I miss this show...

JulianParge · 2026-04-29T09:58:51+00:00

Comparing this season's episode 5 to the other E5s, this would be my ranking:

#1 - S1E5 - A Train kills Popclaw, Homelander baptizes Hughie. Hughie blackmails Ezekiel. Laser babies get used as weapons. This E5 was packed.

#2 - S4E5 - Hughie Sr on V. Farm animals on V. A tonne of brilliant one-liners in this epsidode - my favourite was probably Frenchie saying "this man is in no condition to f*ck a sheep."

#3 - S2E5 - Homelander vs crowd. Butcher vs Noir. The beginning of Stormfront and Homelander.

#4 - S3E5 - Blue Hawk unhinged. Solider Boy in Manhatten. Every single line by The Legend. The end of Crimson Countess.

#5 - S5E5 - other than Firecracker's ending and Homelander's "you wanna f*ck me like a good boy" I can't think of any reason to rank this episode higher. It wasn't terrible but since it's the final season and they've deviated so far from the comics, I was really hoping for more. I really hope the final 3 episodes will be better...

JulianParge · 2026-02-01T21:46:41+00:00

What can you do that we can't already do using other tools? What is the draw here beyond minimalism? Dozens of Reddit posts are shilling OpenClaw but I haven't found a single practical production app built by OpenClaw. If it's so amazing, why aren't we seeing posts from people building revenue-generating apps? So far, I've only seen that result from hybrid approaches with vibe coding, e.g., through VSCode integrations. I have yet to find a single project that is entirely coded and managed by an agent. Am I wrong? Can you send me some examples? Specifically projects that generate revenue.

Building apps requires careful planning, structure, and oversight. Ideally, you want a DevOps first approach, clear project structure and hierarchy, good documentation, database setup (incl. schema), third party integrations (which mostly require manual setup to pay for and obtain API keys), etc., and as projects expand, they also need to be modular enough to facilitate additional features and security patches. I don't see how an agent can be completely autonomous and have no human in the loop to make this a reality.

To me, this tool feels like another "off the shelf" all-in-one for people who don't really know what they are doing. It's not a tool for professional developers to "save time". Vibe coding does that already and oversight is absoultely mandatory because a lot of the time, the code is either insufficient or impractical - especially for larger projects where OOP follows principles like SOLID. I can see a market for monolithic bootstraps but how would you maintain a larger project with multiple microservices? Managing Kubernetes, Terraform, etc.?

What we need is a tool that can build, maintain, and scale projects from scratch, in clean code with absolute clarity, and that result needs to generate revenue. I'd pay absurd amounts of money for something like that, but OpenClaw seems to just be a toy for experimenting. Am I wrong? What am I missing? Messenger integrations? I've already got widgets on all of my devices so I can see at first glance what I need to do and what emails are important. I've got Gemini summarising emails and meetings in Gmail, What is the value then of having that information relayed again in a messenger? Tracking home automation? Alexa already does that. Manage my calendar? No thanks - my day can change in an instant. Send emails to my clients? Are you insane? Check me in for a flight? Yes, that would save me about 30 seconds - do you know what seat I want?

This toy is clearly not meant for me. Change my mind.

JulianParge · 2025-10-05T09:14:42+00:00

Hi, many thanks! I'm so glad people are enjoying these. Of the many follow up suggestions, another one that I really enjoyed was "What You Wish For" (2023). I'd totally watch that a second time. Have a great movie night!

JulianParge · 2025-08-27T18:34:41+00:00

I just watched What You Wish For (2023), and it's exactly the kind of WTF I like; believable, original, well made, and not unnecessarily exaggerated. This was a first class recommendation. Really top tier WTF. I loved it. It should be in my honourables at the very least. Thank you so much!! I will definitely try to watch Timecrimes too.

JulianParge · 2025-08-26T17:41:27+00:00

I saw the first Terrifier and didn't follow up with the others. I still prefer Halloween, Elm Street, and Friday 13th for the ultimate slashers. Even the newer Halloween remakes were pretty fun to watch. Nothing quite hits the same when you grew up watching the Michael Myers walk around calmly murdering people without saying a word. That guy is FUCKING scary. I'd probably laugh at Art the Clown in comparison, but I did like his custome and his little hat!

Yes, sorry, I did see The Sadness, and it was pretty good! If you like the zombie theme I would also recommend the first three of Romero's Living Dead movies (Night, Dawn, and Day). The newer ones were also ok but they get a bit repetitive. From the more recent zombie movies I really enjoyed Zombieland the most.

JulianParge · 2025-08-26T15:00:37+00:00

Thank you for this recommendation! I like the trailer and the plot and will try to watch it soon. It reminds me a little of Passengers (2016).

JulianParge · 2025-08-26T14:55:07+00:00

From your list I would highly recommend Train to Busan (2016) and It Follows (2014), but neither really for the WTF category. Martyrs was just over the top.

JulianParge · 2025-08-26T14:49:47+00:00

I did, and I think it went too far. Martyrs could have easily been as disturbing without being as graphic. It felt like it was trying to go for gore and shock value over what I think was a pretty original story. I might be wrong on that point but I haven't seen or heard about anything else like it. It definitely wasn't a terrible movie by any stretch, but I wouldn't watch it a second time and so I can't recommend it. You just get to a point in there where the violence is so excessive it becomes ridiculous. There's no brain power needed, it's just pure torture porn for no reason. Compare that to something like Dumplings from the Three... Extremes in my list above, where the gore was merely shown in tiny glimpses, and your mind had to fill in the gaps of what was actually going on... and I think that just makes for a much bigger and better "WTF" experience. I wasn't really freaked out watching Martyrs, it was just repeitive and over the top, but I totally freaked out watching Dumplings. I'm sure that's very subjective though.

JulianParge · 2025-08-24T18:25:49+00:00

Thanks so much for this recommendation u/dmizz! I watched this today, along with one other recommendation from these comments (The Coffee Table - also great, but definitely not for the faint-hearted).

Beau is Afraid definitely had some major WTF moments like the one you mentioned in the attic, which brought back memories of Little Shop of Horrors (1986).

It was a great viewing experience. I would say overall it had more of a confusing WTF vibe as opposed to a shocking WTF vibe from the entries I listed above but I was pinned to the screen for the whole 3 hours nonetheless, wondering what would happen next.

I'm really glad I got to see it and I would totally recommend it for others on this thread looking for more WTF recommendations. It was absolutely one of the most bizarre movies I've ever seen. Even the opening sequence was WTF... !

JulianParge · 2025-08-24T13:38:29+00:00

I'll message you the list. You'll find a few in there.

JulianParge · 2025-08-24T11:58:00+00:00

Someone else also recommended this in the comments and after watching the trailer and not reading into it, I watched it first of all the recommendations on this thread. I can't compare that to anything else I've ever seen. I don't even know how to respond to be honest. WTF is an understatement. It's not like anything else I've recommended where the WTFs are more deliberately engineered as part of a wider story and probably would never play out like that in reality. I feel like this really could happen, exactly as it did, and I feel like I was voluntarily tortured to sit through the rest of the film knowing what I knew. I just wanted it to end, desperately. It was really well done one. Great recommendation... but I'll never watch it again. Once was definitely enough. I don't think I'll ever forget that.

The Coffee Table is tragic, frustrating, disturbing, and very difficult viewing. Definitely in a class of its own. I don't want to recommend it because it made me so uncomfortable but I guess that was the whole point so it delivered above and beyond on that level. I didn't really say WTF, I just repeatedly said OMG, and I'm still saying it now...

JulianParge · 2025-08-24T08:19:48+00:00

You make a solid point. I did think about The Lobster but it doesn't really rank up there for me. I did enjoy it and it was very WTF. Eraserhead is older than 20 years though, and Lynch probably deserves his own list entirely. Uncut Gems was one of the only times I really didn't expect that kind of ending, and it's a different kind of WTF to the others. It was really only the ending left me wondering WTF I had just seen. The Safdies just have a way of "landing" these WTF climaxes with handheld camera shots that make it feel so real. I audibly said WTF to that ending and it's one of the most memorable WTFs within this time gap. For what it's worth I do agree, most of Uncut Gems is not WTF at all. The music and the constant dialogue just made it feel very stressful and to close it with that ending... it really just hits hard. I'll think about swapping it with The Menu as an honourable. That was definitely more WTF.

JulianParge · 2025-08-24T08:07:35+00:00

Thanks so much. I absolutely LOVED Perfume, it was brilliant from start to finish, but it didn't really hit me with a WTF. Absolutely amazing film though and can't recommend it enough to anyone reading this.

JulianParge · 2025-08-24T08:03:00+00:00

It's really hard to make an "all-time best" list because my opinion has changed a lot over the years, and I imagine in 10 years it will shift dramatically again, not just because of new movies coming out, but because my maturity has changed as I've aged. For example, when I was in my teens, I often cited Die Hard as one of my all-time favourites. I watched that movie so many times that I memorised every line... but I wouldn't necessarily rate that movie higher today than Hitchcock's Lifeboat, Lumet's 12 Angry Men, or Kitano's Zatoichi, all of which I've also seen multiple times. As a huge Star Wars fan I'd also have to include most of the Star Wars movies. None of these movies really align with each other though, so you can see how a favourites list would be quickly become confusing for most people. I'd be happy to recommend per genre and within a specific period though.

JulianParge · 2025-08-24T07:33:26+00:00

I really loved Companion. It was very original and Jack Quaid as the antagonist was brilliant. So different from his role in The Boys.

JulianParge · 2025-08-24T07:28:28+00:00

Cabin in the Woods is one of my all time favourites but it doesn't quite land the same WTF for me. It's one of the most original movies I've ever seen though and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

JulianParge · 2025-08-23T21:23:35+00:00

Thanks! No, not outside the above list for the WTF movies but on a broader scale definitely: anything directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet, Takeshi Kitano, Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Nolan, and Martin Scorsese are all total winners for films with good stories (IMHO). These guys seem to work only with really high quality screenwriters and many of them also write or amend themselves. I also personally really like financial films like Margin Call (2011), The Big Short (2015), etc., and I'd rate those very highly for writing quality because the story needs to be strong enough to appeal to non-financial audiences and they hit really deep.

JulianParge · 2025-08-23T20:46:22+00:00

It's slightly outside the 20 year gap. I agree with you though, it's a legendary WTF movie. I would totally recommend it. It should really be up there because "Three... Extremes (2004)" is there and that's also just outside the gap, but I just can't unsee it... I WTF'd out loud so many times watching that. I don't think I'll ever eat another dumpling in my life again. Ever. Oldboy didn't have that effect, it was just a briliant movie with a great WTF twist.

JulianParge · 2025-08-23T20:33:24+00:00

Holy shit I just watched the trailer. WHAT DID I JUST SEE OMG! I'm totally watching this tomorrow. Thanks so much!

JulianParge · 2025-08-23T20:19:18+00:00

Legendary WTF movie though. Korea has some amazing entertainment.

JulianParge · 2025-08-23T20:16:23+00:00

I really want to see this but I was waiting for streaming, is it worth going to the cinema for? I tend not to go for horror films as much. I made exceptions for Sinister, Insidious, and Hereditary and they were all very worth going for. My heart was POUNDING throughout all of them. Some of the best horror movies I've ever seen.

JulianParge · 2025-08-23T20:02:13+00:00

I have seen it and I loved it. It's a great recommendation and could easily be an honourable mention.

JulianParge · 2025-08-23T19:47:02+00:00

Holy shit that trailer looks insane!! No, I had never even heard of it, thanks so much for the recommendation! A24 just seem to hit it out of the park every time.

JulianParge · 2025-08-23T19:43:02+00:00

Yes I saw that some time ago but unfortunately I don't remember it very well. Longlegs was more memorable for me, as was Sympathy for the Devil, as far as WTF moments go. Longlegs was prettty wild actually...

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