waited until this October. I was hoping it would be something comparable to 1922's Nosferatu, but... no, not really. I have to say, some of the camera work is really good and very innovative for a film from 1932. Many extended shots where the camera sweeps smoothly all the way across a large room and then moves through several rooms and doorways in one unbroken really smooth shot. It was probably very hard to keep the camera that steady over that distance without using a wheeled camera mount running on tracks. But that's almost everything I have to say that was GOOD about it. The guy who plays Allen Grey, the male lead, tends to have a dopey look on his face throughout the movie. The "vampire" in the movie is not as prominent as it should be, and is NEVER EVEN SHOWN BITING ANYONE! The story has almost no similarities to the Bram Stoker's Dracula except that there IS a vampire, it only stalks at night, and you kill it with a stake through the heart... and it's going after the young girls/sisters living in one house. The whole thing is VERY slow moving and weird. The story isn't presented as clearly as it could've been, and at times, you really have no idea what the hell is really going on - you're watching it saying, "What the hell does this have to do with anything? Are the shadows on the walls ghosts or demons or what? Are they the shadows of real people or intended to represent ghosts or evil spirits or something?" Some things it explains with the text of intertitles (like from silent movies, even though this one has sound), and other things are revealed through shots of text in the pages of a book that one of the characters is reading... but there is very little dialogue. The spoken dialogue in the whole movie could probably only fill one piece of paper.

Rating it, I'd probably give it a 3.5 out of 10.

If you want a good old black and white horror film, I'd recommend these instead:

• Dracula (1931) - This is THE classic Dracula movie, starring Bela Lugosi. I don't really like it either. The acting is fairly bad in my opinion, but not everyone agrees. It IS based entirely on Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it's certainly better than Vampyr.

• Nosferatu (1922) - It is a silent movie, music score only for audio, all dialogue and narrative come from intertitle text. I've only seen it in it's entirety once, and that was 2 years ago on it's 100th anniversary, but from what I remember, it was much easier to follow than Vampyr, less confusing, and it progressed at a much better pace. From what I remember, it mirrors Bram Stoker's Dracula pretty well... which is one of the problems the movie had. If I recall correctly what I read about it, the Bram Stoker estate sued the makers of the movie and had all known copies of it destroyed. However, a few copies managed to survive in the wild for many years, and now it is considered public domain.
  
  (In 1979, they made a fantastic remake of the 1922 Nosferatu called Nosferatu the Vampyre, starring Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani. An EXCELLENT remake of it. The scene where the rats infest the city will blow your mind. There's SO MANY DAMN RATS, IT'S INSANE! NO CGI! REAL RATS! IT'S GLORIOUSLY DISGUSTING!)

• Phantom of the Opera (1925) - Starring Lon Chaney, another 100% silent film. Haven't been able to find any really clean version of it - I suppose this is just one of those movies that didn't get preserved as well as it could've.

• Frankenstein (1931) - starring Colin Clive as Dr Frankenstein and Boris Karloff as the monster. Probably the best 1930's black and white horror film. Although in my opinion, it ties with this one...

• Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - also starring Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. Many people think this one is better than the first one... I sort of agree... but in my opinion, I say you just put the two of them back to back in a double feature and say ALL THE Frankensteins is the best and be done with it.

42

Quake / Re: tastyspleen.net turns 20!

« on: October 17, 2024, 07:32:37 PM »

thanks goes to MrsQuadz

Thank you, MrsQuadz. And RailWolf.

43

/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: October 08, 2024, 01:10:36 PM »

Another good one passed back in August apparently, but for personal family reasons, it wasn't announced to the public until October 1st.

Actor John Amos passed away at age 84 on August 24th.



He played the dad James Evans on the old 70's sitcom Good Times. Sure, Jimmie Walker as JJ was popular and quotable, but without John Amos, it wouldn't have been worth watching in my opinion. My favorite episode was season 1 episode 2, Black Jesus, where the dad (John Amos) insists that Jesus was black, so JJ paints a picture of "Black Jesus" (see the above pic) and it becomes the family good luck charm.

Me? Watch Good Times? You DAMN RIGHT, I do! I might be a white boy that grew up in the 80's and 90's but I love me some black 70's sitcoms - Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, also the early 80's reboot of Sanford & Son minus the son Lamont (played by Demond Wilson) just called Sanford... it was pretty good, although not quite as good as Sanford & Son.

Beats the hell outta the crap they have on network tv now, that's for sure. I can't name one single sitcom on network television that's worth watching anymore. It all sucks. Especially if it's on ABC.

Fact about John Amos you maybe didn't know: You could kinda tell just by looking at him, the man played football. Throughout the 60's, he played football for various leagues, starting out with the AFL (later became NFL) Denver Broncos but was cut after a very short period, and then other teams in the Continental Football League, United Football League, and the Atlantic Coast Football League.

My favorite John Amos movies:

The Beastmaster (1982) - Always loved that movie as a kid. Was one of the best "sword & sorcery" genre movies from the 80's. They used to play it on TBS a lot back in the 90's, and I'd also rent it from the local Blockbuster Video every once in a while.

(Dunno what the hell a black guy was doing roaming the countryside with a young white boy. Yeah, maybe it's kinda weird,... but... he's the dear old dad from Good Times, so we don't question it.)



Coming to America (1988) - One of the greatest comedy movies of all time in my opinion. Eddie Murphy in his prime, and Arsenio Hall, both of them getting in makeup and prosthetics to create even more hilarious characters throughout the movie. And the great John Amos as Mr. McDowall. Also... the debut of Samuel L Jackson ...yelling and pointing a gun at people, just how we always love him.

Die Hard 2 (1990) - Die Hard... is a Christmas movie. It's been decided... not by me, but hey, I'll go along with it. At the very least, it's a really good action movie, definitely what I'd consider an all-time "classic", certainly as an action movie, but just as a good well-made movie in general in my opinion. And Die Hard 2 was a very solid sequel. Honestly, the entire catalog of Die Hard movies have something to offer for the action movie fan. If you're the kind of person who hates the Die Hard movies... you either hate Bruce Willis personally for some reason, or you're just not that big of a fan of the action genre... so I'm sorry, but your opinion about the Die Hard movies doesn't count.

He was in lots of other movies, and he never really played any lead characters.


Also...

(Haven't seen it yet... but WANT to.)

More on the topic of Roman history...

Saw a commercial for this on youtube the other day. Anthony Hopkins as Emperor Vespasian. Should be pretty cool. Something about Roman gladiatorial games and such.

Those About To Die - Peacock original miniseries


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFQcZRCZABo

Saw this a couple weeks ago. 10 episodes, about 1 hour each.

Verdict:
MEH. 

Not altogether historically accurate. It takes plenty of "artistic liberties", and it's not all that great.

The end of Season 1 sets the stage for a Season 2... which I anticipate would be even LESS historically/factually accurate than season 1, but so far, I haven't heard if Peacock plans to finance a 2nd season. I kinda hope they don't. I'd be tempted to watch it... and I don't want to.

44

/dev/random / Re: HBO's GAME OF THRONES - OFFICIAL THREAD

« on: October 02, 2024, 12:36:23 AM »

I heard (well... SAW to be accurate) Haunted talking about HBO's House of the Dragon in discord.

Figured I'd give it a go. I even took a few weeks and rewatched the whole Game of Thrones series as a refresher.

Boy. Did THAT suck, or what?

...

But... Game of Thrones folder got deleted right after I watched the last episode. Bwip, deleted. Not gonna watch that again.

So yeah, I did watch it one more time. And yeah, I still think the ending kinda sucked, maybe even moreso now in light of how important the events of that last season were really supposed to be. I also noticed many glaring and obvious plot holes... or sometimes just very questionable plot points. I can't even remember any of them now, but I KNOW they were there, because I had a good laugh several times at how bad they were and how I didn't notice them the first time around.

It took me several weeks to start watching House of the Dragon. I tried on about 3 occasions, got about 5 to 10 minutes in, and was so bored that I felt compelled to stop watching and go do something else. So yeah, there's that: it takes a good while to get into it. Game of Thrones was much more interesting.

It's also a little confusing because things jump forward in time at different parts with different actors playing the roles. I remember at one point it clearly let you know with a fullscreen caption that it was "5 years later", but at other times, it didn't tell you... (unless the version I downloaded cut it out - I don't think it did). Also, characters don't appear to age logically. Some are cast to look much older and taller than they should be, or compared to how little other characters in the same age range have aged in the same time.

Because of all this, the story certainly has just as many holes as Game of Thrones, if not MORE (personally, I think MORE).

Also, the fairly obvious and obnoxious injecting of post-modernism and modern feminism into the story is stupid and a big part of what makes the overall story less interesting. So tired of Hollywood trying to inject their new age "woke" philosophy into everything. It fucking RUINS art when you turn it into a vehicle for your little "message." 

45

/dev/random / Re: The Good Old Days thread

« on: October 01, 2024, 06:02:23 AM »

Remember baseball cards?

Remember Pete Rose? One of the greatest baseball players ever until they kicked him out for betting on his own games. His nickname was Charlie Hustle... Better Call Saul got it from Pete Rose.

1986 Topps Pete Rose card.



(Pete Rose passed yesterday.  Dunno the cause of death yet. Rest in peace, Charlie Hustle.)

I'm about 90% sure I've still got this one in a binder somewhere as well as most of the entire set of the 1986 year Topps.

Remember baseball cards though? You used to be able to find them at grocery store checkouts, gas station checkouts, etc. And for a while there in the 90's, you could actually find baseball card and sports memorabilia stores that would BUY them for close to what their value was. Doubt you could find anyone to buy them for what they're worth anymore... unless it's older stuff - 1970's and before.

Oldest one I have in my collection that I remember... 1959 Topps special 3-player Cleveland Indians card  featuring Minnie Minoso, Rocky Colavito, and Larry Doby, "The Destruction Crew."



I have no foggy idea what it's worth.