I didn’t love it. I hated it with every fibre of my being, and I think less of people who do love it.

“If you want more on Ready Player Two...”

I just want him to take a single Creative Writing class. One semester. Hell, a weekend workshop on the fundamentals of storytelling. The man cannot sustain drama without immediately undermining it. He can’t even do basic setup and payoff. Like, hacky sci fi prose is fine; not everyone is William Gibson. But when you…

I second Wolf in White Van. It’s a very good, quite nearly great, novel.

John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van, kinda sorta maybe. It’s definitely good, and infinitely better than anything Cline has ever foisted on the public.

When did “cultural impact” become this defining metric of success? It’s so weird, I never heard that phrase at all until people started needing a reason to shit on Avatar.

I’m glad everyone’s enjoying this, but I think I’m out. The show just absolutely isn’t clicking for me as anything more than a lore-dispenser, and a pretty flat one, besides.

Stink. Stank. Stunk.

Mikklesen had the easiest role in Death Stranding in terms of understanding. He loves his baby in a jar and as a ghost he’s angry at everyone. There’s more to it than that, but in terms of emotional anchors Mikklesen had the easiest and he’s the star attraction in that game both for how comprehensible he is and how…

But steamed hams aren’t steamed, they’re called steamed hams despite the fact that they are obviously grilled.

All recognition to Lindsay Ellis’s multi-part video essay on Transformers on this, but it is worth pointing out that Jennifer’s Body is also shat upon because Megan Fox spent the peak of her career getting shat upon for her roles, and absolutely undeservedly. If you watch her character, and her relationship to Shia…

I don’t want to go on too much of a diatribe.

My take:

Object permanence is SOME SHIT- I’m always like, how’d you get over there when I wasn’t watching? Are you telling me things can happen when the camera isn’t on?

I dunno. Wolf Warrior seems to have done more than alright. Whatever winning the “culture war” means. And on the other end, China has respected art house movies too. No reason they can’t do it.

Ever since I heard this announced and saw the screenshot of their recreation of the bell ringing shot, my thought’s been that the very people who’d have any potential interest in a Black Narcissus remake are people who know they’d just as well rewatch Black Narcissus.

I believe Nintendo has “solved” the problem by ceasing to sell this game after March.

My cat has learned the sound of the PS4 beep and runs to see if I’m putting a disc in (he likes to watch it “eat” the disc). I can’t take that away from him when I upgrade he’s too cute.

multiple scenes end with characters finishing a conversation and then just idly standing there for a few seconds before the cut.

In The Phantom Menace, I think we’re led to believe that Amidala is the queen’s name and Padme is the alias she uses when she goes incognito. But then in Episode II we learn her full name is Padme Amidala - so her idea of a disguise when she’s on the run from murderous factions is to just use her first name? And even…