redhorsejacket
@redhorsejacket@lemmy.world
- Comment on [deleted] 5 hours ago:
Sometimes, the humor is found in how unsubtle the methodology is. A carpet bombing approach, one might say.
- Comment on Anon isn't fooled by planes 5 days ago:
When you nut, but Bernoulli keep sucking…
- Comment on Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy - Announcement Trailer 5 days ago:
And it’s pretty good! I had fun with the time I put into it, though it did feel a little bloated in the same way their Pathfinder RPG did. I think it’s a consequence of their Kickstarter success for these games, which just kept talking on more stretch goals.
The good news is there is a LOT of game present for those that enjoy it.
- Comment on Anon is behind enemy lines 1 week ago:
Not in Education, Employment, or Training. NEET.
- Comment on Doom the dark ages... 1 week ago:
Idk about that, I heard a fair number of folks who were less enthused with Eternal vs 2016. The general sentiment among those folks was that Eternal skewed too far into “combat puzzle” territory, where encounters felt like they had prescribed “solutions” that you needed to perform to succeed reliably. This iteration being less about resource management and high speed encounter flow seems to be a reaction to those critiques.
- Comment on Hard Boiled | John Woo's Hong Kong classic has been rescued and restored in 4K 1 week ago:
I’m never going to financially recover from this.
- Comment on Fucking google did it again, they "fixed" something that never broken. This time they make thumbnails way too big even with 70% zoom 1 week ago:
You’re doing good work.
- Comment on Alison Brie and Dave Franco Face Copyright Suit Over $17 Million Sundance Hit ‘Together’: ‘A Blatant Rip-Off’ 1 week ago:
Yeah, granted the article is quoting the plaintiffs’ suit, so we’re getting a pretty skewed interpretation, but both films ending with a scene in which the leads select the same Spice Girls album to listen to really does point towards plagiarism. With that being said, I don’t know how anyone could think they’d get away with that blatant.
- Comment on What movies have you watched this week? 2 weeks ago:
Blood Vessel (2019).
An improbably diverse group of U-Boat attack survivors find their way aboard a seemingly abandoned Nazi vessel, discovering, in time, what happened to the previous occupants.
The movie has 3 things going for it:
- A perfect title.
- Commitment to make-up and practical effects in most scenes(the standout being the main antagonist)
- The production either filmed on a real vessel, or they have very talented set decorators. Given how many B-grade creature features (esp. ones set in WW2) wind up being 80 minutes of stereotypes tramping through the woods, the production value was not unappreciated.
Is it good? Not really. Does it make good on its premise? Also, no. Is it better than it could have been? Absolutely.
Worth a watch for fans of foam latex.
- Comment on Anon gets investing advice from Isaac Newton 2 weeks ago:
Nice to see Newton and I have one thing in common, and, let me tell ya, I don’t know shit about astronomy.
- Comment on 🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’ 3 weeks ago:
Please no. Adding to my collection is pricey enough as-is :(
- Comment on "The Accountant 2" is Certified Fresh with 75% on Rotten Tomatoes 4 weeks ago:
I have not yet seen the sequel, but I might if I can find a good matinee deal or something. This makes me feel ancient, but I remember when a ticket was like $5 if the showtime was before 5 pm. Sadly, that seems to have gone the way of the $5 footling.
Beekeeper is one of the best surprises I’ve had in a long time. I was looking for something new, but sorta familiar, to watch and gave it a shot on streaming, pretty much sight unseen. I thought it was just Statham.trying to cut in on that John Wick money. Which, it sorta was, but man, that script just kept out doing itself with every expansion in scope / stakes. By the time they “reveal” who the kid’s mom is, I was so on board their ride.
I wish Statham had brought something to the role other than stoic badass. Maybe it would have been too much at that point, but I kinda wanted an actor who could match the script in brazen buffoonery. Maybe then they could have cut the FBI agents’ scenes and focused more on him. I practically snoozed through that whole B plot.
- Comment on "The Accountant 2" is Certified Fresh with 75% on Rotten Tomatoes 4 weeks ago:
It’s a mixed bag tbh. I think the first one is overlong and less clever than it thinks it is. The action is competent, but not substantively better than a good direct to video shoot em up, and there’s just so much dead space between these sequences it’s almost not worth it.
That being said, i’d rank it above Jason Statham’s A Working Man, but below Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper. Idk if that helps you at all, but I think it’s indicative of the mode this movie is trying to operate in.
- Comment on Bethesda Gifts Everybody in the Skyblivion Mod Team a Copy of Oblivion Remastered 5 weeks ago:
Okay? Again, who are you serving by choosing this specific forum to shout that messaging? I know you aren’t OP, so consider that the royal “you”.
It’s just tiresome is all, and I’m on the “boo, capitalism” side of things. It’s like the folks who turn every thread tangentially related to Microsoft into a Linux advertisement. Or the involuntary ejaculation of a vegetarian when the subject of diet comes up. Like, yes, these folks are probably correct about the things they are saying; you’re never going to be wrong to consider the angle being worked by a corp. However, it’s infantilizing to suggest that people are unaware that a corporation wants their money. That’s a given, and without additional commentary, it’s a positively useless statement that only serves to make people tune out the messaging, even in contexts where it IS desirable to bring it up (such as when a company is doing shady shit in pursuit of your money). Releasing a mediocre graphical remaster of a title that people have nostalgia for hardly qualifies as “shady shit” in my book. Lazy, sure, but not shady.
- Comment on The Sims Competitor inZOI Sells 1 Million in a Week, Krafton Declares It a ‘Long-Term Franchise IP’ 1 month ago:
Higher fidelity for sure, as one would expect when comparing games released 10 years apart, but idk if it’s “better” per se. Of course this is totally subjective, but I feel like there’s no style to inZoi, unless we define “generic AI output” as a style.
- Comment on Official Discussion - Me and My Waifu (SPOILERS) 1 month ago:
I ate the onion.
- Comment on Three original movies are being released in theaters today 1 month ago:
Don’t get me wrong, it absolutely is that, but that’s the surface level shit that got the movie financed. Underneath those obligatory trappings (which the film itself seems relatively uninterested in exploring) is a film so ridiculous, I have to question if they are pulling a sneaky and engaging in knowing parody. I refuse to spoil where the second act of that movie leads, because it was a wonderful surprise while I was watching what I figured was going to be, as you said, “dollar store John Wick”.
I gotta be clear though, it still isn’t better than a 3/5 even with an aggressively charitable attitude, but it should be criticized for its actual faults, not for what people assume it is.
- Comment on Three original movies are being released in theaters today 1 month ago:
Of the many accusations that you can hurl at it, I don’t know if “generic” applies to The Beekeeper. Like, the plot in that movie really goes places. Most of them ridiculously stupid,
- Comment on New ‘Starship Troopers’ Movie in the Works from ‘District 9’ Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp (Exclusive) 2 months ago:
I watched the older animated one (Invasion) a few months ago, and my experience tracks with you. Brain bug is taking over a Federation ship and trying to crash into Earth for conquest purposes (sort of an Alen: Resurrection thing going on there). It’s up to Rico, Carmen, and (maybe) Carl to stop the ship before it arrives. It’s 90 minutes of mid-2010s videogame cutscene, and is a fun bit of frivolous nothing, if that’s what you want.
The latter animated movie (Traitor of Mars) brings back Casper van Dien (and Dina Meyer, which is interesting depending on if this is a sequel or a prequel), but I’ve not seen that one yet.
- Comment on New ‘Starship Troopers’ Movie in the Works from ‘District 9’ Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp (Exclusive) 2 months ago:
I don’t believe Heinlein ever wrote a sequel to Starship Troopers, though certainly the “military science fiction” genre owes a lot to that book.
Ed Neumeier (who wrote Robocop and the 97 movie) however, wrote and directed the 2 live action film sequels. The second is, from memory, God awful and not worth a watch. The third is ALSO God awful as I recall, but it has the advantage of going pretty big with its ideas, so there’s a bit of zany fun to be had. Plus, despite it being one of the defining features of the book, it’s also the first time (I think) power armor makes an appearance in the film franchise. Casper van Dien’s star had fallen sufficiently by that point too, so he also reprises his role as Rico, which is another point in its favor.
There also a handful of computer animated movies and a TV series that I believe originated in Japan. They are about on par, quality wise, with the CGI Resident Evil movies. Depending on your tastes, that could either be a mild endorsement or a resounding condemnation.
- Comment on What is your single favourite movie soundtrack? 2 months ago:
Man, I literally wound up listening to that entire playlist last night after I posted the comment. I’ve only seen the film once, probably a decade or more in the past at this point, so I really only had the overall impression of the score in my head. It’s even better than I remember it.
Also, I put together that Nyman also composed the score to Gattaca, which is another very stirring soundtrack. I can hear elements it in the more traditional portions of Ravenous.
- Comment on What movies have you watched this week? 2 months ago:
I watched the Scott Adkins film Accident Man this week. It’s a film for a particular audience, one pre-disposed to enjoy direct-to-video action/martial arts schlock. On that level, it’s fairly successful, though limitations of budget and time are apparent in the fight choreo. I’d guess about 10% of the blows are mistimed, or aimed obviously wide. Furthermore, as a showcase for stunt performers, they wisely avoid overly editing the fight sequences, but (presumably in an effort to inject “intensity” without utilizing editing) the camerawork strays occasionally into unmotivated shaky cam territory. It isn’t hugely distracting outside of a couple beats though, and, without rapid fire cutting, the action remains mostly legible.
Speaking of stunt performers, the cast is the obvious selling point of the film. Adkins, Michael Jai White, Ray Park, Amy Johnston, and Ray Stevenson are probably the biggest draws for the film’s intended audience, and they certainly deliver. While anyone who has seen Black Dynamite knows that Michael Jai White has excellent comedic instincts in addition to his physical prowess, I was pleasantly surprised by Ray Park, who I found to be quite funny as White’s partner in crime. Stevenson provides some of his trademark intensity and gravitas, and a handful of other trusty character actors fill out the cast list. Comparatively speaking, Johnston draws the short straw, as her katana-wielding honey pot assassin suffers the most from the movie’s early 90s, deliberately edgy, independent comics origins.
With all that being said, the experience is sort of spoiled by the narrative tying the fights together. Adkins is an amoral assassin who views his targets not as people, but as deposits into his bank account. He is misanthropic to the extreme, and it’s a testament to Adkins’ charisma that I continued to watch after he justifies brutalizing a group of bar patrons (who, to be fair, are depicted as harassing a woman) as necessary to diffuse his “PMT - Post Murder Tension”. Tempting though it is to blame Stu Small and Adkins (who debuts as a screenwriter here), as I mentioned, the movie is an adaptation of an early 90s comic by Pat Mills. Mills is most famous for his involvement with the early Judge Dredd stories, so I’m inclined to believe that there’s an element of satire in just how edgy everybody is. Much of Adkins’ narration appears to be quoted directly from the comics, based on what I was able to find online, so I’d guess that much of what I’m about to criticize the film for is present in the source material and not a reflection of either writer.
The crux of the movie’s plot is Adkins’ ex-girlfriend (who, after leaving him, began a relationship with another woman) winds up dead, and Adkins sets out to uncover what happened. It’s established that Adkins has hang ups about the relationship’s end, because she was the only thing in his life that made him feel something. Despite this, it’s clear from everyone that he interacts with that she wanted nothing to do with him after they split, and the brief glimpses we get in flashbacks show him to have been utterly uninterested in her as a person, rather than a sex object. Additionally, Adkins discovers that Beth was pregnant with his child at the time of her murder (and that Beth and her new girlfriend, Charlie, intended to raise the child as their own), which he immediately gloms onto in exactly the sort of toxic, possessive masculinity that you might expect from the shittiest kinds of men. To the movie’s credit, there are a number of scenes in which Adkins’ personal “stake” in the plot is criticized by the less sociopathic characters. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fully commit to the bit, and there’s a third act pep talk from Charlie to Adkins that feels ridiculously unearned given their history. Additionally, it doesn’t sit right with me that Adkins is continuing to use misogynistic language pretty liberally during the final fight, when he’s supposed to have experienced some character development on that front.
Also, as a minor annoyance, despite the film’s title and his assassination gimmick being based around making his hits look like accidents, we really only see that twice, very early in the film. That’s kind of a bummer.
All things being equal though, the movie mostly delivered on the promise of its cast, and the narrative issues I have with it aren’t so glaring that I couldn’t be bothered to watch the interstitial scenes in between showdowns. 3/5 stars.
- Comment on What movies have you watched this week? 2 months ago:
Well, consider me sold. Messy, but entertaining is exactly what I’d hope for from the sequels. Thanks for taking the time to reply!
- Comment on What is your single favourite movie soundtrack? 2 months ago:
I can’t answer what my favorite is per se, but two of the most memorable scores I can think of are for Swiss Army Man and Ravenous.
I believe Daniels tapped the band Manchester Orchestra to do the music for Swiss Army Man. For whatever reason, they chose to have Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe sing on the soundtrack and the lyrics are usually just narrating what is happening on screen. case in point. It’s a lot of fun.
Equally avant-garde, but substantially more “challenging”, shall we say, the score for Ravenous is very striking and idiosyncratic, as befitting the film it’s accompanying. Also written by a popular musician, in part at any rate. Michael Nyman, the second composer, said Damon Albarn (of Blur and, later, The Gorillaz) wrote about 60% of the tracks and he composed the remainder. Several of the tracks were performed by people who had never played their assigned instruments before in their lives, to create a deliberately off-putting soundscape. Others are traditional period marching songs befitting the frontier America setting. Some are based around electronic loops and samples. And others are very traditional, pleasant (if ominous) orchestra pieces. It’s really a wild listen. Check it out for yourself.
- Comment on What is your single favourite movie soundtrack? 2 months ago:
My local symphony regularly screens movies while playing all of the score, and I would LOVE if they would do Conan. Sadly, I think it’s unlikely, but I can dream! As far as I’m concerned, it is the Platonic ideal of an epic fantasy score.
- Comment on What movies have you watched this week? 2 months ago:
Are the Re-Animator sequels worth a watch? I love the OG, but I’ve always assumed any sequels would lack its charm.
- Comment on The creator of upcoming life sim Inzoi says he was "recklessly brave to even think about creating a game of this scale" 2 months ago:
He sucks, but it was such a good set-up for a shitty Dice Man style joke, I couldn’t resist.
- Comment on The creator of upcoming life sim Inzoi says he was "recklessly brave to even think about creating a game of this scale" 2 months ago:
An emotional box? Enough about my wife!
- Comment on life changed due to shrimp 2 months ago:
“Keep your stick on the ice fellas, and remember, I’m pulling for ya. We’re all in this together!”
