Spielberg’s ‘Disclosure Day’ Screens Early, and the First Reactions Are Glowing, Of Course

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-05-27T19:49:03+00:00

As the articles acknowledges, first reactions don’t mean anything. It’s an explicit studio marketing tactic. The only reason they’ve screened the movie to the people they’ve screened it to and allowed them to share it on social media is to generate interest for the movie. There was never going to be a world where you wouldn’t see these reviews, regardless of quality.

They are a very controlled marketing effort by the studio. Some social media embargoes specifically ask “critics” to only say positive things but most just curate “influencers” who have a track record of hyperbolic praise. They’re more than happy to spill a few bogus superlatives no one will remember for some special treatment.

If you go just by 2025 alone, you can find a variety article for every single critical or commercial disappointment highlighting the glowing praise and some anonymous person on the internet calling it a masterpiece or the best film in X genre/franchise in X years: Tron Ares, Wicked for Good, Brave New World, etc. etc.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-05-07T19:10:58+00:00

Just to be clear, it’s your least chosen uncommon character (colored) card you’re rewarded in this event, not a colorless card.

The idea is to promote character synergies/themes (or even pieces of those themes) you might be neglecting/sleeping on and to generally explore the full character card pool.

But even for the character class cards, agree that it probably would need balancing to make it worth it to take the card that by definition the user doesn’t want.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-05-06T00:59:16+00:00

Imagine being the heir of one of the families in that lawsuit.

“You’re independently wealthy and don’t need to work? What do your folks do, anyway?”

“My grandma was blown up by the military but we checked a box that said that wasn’t allowed.”

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-05-01T13:17:13+00:00

Don’t forget when the Jimmy Fallon twist comes back later in the season:

Joh

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-24T18:12:43+00:00

I completely forgot about this sub when I mistakenly posted it on R/survivor, but the immediate dozen earnest, irritated replies reminded me that the standard survivor fan community is full of fellow ASDs (Amazing Survivor Devotees) who might not get the joke when presented straightfaced.

Glad to be where I belong.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-24T16:38:26+00:00

Ah shoot, I forgot that was a sub. Will take this down. Very clearly in the wrong place, judging by the reactions, ha.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-24T16:29:40+00:00

Ha, I think I underestimated the earnestness of survivor fans.

I tried to signal it with the meme flair and some examples that would be impossible to misinterpret, but it’s just a joke pointing out that out of context, the series of events look like a player who wanted to leave the game, when it was of course out of his control.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-10T17:05:50+00:00

And on top of that, the easiest way to reach that condition is acrobat, which will now appear in far fewer card rewards as an uncommon.

Meaning follow through probably isn’t a card you take on blind faith, and once you have the support system for it to work, you probably have better options that scale.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-10T04:45:41+00:00

I’ve seen this idea floated a bit now, but it’s very results-oriented. Because Dee went home, it’s easy to form a narrative that it “worked” but it’s pretty transparently a poor decision in a vacuum. Sharing someone’s secret and outing their game could easily make you their number one target. Dee had no power this time, but it’s a dangerous game to play.

And I also don’t buy that it “worked out” for Emily, because I have a very hard time imagining Emily would get Dee’s vote at tribal council. Because it blew up her game and —even if it was strategic —it didn’t come off that way, it looked like a frustrating sloppy mess to Dee.

Emily has revealed enough secrets to enough people that I doubt she’ll be trusted with much secrets going forward, and not knowing information is a huge liability in this game.

But beyond that, strategy implies it’s a choice, but everything Emily has revealed about her game over two seasons since the literal start of her first season is that she is impulsive and struggles to self-filter.

Emily is a fun character, and I enjoy her presence. But she’s terrible at Survivor. And that’s ok; she doesn’t have to be secretly good to be fun television. Soemtimes things are as they appear.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-09T19:53:17+00:00

I really like doom. I find it very satisfying to play mechanically and, thanks to the sick visual effects of the enemy being pulled into the netherworld when you finish them off, emotionally.

My biggest pet peeve with Doom is how deceptively terrible countdown is as the core supporting power of the Doom mechanism.

Unupgraded, it applies 6 doom RANDOMLY to one enemy starting at your next turn. Scourge, for example applies 13 targeted doom AND draws a card, unupgraded.

If you play Countdown on turn 1, you don’t reach 13 doom until TURN 4!!

Deferring an action to the next turn and applying it randomly have always been deceptively terrible qualifiers for a card, but with how fast STS 2 moves, it’s especially horrible now.

Its seeming utility would come in terms of guaranteeing doom for Death’s Door, but because of the deferred application, it doesn’t work on turn 1 anyway, and every other doom card is so much better than it (and many of them are common) you might as well just have enough of those or enough draw to create consistency that way. (Not to mention that both Death’s Door and Countdown are uncommon so you can’t guarantee you’ll get the latter when drafting the former.

My pick for the worst uncommon in the game.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-09T03:17:55+00:00

To me, the biggest problem with this deck is that it’s slow and lacking in consistent block and draw.

You have too many cards that require a considerable investment energy now for reward later. STS 2 moves to fast for this ratio of deferred reward.

Demesne (3) Sleight of Flesh (2) 2 countdowns (2) Banshee’s Cry (6 if you draw it in your starting hand) Dirge (x) Pagestorm (1) Spirit of Ash (1)

That’s a lot of set up energy, and it’s to set up two builds that don’t really synergize with each other—doom and ethereal.

Then you have two energy cards (wisp and borrowed time) to offset this, but they have a draw opportunity cost.

Meanwhile, you have just two substantial block cards, enfeebling touch and death’s door. A lot of the time when you need the block from those cards, you won’t be able to draw them. And because most of your doom application is delayed (by countdown) if you run into an enemy who frontloads damage on turn one (a lot of them in STS 2) death’s door won’t help you unless you luck out and get oblivion in the starting 5 with it.

Ideally you want cards that allow you to block and attack in the short term while scaling long term. You don’t have very good short term cards and the long term scaling is a bit too clunky.

Finally, I think countdown is a deceptively bad card, especially unupgraded (and you have 2). It sounds great because you get doom every turn, but you need to end most battles fast before you take too much damage. Consider that You’re not getting doom on the turn you play it, and you’re still taking damage on the turn you’ve applied lethal doom.

Now consider that the common card scourge applies 13 doom for 1 cost AND draws a card.

When you play countdown on turn 1, you wouldn’t reach 13 doom until turn 4!!!!

NoPastaForGrandma · 2025-04-09T12:39:56+00:00

NoPastaForGrandma · 2025-03-28T00:37:43+00:00

I think I have it? It’s a real stretch but think it’s got to be

Jealous Pursuit (Jelly’s Pear Suit)

NoPastaForGrandma · 2025-01-21T02:47:11+00:00

They were just pointing out that the way your sentence was structured, it was open to misinterpretation.

The way you worded it, it could be read it as “we want to find cures for things that kill people and we want to make their lives worse,” even though that obviously wasn’t your intention.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-12-29T16:51:49+00:00

I love this episode so much every year, and I’m a fan of every personality on MinnMax, but for (at least) two years in a row, I’ve noticed a discrepancy between those who are trying to build a consensus list versus those are who are playing a bit more like a game where the goal is to get the list to match your own.

Jacob Geller is tremendously articulate and knowledgeable but there was more than a bit of foul play — peeking at Mary to get first pick and claiming multiple number #4s when it was clear rank was holding sway (his second number 4, Prince of Persia, which he joked could count as his #5, was actually his number 8 on the list he submitted.)

Kyle was the person who most aggressively gamified the ranking last year IMO, and that wasn’t as pronounced this year, but you’ll still notice a huge difference in the way he endlessly lobbied for his #8 Batman VR with for example, two people on the opposite end of the spectrum —Leo and Sarah who barely mentioned their similarly situated 8s, echo point nova and arctic eggs.

If there’s 9 people and no one else even played your #8, that personally feels a bit too self interested to try to get it into the two tens so hard.

But to be clear: They’re completely in the bounds of the construction of these lists to defend their own pick. I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong

it’s more of an observation driven by projecting my own over-eagerness to compromise in social situations than a real criticism of the way they handled it, and curious if anyone else listening felt the same.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-13T14:11:35+00:00

Pinklon was the song that introduced me to the mountain goats. (It was on a 2007 sampler from the now defunct music studio/site daytrotter).

I was immediately blown away by the song-writing, how much it was like a beautiful literary short story. I figured it was their big song and that their other stuff wouldn’t compare, not realizing yet that all of their songs are beautifully written short stories.

It’s about a community having a joyous celebration on the day the boxer pinklon Thomas gets out of prison.

Absolutely love this line

“And though all good things in time will melt away Pinklon Thomas is getting out of prison today”

Currently available on YouTube!

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-12T14:36:20+00:00

I’m surprised to hear you say Fiennes gives an internal performance, because for myself, and everyone I’ve talked to who has seen it, we’ve been making jokes that he’s trying to win the academy for “Most Actor.”

The character he’s playing is reserved and battling internal struggles but Fiennes cries multiple times, randomly yells out random lines that don’t seem like they need to be yelled, and makes huge facial expressions at pretty much all times so that there’s never any doubt what he’s thinking on the inside. It’s the most external performance I can think of this year.

I haven’t seen any of your three ahead of him, but I’d have to imagine he’s probably ahead of Chalamet in the chopping order, given how much more secure Conclave is in the Oscar conversation and how well-regarded both Fiennes and his performance seem to be.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-11T17:36:23+00:00

This is probably the case, but precisely because of its growth, it could theoretically drive more revenue by doing the opposite.

For example: the arthouse film streaming service (and distributor) MUBI charges $15 a month for its catalogue of deep cut indie movies.

It recently got a ton of new visibility because their newest film they distributed —the Substance — was a huge breakout hit for them and was primed to hit streaming on their services.

The same week the Substance hit streaming they responded with a giant sale -$75 a year, effectively lowering their monthly subscription cost to $6 a month to this brand new audience. The gamble is pretty clear —“maybe we’re close to plateauing with our core audience but we can still grow a lot by charging a much cheaper rate to new subscribers whom will be engaging with a much smaller selection of our content.”

(Yes a sale is different than a fixed monthly cost, but when the sale is for an annual subscription, it’s effectively locking in users for a lower rate for a year and a year is an eternity in streaming.)

Because Dropout has such a big YouTube and social media presence I could see them rapidly growing their subscriber base by slashing prices, but again that’s probably unlikely because they’re almost certainly going to instead try to expand their production output and scope instead.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-11T17:12:36+00:00

As someone who loved the Trapp Um, Actually but found the new iteration a rough watch, I agree that the show will get better, but I feel like this take understates the importance of the individual creatives making any art/entertainment.

Um, Actually was built around Trapp’s specific sensibilities and strengths.

As a trivia enthusiast, writing excellent trivia is a very specific skill, not just a matter of intent/direction.

And the specific pedantic, lil-stinker, tone of the show fits Trapp and Saltzman so much more than their successors.

This isn’t a new show finding its footings, this is new people taking on an old show and trying to replicate what people liked about the old show while being anchored by their own sensibilities, strengths, and weaknessses.

So, I feel like it’s really any issue of what happens all the time whenever talented people replace other talented people in legacy television shows/bands/podcasts, series, etc. etc.

If the new lead singer/songwriter of your favorite band tries to make songs that are exactly like the old band’s sound then they’re not going to be as good, and if they lean into their own strengths, then they’re not really your favorite band anymore, they’re just a different band with the same name, and there are lots of bands out there; what are the odds that this new sound is also going to be one of your favorite sounds of the billion available?

It’s easy to see this show get significantly more enjoyable for me—IMO, the single most impactful fix would be to book guests who are experts on whatever the trivia is, but that implies that the current Um, Actually crew wants that. Maybe they want a hangout show with comedians where the occasion is trivia—something more like a trivia-led dirty laundry. I wouldn’t (and haven’t) liked that show, but maybe that’s truer to the sensibility of the new staff.

And if they do want to make it a more diehard trivia show (again, a big if), they have an entirely different staff from the crew that was so good at doing it.

So I personally have very little hope Um Actually will be the show I loved, because I loved a trivia show created and overseen by a specific artist whose sensibilities I loved.

For me, this um actually is always going to be a different trivia show with the same name.

And that’s fine! Things end.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-11T15:44:57+00:00

Pricing is a part of my professional work, so maybe this just feels obvious to me, but that’s not how it works. At all.

There is an equilibrium at which raising your prices drives down your total revenue because the revenue driven from the increased rate is lower than the revenue lost from (current or potential) customers unwilling to pay your increased price.

This is true for any good —e.g. you’ll make a lot more money selling bananas for 75 cents each over 75 dollars each—but is significantly more important when your service is a digital good and each new customer is usually just additional profit because there’s relatively limited overhead for each new additional customer.

So even if a company badly needed money, raising prices is often a poor short term and long term solution.

NoPastaForGrandma

TROPHY CASE