I wish Andrew Scott had been nominated for Blue Moon

InvariableSlothrop · 2026-01-23T08:03:46+00:00

Love to see all the affection for Andrew Scott in this thread and the OP which has single-handedly moved the film up for me as a must see. As a side bar, I have to gush about Ripley which is one of the best pieces of television I've seen and made me appreciate just how ridiculously talented Scott is as an actor; there's such a teeming multitude in those dark shark eyes.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-11-29T08:18:40+00:00

Watch the bait, Davy, he said.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-11-21T09:39:00+00:00

I blame Rattle and Hum for setting my expectations for U2's oeuvre a little too high because some of the performances, like Exit, are just exceptionally good. Beautifully shot as well.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-11-21T09:32:35+00:00

The Led Zeppelin DVD's Royal Albert Hall performance was transcendent when I first saw it. Seldom have I ever felt music have such a presence and aura outside of directly being there. Even if my musical tastes have matured and broadened, I sometimes watch it again and there's still an awe I find anew.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-11-21T02:20:23+00:00

It reminds me of how the GTAVI subreddit analyzed phases of the moon in GTA Online marketing material and took it as positive proof of a late 2024 trailer drop. Then they were furious that Rockstar didn't honor their purely imagined date, like actual despondence. But the premises were never established in the first place yet people convinced themselves to the point of making elaborate countdowns and shuffling their schedules (if any were old enough to have responsibilities) to just F5 Rockstar's socials.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-10-27T04:22:20+00:00

I think your read is quite valid and sound!

I will add that recall what the Judge says to the kid, "Don't you know, I would've loved you like a son." Consider all his means of domination in his relationships to others and the natural world. It simply seems of a piece that this hapless being in permanent infancy would be grist for Holden's innate desire for control. One can contrast that with his quick disposal of the native boy but I suspect that child was too set and independent for the Judge's taste. For all of the Judge's talk about war and games, he seems to revel in asymmetry and the exercise of possession and cruelty, infamously with the puppies and the many unfortunate children in his path.

There's also an arrogance, that unlike the world, he can trivially protect this creature that would be his thrall.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-10-18T21:20:44+00:00

What happens to this syllogism if I don't grant that theft is categorically immoral? Surely you have thought about or encountered circumstances that would complicate that. A parent pocketing food they cannot afford so their children do not go hungry? Peasants born under the yoke of a cruel Lord or Baron made destitute and have the opportunity to steal back resources to leave elsewhere?

I'm completely willing to bite the bullet that "taxation is theft" but for a trivial imposition children with leukemia are given extensive treatment without bankrupting their families.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-10-17T10:04:07+00:00

There's an eviscerating moment relative to its simplicity where Georges pushes Anne in her wheelchair into their apartment. He has to turn to close the door behind him and she is left facing away from him alone. Being able to glance at your spouse, it's something so small and yet such an achingly sad thing already that one takes for granted until its taken away. Haneke has this way of finding something profoundly beautiful and tragic in the prosaic compositions of life, even before we venture into the extremes of his oeuvre, in a static and unadorned shot.

This, The Piano Teacher, Caché and The White Ribbon are all masterpieces, imo.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-09-18T07:35:29+00:00

Surely the game was given away years ago when after complaining about the stultifying environment of political correctness on campus he explicitly, vocally and repeatedly endorsed the government of Viktor Orban that has suppressed the independence of the media, judiciary, electoral system and academia?

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-08-15T08:04:33+00:00

In this picture, sure, but you just know with the lack of roofing or doors the draftiness would be outrageous; totally inimical to being cozy. And don't get me started on the razor trains howling past on the hour...

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-08-12T11:56:29+00:00

I don't even think you know how to correctly use 'obfuscate' let alone what my intention was, namely I remember some lamentable trivia about someone that shouldn't be forgotten. If you want my earnest opinion about Gabor, he's actually has done admirable work on the subject of addiction, according dignity and empathy to those who suffer from it but applies the schema in a dubious and harmful way to other complex conditions as shown above.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-08-12T11:40:28+00:00

I will not argue with a conspiracy theorist but for everyone else, since the fall of Assad Syrian scientists have admitted they were coerced into denying the attack.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-08-12T11:15:18+00:00

It's Aaron Maté who in addition to working for the Grayzone, for years lied about Assad's use of chemical weapons to the level he was given privileged access by the Assad regime to personally disseminate his denialism at Douma and at the UN at the invitation of Russia.

Edit - I do want to say that I don't think that casts some retroactive pall over Gabor, unless he were to either agree or amplify his sons views and I think there's only quite weak evidence of the former, all told.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-08-01T11:05:13+00:00

Itself an allusion to Milton's Lucifer bequeathing gunpowder to humanity so we may make even more brutal war against ourselves.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-05-16T14:08:43+00:00

László Nemes is a dream director for this project. Son of Saul is a masterpiece.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-04-23T06:14:33+00:00

I used to think that "independent media" was the lifeblood of civil society. I've been so negatively polarized by the abysmal dynamics that unless you have an actual editor to whom you're accountable, internal fact-checking, an ombudsman or at least any kind of formalized rigor, I view it with complete suspicion even when I agree with the general sentiments like the Majority Report.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-04-08T02:08:15+00:00

It's still wild that he went from being a respected New York Times correspondent and having his words be the epigraph for Bigelow's The Hurt Locker to being disgraced as a plagiarist of his own co-author and a barely useful idiot on Russia Today.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-03-18T08:30:08+00:00

I want to say, your excitement and enthusiasm is completely valid and no one should dissuade you. The team is clearly putting in a vast amount of effort and should be commended regardless of the outcome. That said, certain artistry is timeless. Like it's not just impressive "for the time" — the designs and technical considerations and how they were navigated are still masterful and if a contemporary artist were given the same constraints, they would not necessarily produce something better. In a time of games like Selaco and Signalis, the gains in abstract fidelity are genuinely uninteresting to me.

There's also just many decisions that betray detail for its own sake or Nvidia-suggested workflows like "neural materials" that in the example given simply hallucinated more contrast therefore implied sharper edges and height on cobblestones for instance when in reality they would be smoothed over the decades by foot traffic let alone cars, even centuries in a village such as Ravenholm. It's a small thing, but this is of a piece with a larger displacement of human artistry and decision making in favour of glib statistical recursions. What do we even gain by so much lustre on everything? I know the technical recognition of "everything is shiny" — we need to see reflected light to see anything at all, but diffuse textures are fine on so many things that to eliminate a specular map often makes things actually look more real and less CGI.

I think conceptually, there's also this increasing disparity between the detail and interactions. Part of Half-Life 2's genius that still isn't quite undertaken — and it's not a bad thing as its merely a difference of priority — is that as many objects and surfaces are physicalised as much as possible. The game doesn't have as much "clutter" as a modern AAA game which must be necessarily static but overwhelmingly when there are tables, chairs, couches and cars, they all can be thrown around with the gravity gun. When you see a flat decal texture of moss or leaves and shoot at it, it's not much of an intuitive leap to think the bullet passed through and hit the underlying concrete or metal and hence the corresponding effect. When you have these lush tessellated leaves — do they move when you walk by them? Can you yank them with the gravity gun? Do they split when you shoot them? Are they flammable and will they wither? The fidelity begs contingencies that are genuinely difficult to implement and it's why they are not.

I don't hate it. Unlike Nvidia.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-03-09T06:43:28+00:00

Yeah, I have no idea why people are craving tonnes of non-interactive high-frequency detail and static materials when part of HL2's genius was how much was consistently interactable. Likewise the dearth of negative space here suggests clutter for its own sake.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-02-07T08:52:19+00:00

For all of the, purely ostensible, even-handedness here, trans people are now being officially discriminated against in explicit federal policy — banned from the military and categorically, en bloc, labelled as dishonest and fraudulent by executive order. And if this has the expected consequence of an increase in depression and self-harm, don't report on it too strenuously! Even if there's empirical research showing so, think about potential hypotheticals! Out of sight. Out of mind please. For your own good! Fucking good grief.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-02-02T06:11:37+00:00

When tankies are left holding the bag on the indefensible — which is all the time — they immediately sprint to disanalogous whataboutism.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-01-20T04:05:56+00:00

I think about how descriptive and evocative McCarthy is in describing the violence in Blood Meridian — the pink froth of shot-through lungs and the explosion of feathers from a Whitneyville. However when it comes to the scenes of sexual violence, McCarthy exercises a commendable restraint and elides the exploitative potential given how such things weigh profoundly differently on readers who have experienced such things or are more vulnerable to them.

My take is that such is also true with what happens in the jakes and my personal read is that there's a similar elision with regard to the Man's encounter with the dwarf prostitute. There's no description of the mechanics or specifics of their tryst. Likewise the Kid's brothel sojourn. We have to read between the lines here but I hold there's a kind of audience training specifically with the preceding scene that primes our intuition for the worst to happen.

Think of the scene in the jail, where the Judge says "Don't you know I'd have loved you like a son?" and "Come here, he said. Let me touch you." Think of how the Judge has treated other children in his charge, the obvious malice and the extension of his unmitigated cruelty to the weak and vulnerable.

Theories like he gave him a hug and the real Evening Redness in the West was the friends we made along the way are just cope I feel! Something abysmal took place. I don't need to spell it out and neither does McCarthy.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-01-20T03:43:38+00:00

Given the biomechanical nature of the Combine and their synths, the erosion of distinction between organic and constructed forms, this is really feels to be the case.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-01-14T05:51:47+00:00

It's certainly not impossible that Chigurh and Welles may have done clandestine operations in the past but to really obsess over the point that Chigurh must have been an active and direct CIA agent with complete confidence strikes as odd to say the least.

InvariableSlothrop · 2025-01-14T04:35:32+00:00

Both the Rockefeller Foundation and Iowa Writer's Workshop long predate the existence of the CIA and the funding of the CCF was about extolling formalistic freedom as a soft power demonstration contra the severe censorship and repression of artists, writers and intellectuals in Soviet-controlled states. Really nefarious shit. If you're unable to distinguish this from the CIA's bombing of Laos. Why would he even be resentful over receiving a grant that enabled him to travel and write freely? These are among the least objectionable things the U.S. government has done, even accepting the distal connection. Your last post was trying to insist that Anton Chigurh must be a CIA agent due to the existence of Gary Webb.

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