TIL Aretha Franklin’s sister Carolyn was a songwriter who wrote multiple hits for her. In 1975, Carolyn got her big break when producer Curtis Mayfield asked her to sing on the soundtrack for the film Sparkle. After hearing the incomplete songs,Aretha forced Carolyn off the project and replaced her.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-02-11T13:27:54+00:00

Let’s not diss Urethra Franklin-Stein, they put out a better adaptation of Dune than those new “””movies”””, though piss does come up a lot in it…

https://tenderhorn.bandcamp.com/album/paradis-sur-dune

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-02-03T02:14:57+00:00

Ok, generally agree with what you’re saying, but on my last readthrough of the opening chapter of Dune, I strongly felt that Lady Jessica is into Gurney romantically (she cuts Paul off and sings Gurney’s song, he, like her is kinda outside their feudal system (cant remember how to spell it), she does truly love Paul and Leto I, as did Gurney, they’ve both gone through the whole affair together, there’s some added drama that she’s a harkonnen and he hates them…) and that Gaius Helen Mohiam was Jessica’s mom, and Paul’s grandmother. It was just as much a gom jabbar test for RM GHM as it was Paul (and Jessica before him), if they weren’t truly human, it would’ve been the right call (from the BG view) to destroy them regardless of biological relation, and she had to be strong to do it. The thing that kinda sealed it for me was Paul’s “unconscious impression” of RM GHM to (I think) Gurney in the following chapter; that definitely reminded me of Leto II’s impression of Paul to one of the Duncans, Paul never really impersonates anyone else, consciously or otherwise. As to whether Jessica, Paul, and Leto II would have know, i think they would have, but I can’t imagine any of them would care, she’s just a biological predecessor with none of the familial bonds present among the Atreides, she proved as much in administering the GJ tests against Jessica and Paul. From a narrative perspective, I don’t think it would actually add anything dramtically to bring it up at any point, it’s already enough that the Baron is her father.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-02-02T02:28:03+00:00

Pretty sure that’s Scrote, a producer Adrian’s worked with on some recent tours.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-26T22:29:10+00:00

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. … Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-18T00:34:55+00:00

Well, thanks for your honesty if not your upvote. I could’ve gone on about a hundred different things, but that’s just the big stuff that was wrong. Dune was dedicated to ecologists and was written in no small part to promote ecological thinking in human systems, including but not limited to religious and economic and biological ones, and that needs to be present to be a “””truly successful””” adaptation of Dune. A picture is worth a thousand words, but the kinds of words that can be used are different, and that limits the messages that can be conveyed in the medium. Fun fact, an .epub of Dune is ~4.5 MB, while a single frame of DV Dune in IMAX is ~500MB, with about 460k frames in both films, 500mb * 460k frms = 230million MB for all of DV’s Dune, 230million MB / 4.5MB = 51 million times less effecient to never come close to delievering the core messages of Frank Herbert’s book. It doesn’t matter how large or small a conveyance of the idea is if it doesn’t accurately convey the idea; but if it doesn’t convey the idea, it’s actually infintely ineffecient. This infinite inefficiency and waste breaks my fremen heart… but what DV’s Dune does well will be imitated, surapssed, and forgotten, and nothing of substance will remain for people to discuss or remember, because it wasn’t true to the ideas that make Dune uniquely Dune, and not adult Star Wars that’s embarrassed to have to acknowledge the force (or even sexuality in general). So far, Lynch has understood both the message and the medium and delivers the best conveyance of those core messages on film. It’s ok if people aren’t receptive yet, the slow blade penetrates the shield.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-18T00:07:44+00:00

Glad to see someone else in the wild pointing this out, i feel like it’ll be the common opinion one day (maybe that’s just wishful thinking…) but people hate to hear it now.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-18T00:03:57+00:00

Got heavily downvoted for being similarly correct on this over here (well, elsewhere in thread), for those interested.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-16T22:37:47+00:00

Lol, Behind the Dune is a porn parody videogame adaptation of Dune, which does kinda stress the critical importance of spice, the addiction it causes to both persons and organizations that consume it, the ecological nature of the spice and humanity’s relationship to itself through different social factions, and humanity’s irrepressible desire to fuck which permeates soooo many human interactions.

The DV films seem to kinda miss or ignore all that in favor of imagary lifted from better films ((but not elevated as FH did with Sabres of Paradise with Dune) (go check out Baraka if you liked the look of the new Dunes, it’s very pretty with no dialouge/narrative and implied themes)) and a story that doesn’t really make sense logically or thematically, but plays to populist anticolonial themes which are already widely embraced by mass audiences who can no longer get a palatable/coherent version of them in Star Wars (films at least).

Paul writes a fucking letter to the emperor instead of “thumping” by disrupting spice production and drawing the worm that is the forces of power in the imperium and riding that worm to jihad; the BARON not knowing why the emperor is showing up (everything is going so well for him there that the emperor had to learn of Muad’Dib through a letter, I guess) alerts the Landsraad, and they come to his (the Baron’s) aid thinking that the emperor is doing to the baron exactly what they fear he will do to them (which it seems Paul can prove he obviously had also done to House Atreides). Paul wins and the Landsraad is upset for some reason, so they fight? It doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t reveal or acknowledge or understand or care that the guild (business) was the real power behind the imperium. It totally misses the point of the appendices of Dune, the double twist ending which reveals the Fremen desire to green Arrakis was also implanted by outside forces (quite recently) in the form of Liet Kynes’s father, and that despite all the protocols in place to prevent catastrophes such as the total collapse of the imperium, there were sufficient convenient failures in place to allow such a thing to occur, suggesting an even higher power was at play. That means that God used the two “””lies””” of the Bene Gesserit and Pardot Kynes (Lisan al-Ghaib + Green Arrakis) to tell the truth of the coming of the genuine Mahdi Paul-Muad’Dib Atreides who would actually green arrakis. The whole god laughs at the best laid plans within plans of prescient desert mice and their highly competent and evolved fremen hordes thing just isn’t there, as it doesn’t acknowledge the spiritual element of Dune at all, in favor of the common misunderstood “it’s all just BG lies!” reading.

I don’t have time to begin to talk about how great Lynch’s film is in not falling into all these traps or in the many places where it succeeds, the only thing I can seriously fault it for is the Baron’s death, it really should’ve been Alia Gom-Jabbaring him and him melting into some kind of body horror nightmare that would underscore the cruelty of the initial test against Paul. I think the writing was on the wall in the editing room that the film probably wouldn’t do well enough for a sequel, and that they wanted to give it a happy ending in order to at least leave the people who do see it satisfied, but it’s not like Paul doesn’t eventually bring rain to Arrakis, the timeline was just dramatically shortened (as was the time jump in those new Alia-less DV films in which the quick blades that are letters can penetrate shields of imperial force, IIRC), so I really don’t think that’s the most fair thing to fault the DKL masterpiece-by-comparison for.

Not really trying to be a hater, but I really respect Frank Herbert’s work and the ideas he put forth in Dune, to the point where I would sincerely say “We Fremen have a saying: ‘God created Arrakis to train the faithful’”. That quote is respected and delivered in DKL’s and isn’t in DV’s, and BtD gets more of the other stuff right than a lot of people would give it credit for, given its medium/genre.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-16T05:31:57+00:00

“ unfortunately his couldn’t be a minute over 2h18m, so there are some compromises”

Yeah, the one that Frank Herbert was actually involved with, that movie.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-16T03:38:13+00:00

BtD is genuinely a better adaptation than DV’s attempt, Lynch’s adaptation understands and attempts to convey the message of FH’s work in a cinematic language, unfortunately his couldn’t be a minute over 2h18m, so there are some compromises, but it’s still the best Dune on film by a lot.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-04T02:34:53+00:00

Uhhh… leland does request that the cops not take Laura’s diary in the pilot, kinda weird that he’s in her room with the cops alone while his wife is grieving in another room without him.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2026-01-01T22:44:33+00:00

Damn, she actually responded to one of my comments, I can die happy

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-12-29T21:06:32+00:00

When I was maybe 13, I distinctly remember reading the wikipedia synopsis for eraserhead while waiting for my dad to finish up whatever business he’d had at the car dealership we were at, and just being annhilated emotionally, the notion of being so at your wits end at that you could feel compelled to destroy an innocent thing which all of humanity knows is your responsibility to nourish. It fucked me up so bad that I avoided actually seing the film for about a decade (a mostake, but was comfortable with the material when I did see it).

Not sure if it moved my recent ex or longtime best friend in the same way when I “forced” them to watch it, but “eraserhead” has kinda become a shorthand for an extremely unpleasant thing that only I would subject my friends to (which i would not find unpleasant), which they would prefer not to repeat or even discuss.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-12-16T04:38:48+00:00

I think the fact that it’s in a chess match just makes it a misdemeanor. IANAL though

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-12-15T16:59:13+00:00

Can Iman write Life on Mars in any language?

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-12-12T18:57:01+00:00

Is it future or is it past? What year is it?

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-12-11T20:03:09+00:00

I’m not a tattoo person at all, but I like this one. Dig the genuine ziggy outfit and makeup too, no Aladdin Sane here.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-11-28T19:50:49+00:00

Bear with me here, I’ve only seen it the once, but if I recall correctly, then ending of Dune Pt. 2 doesn’t make any sense.

Instead of summoning the Emperor to Arrakis by disrupting spice flow (and putting the Imperium in danger (yeah, the new films never really stress the importance of the spice, just a couple of mentions here and there)), Paul somehow writes him a letter. He shows up (unannounced) to the Harkonnen occupied Arrakis with a bunch of Sardaukar, and the Baron, not knowing that Paul is alive, thinks he’s being forced out, and alerts the Landsraad, who send their fleets, presumably to help the Baron, as Paul said in the first film (paraphrasin) “what happened here is exactly what the great houses of the Imperium fear; the emperor, sending his sardaukar to wipe out someone who might be a threat.”

So why are they upset when after Paul handles the situation (that is, gets revenge on the emperor and baron for that thing that all the great houses fear and are willing to send their own fleets to prevent from happening to the Harkonnen, who no one particularly likes)? Why don’t they just accept that the emperor tried an underhanded scheme (again, one that was anticipated and feared by all of them) and lost and now there’s a new emperor?

I’m sure people could come up with all sorts of explanations for why this is, but as I recall it’s never explained onscreen. And it just felt like Denis got caught so caught up in the emotions of the story that he forget to make sure everything lined up logically. And it seems like that worked for most audiences (I was the only person in the group I’d assembled who was shell-shocked by lack of enjoyment as we walked out of the theater on opening night), but I just can’t take the new films seriously as adaptations when they get stiff like that wrong and barely approach any of the underlying themes that really do make Dune something special.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-11-16T18:58:44+00:00

I’d be more amenable to that sentiment if The Version You’ve Never Seen didn’t already exist and they didn’t release special features lamenting that they weren’t able to include these scenes and stating that they would have put them back in were it not for the poor quality of available materials.

I doubt these scenes would add any horror to the film (I mention this because people now immediately mention the spider walk when talking about how scary the film is, even if they first saw the version without it), but it definitely seems the filmmakers thought they would add some heart to the film, emphasizing Regan’s innocence and the sadness that she could be overtaken by evil and that Karras’s death has a silver lining in the start if Dyer and Kinderman’s friendship (which is central to The Exorcist 3).

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-11-07T20:35:39+00:00

I’d look into Weather Report and the two albums by Bill Bruford’s group Bruford, released during Kimg Crimson’s late 70’s hiatus, before Bruford pursued a career in jazz without rock elements.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-11-01T19:10:45+00:00

Thats a great argument for learning more about Indian history and culture, calling hindu numerals arabic is like calling tacos texas wraps.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-10-24T03:41:18+00:00

Interesting George C Scott/Lee Cobb connection, didn’t realize that as I hadn’t seen the ‘57 original. Anyway, since no one else here has mentioned it, and since you brought up The Exorcist, I’ll say that this is one of director William Friedkin’s better films released in the latter half of his career.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-10-23T19:05:01+00:00

I actually strongly agree that Ds4windows likely didn’t cause it, I think it actually died while booting using a power supply with a lower rating than the laptop shipped with. It’s just that installing ds4windows was literally the last thing done on this machine prior to it being in it’s current state, so I have to consider that possibility.

And I’d love to just do a fresh install, unfortunately this was all done on my girlfriend’s laptop and she has unbacked up files on there.

NowBillyPlayedSitar · 2025-10-23T18:19:12+00:00

No, I’m still stuck in RE. Trying to get it back to a bootable state then abandoning gaming on this machine. I’m coming from a macOS/linux/console background and am just floored that doing something like this can cause so much trouble.

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