Just heard the Gym leader theme on YouTube. Good lord does that song go from awsome to fucking unbearable quick.

the chanting only happens when the gym leader is on his or her last pokémon

i like it

have a safeword handy

If I'm being frank here, lovecraft sounds like a pretentious prick in that quotation. If I'm wrong, it's too bad he's not around to explain why I've known plenty of dogs that'll pester you to play fetch on their own accord or just look at you like a stump on some days when they don't feel like playing anything. Unless the only viable explanation is that lovecraft only ever met dumb dogs in his life.

i think it's funny (as someone who generally hate dogs, too)

but i mean, lovecraft also named his cat "Nigger Man," so there's that

I'm pretty sure magic is so shunned because in some instances it's plain broken with no fair counter. At least in the original dark souls, a dark bead sorcery build could oneshot 95% of players in pvp scenarios, and there was little to counter it. Various other wombo combos emerged throughout the games as well, although it seems like magic was tougher to utilize in III.

i've never really dabbled with magic before, but it's my understanding that magically-resistant armor is a thing, and that spells usually take a long time to charge up + they're susceptible to rolling anyway

i assume, if you're right, that those three counters just aren't good enough for some reason? which would be unfortunate, and i can sort of understand looking down on those who allow themselves to be carried by OP strategies

but at the same time, when it comes to pvp, i tend to have a very "anything goes" ethos, as long as you're not cheating

it sucks, but if anyone doesn't like it, they can play a game that's designed around pvp, like a fighting game or something

little by little, you are all starting to sound more like me

all according to plan

yeah, of course

Definitely something I wanna pick up, especially knowing it's only $40.

I wish creators had more to gain from this sort of thing, though, beyond a few people going "wow this is cool" and moving on with their lives. When it comes to this sort of thing, that's always been a major hang-up for me.

2020 most anticpated?

-Tenet

Can't say I've ever disliked a Nolan film, despite his occasional memery dialogue. I'm excited to see him return to Sci fi, and its always great seeing Pattinson appearing in more and more kino. He's pretty much reinvented himself after Twilight.

-Dune

Amazing cast and Villeneuve back at the helm. Curious to see how he's progressed from BR2049.

-The Many Saints of Newark

Bit worried about the director on this one but as a Sopranos fan I'm certainly not going to be avoiding it.

-Last Night in Soho

Not particularly that intrigued by the premise but it's Edgar Wright so I'll be giving it a watch nonetheless.

Soul
Pixar has been the pits over the past decade, and things don't really seem to be looking up with movies like Onward on the horizon. Soul doesn't look like it's going to end this slump either, but what piques my interest about it is the fact that they got my man Trent Reznor doing the score. Easiest way to get me into a theater.

Mank
Favorite director's making it.

Dune
I'd like to read the book first, so I can understand why so many of its fanboys seem to think it's unadaptable, and then I can assess the film based on that knowledge. Maybe I'll watch David Lynch's attempt going into it, as well. If there's one man who has a directorial eye for beloved sci-fi stories, it's Villeneuve, but it'll certainly be funny if he shits the bed.

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0
The final chapter of this series that I've become invested in.

Mulan
I'm just morbidly curious.

So the Irishman was the snub of the night, right?

It really should have gotten cinematography the more I think about it. I haven't seen 1917 but what from what I heard it's Oscar is somewhat undeserved given its whole gimmick is its editing and camerawork?

I mean take a look at this and tell me that's not Oscar worthy.
https://youtu.be/wHTXbzSz2lw

just scorsese things tbh

he's always had a tendency to drop his films in the most competitive years, and always gets burned for it

im curious, what's a 10/10 movie to you?

Fight Club
Requiem for a Dream
Goodfellas
The Godfather

a common theme you can draw from these four movies (apart from them all being these dark and cynical examinations of the seedier and less pleasant aspects of humanity) is that they're all extremely popular and easy for normies to get into, but not at the expense of the filmmaking, which is (imo) as good as you could possibly make a movie in virtually every facet, or at least the ones that i happen to care about

but more than just being masterfully crafted films, these are movies that had me in awe the first time i saw them, and the emotions i was made to feel during each lingered with me for days and days after

Fight Club in particular is my all-time favorite, and it's the first movie i saw that got me interested in film as an art form rather than just something to pass the time with

a lot of film nerds will give me shit for considering Fight Club as my favorite, just because it's kind of the stereotypical "baby's first mindfuck" kind of movie, but i genuinely can't help it—every aspect of this movie, from the extremely stylish cinematography, to the endlessly cool and quotable dialogue, to the gritty and badass soundtrack, and to the punk rock ethos and anti-consumerist themes, it all resonates with me to a level where i feel like it was made just for me

Goodfellas is a 10/10 in the most bread-and-butter way possible—it didn't fuck my brain, or anything, but it's one of the first movies i ever saw that made me think, "damn, i didn't even know it was possible to make a movie this good"—and i attribute that primarily to how successfully immersive it is, and how ceaselessly engaging the story is from a moment-to-moment basis—there's not a single scene in this movie where some cool shit isn't happening, even if that "cool shit" is a memorable line of dialogue, or even just a look on somebody's face

i'm making myself wanna watch all these again jesus christ

Requiem for a Dream is probably the best edited movie of all time—so fucking unique, so fucking stylish, but unpretentiously so, and not in any way that doesn't feel like it's actually contributing to the experience. given that it's about the horrors and destructive powers of addiction, and how weak and stupid human beings can be in their pursuit of happiness, it's pretty much up my alley, and the nature of the plot also tends to make it one of the most crushingly depressing movies you could ever see, which is my fetish. there's just no other movie like it

The Godfather is The Godfather, enough said really—if Citizen Kane is the best movie of the 20th century's first half, then The Godfather is probably the best of the second half, and i prefer The Godfather by an order of magnitude.

similar to Goodfellas, it's really just a movie that does everything that a great movie is supposed to do, and i just think it's one of the best stories ever put to screen, with some of the coolest characters ever written, played by the most world-class actors the industry ever knew at the time. it's an undeniable movie that you just kinda have to respect, even if you can't get into it

the closest a modern movie has come to getting my 5th 10/10 is probably Gone Girl from 2014, which is not to say that i think modern movies suck or anything—i just typically prefer to watch older movies, because there's a lot of great classics that i still need to catch up on, and it's relatively cheap and easy to watch old movies

modern movies are expensive as fuck for someone like me who's not okay with piracy, which makes them pretty tough to keep up with, so i'm sure there's still loads of 10/10s out there, waiting for me to discover them, and i'm very excited to go out and find them, whenever it is that i do

so, what are your 10/10s

i'm gonna go ahead and take credit for parasite's win

had i enjoyed it as much as i thought i would have, it almost certainly would've lost

1917 did not deserve best visual effects at all wtf

at least it didn't go to a bad movie

these women are not funny

Rocketman could've gotten nominated for more shit, honestly. No best actor nod for Tom Egerton? Shame.

Parasite

Palme d'Or recipient, Best Picture nomination, 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. The accolades this movie has received are seemingly endless, and because of that, this was easily my most anticipated movie for this project.. Which is why I'm sad to report that I was actually quite disappointed with it.

In theory, I should probably love any movie that has anti-capitalist sentiments, but as it turns out, I need a lot more from a movie than just having a message that I agree with for me to consider it good, let alone a masterpiece.

Yeah, it's cool that the movie provides some commentary on class structure and how capitalism can break people, and it does so in a very mature and nuanced fashion that doesn't just boil down to "rich people bad" (even though I probably would've been satisfied with just that), because the poor family in this film are presented as an utterly execrable group of people, which actually made it quite difficult for me to sympathize with them. Especially considering that they're all drunks.

But I do need more from movies than this, because the biggest problem I have with the way the characters are written is that I don't actually like any of them. As a result, I don't really care about any of them, either, because they all just annoy me. I can't like the Kims, because they're bastards for trying to usurp another family's house. I can't like the boy, because he's obsessed with kissing up on some underage girl. I can't like the Parks, because they're stupid rich fucks. I don't have anyone to care about in this movie.

Now, you don't have to like the characters in a movie for it to be good, necessarily—especially when that's part of the point of the story. Okay, I can accept that. What else does the movie offer, then?

Good performances? Yeah, I suppose it does. Were they amazing, though? I don't think so. There's that one part where the Kim girl is drunk, and she sounds convincingly inebriated. It made me dislike her character more, because I fucking hate drunk people, but sure, it was a great little performance. That was the only moment that stood out to me.

Does it have a good plot? Sure. It's definitely original, too. I don't think many movies have been made with this concept before, and it certainly felt fresh in that regard. But being fresh doesn't mean it was great, though. It wasn't very engaging on a moment-to-moment basis, and it had a tendency to drag at points. Which is very strange, because people have been saying that the pacing is one of the movie's strong points, whereas I didn't get that impression at all.

Was it funny? Well, it never made me laugh. Not even once. Not even internally. Is it just some cultural thing that I'm not privy to? If so, my brain was still able to recognize a good number of jokes. It's just that none of them were that funny, which is kind of a problem when the movie's supposed to be a black comedy.

Was it thrilling? No, and for a lot of reasons, namely that it's too predictable. Any time there's a scene that makes you go, "Uh-oh! They're really in for it now!" always ends in some uninspired fashion, and there's a number of dumb cliches at play here, too. Like the scene where the boy is hiding under the girl's bed, but the dog sees him. And of course, she gets distracted just a moment away from looking under the bed herself.

Then there's the part where the Kims are down in the secret basement, eavesdropping behind the wall of the staircase they're hiding on, when suddenly they just fucking trip down and reveal themselves. If this never happened, the rest of the movie wouldn't have happened either. It was really stupid, and that's why the movie isn't very thrilling. It just has all these cliche scenes where you either know exactly what's going to happen every time, or something incredibly fucking stupid happens, which makes them tedious to watch. It's the exact opposite of thrilling.

The score was passable but nothing extraordinary. The cinematography was good, but nothing special. Everyone on set apparently did their job well, but for whatever reason, the movie just didn't click with me.

There's so many stupid scenes, like that goddam morse code scene at the end, or this uncomfortably long and awkward-ass moment where the Parks are lying on the couch, and they just start groping each other while their little boy is outside in a tent. They never have sex; it's just a long groping scene where we have to endure them feeling each other up for what felt like 5 minutes (it definitely wasn't actually that long, though). I fucking hate scenes like this. Why is it necessary? Why do I need to see it? Take it out, and it instantly becomes a better movie.

I don't know. I wish I could get behind everyone else and agree that this movie's some kind of masterpiece, but I just wasn't feeling it at all. I'm open to giving it another viewing at some point, but I'm not terribly excited about the prospect of doing so.

I'm genuinely feeling like a 5/10 on this one. Really just don't get the hype, and I'm extremely bummed about that, because as I was saying, I never want to say that I didn't like a movie that critiques capitalism, or has anything to say about the class struggle. On one hand, I'm delighted that this movie's getting more people interested in foreign cinema, but on the other, I just wish it could've been a more engaging movie. I wanted to stan for a foreign film at the Oscars this year, but I genuinely can't do that, because it's way too difficult for me to lie to myself and say I loved it like everyone else did.

It wouldn't be the first time I went against the grain, but it's the first time in a long time that I actually felt bad about doing so. I seriously wanted to like this one SO much, and I just didn't.

That said, it seems that my time to watch the rest of these movies has run out. I saw a good number of them, and I might try to squeeze in a couple more at the last minute, but I'll have to start thinking about the rest of my predictions, which I'll try to post later.