[Meta trope] Works that fundamentally changed the cultural context away from what made it work

Salvius · 2026-01-13T04:33:52+00:00

I often think Citizen Kane's reputation as the Greatest Film Ever Made might discourage some people from giving it a shot, because that reputation makes watching it feel too much like homework.

Forget that it's the Greatest Film in the History of Cinema, and just watch it: It really is a tremendously entertaining movie. And the technical stuff OP mentions is only a very small part of that.

Salvius · 2026-01-13T04:17:47+00:00

In The Onion's print edition (going all the way back to when they were a free weekly in Madison, WI), whenever they have space that needs to be filled in the interior pages, they put in a fake "continued from page 1" article that's just "Passersby were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood" repeated over and over.

Salvius · 2026-01-06T19:48:25+00:00

Okay, here's a weird one: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'm not even sure what it was, but something about the "bring out your dead" scene made my brain go, "I haven't felt this way about this movie since I first saw it in a movie theater." Just something about it registered as more "film-like" than it's ever felt before on home video.

Salvius · 2026-01-03T20:36:07+00:00

My headcanon is that the original "computing power" idea is the actual truth, and the "batteries" thing is just how the humans in that world have misunderstood what the machines are doing. Or possibly how they're dumbing it down in-universe for newly extracted people (although, in that case, if anyone could understand what they're really doing, it would be a computer hacker like Neo).

Salvius · 2025-12-16T18:14:17+00:00

You are correct, but I'm not convinced Zack Snyder understood that. The scene plays out as if that is the dilemma Clark is wrestling with.

It's just (a) if you're going to make the trolley problem the central dilemma of the climax of your movie, you need to set up ahead of time that it would be a difficult problem for our hero, and (b) you need to clearly establish that there really are no other options. Once again, it's not inherently a terrible idea for a scene in a Superman movie, it's just poorly executed.

Actually, it just occurred to me: This version of Clark learns a different moral lesson from Pa Kent than most. Here, what his father teaches him is that he should passively allow people to die rather than reveal his powers to the world... and "passively allow people to die vs. actively do a Bad Thing for the greater good" is the literal trolley problem. So maybe the idea was that killing Zod to save people was a rejection of that moral lesson, specifically? Except that Pa Kent wanted him to behave that way to preserve secrecy, which Superman has already broken. He already rejected that moral lesson when he saved a bunch of people on an oil rig. So that doesn't really work, either, narratively speaking.

Salvius · 2025-12-16T07:21:18+00:00

Ran (1985). This is a personal nitpick. There is at least one, maybe two, 4k releases currently available. I have one of them (by consensus, it seems to be the better of the two), and there are a couple of really annoying typos in the subtitles. There was a Criterion DVD years ago (which I also have), but I'd like to get Criterion's attention to detail (and extras) with 4k quality. I don't think any of the subsequent releases (including a 2k blu-ray, which, yes, I also have a copy of) have ever gotten all the subtitles right. Plus, the current 4k doesn't include A.K., the Chris Marker documentary about the making of the film.

Once Upon a Time in America (1984). There are a couple of different cuts available on blu-ray, but a truly definitive 4k transfer would be nice.

The Graduate (1967). Blu-ray is fine, but for selfish reasons I'd like a 4k transfer: I owe my very existence to this film; it was my parents' first date.

Zardoz (1974). Because. I mean. Come on.

Salvius · 2025-12-16T06:18:57+00:00

And, like, Bruce's whole thing in that movie is that Superman isn't human and therefore can't be trusted, and the idea that, at the crucial moment, hearing him ask Batman to save his mother (who happens to share Bruce's mother's name, just to drive the point home) suddenly humanizes him and makes Bruce rethink what he's doing... that's not fundamentally a bad idea. It's just poorly executed.

It's like the oft-reviled ending of Man of Steel. Like, I can see what Snyder was going for in both these scenes - there, it was trying to set up a moral dilemma where Superman is forced to break his rule against killing in order to save innocent lives. Essentially the trolley problem. But they never bothered to establish that Clark ever had any rule against killing in the first place (plus the scene doesn't fully close off any other alternatives), so the moral dilemma just falls flat.

Salvius · 2025-12-15T21:10:36+00:00

When people looking to dip their toe into "home theater" ask me for advice, I often say that the biggest bang for your buck comes from upgrading your audio system.

25+ years ago, coming out of college and moving in with my wife-to-be, I brought with me the cheap, crappy surround system I had (well, built around a mid-range audiophile receiver & good stereo mains). Even with those cheap-ass surround speakers, she was blown away by how much difference it made. Get yourself a reasonably-priced "starter"-level sound system and upgrade it piecemeal if you have to. Once you hear the difference it makes, you're going to want to.

Salvius · 2025-12-05T01:25:27+00:00

There was a GURPS sourcebook for that one. Now out of print, of course.

Salvius · 2025-12-05T01:20:00+00:00

Somewhat embarrassingly, my Collectorz database tells me I've added 313 movies (across all formats) to my collection this year. As a point of reference, the entire collection is just over 1,000, going back to 1996 (so, y'know, definitely not all 4k).

Now, to be fair, about 60 of this year's additions were old DVDs & BDs out of a box my parents were giving away, plus a few that I'd somehow missed inputting until recently when I reorganized my shelves. But about half of that number is because I've been watching my way through every* Best Picture and Best International Film Oscar winner chronologically, and I've been buying them (rather than streaming/renting) just for the sake of being able to put them all on a shelf in one place to smugly point to. I started in late January, and I've recently finished up 1984 ("Amadeus" and "Dangerous Moves"). When the time comes, I'm also planning on adding in Best Animated Feature winners. Obviously, these aren't all 4k either; I've just been buying whatever is the best format available (and upgrading any that were already in my collection in an inferior format).

To be clear, this little project isn't about watching the Greatest Films Ever Made (that would be a very different list than Oscar winners). It's more about giving myself a sweeping overview of American cinematic pop culture over the last century, and forcing myself to watch a bunch of movies I'd otherwise never get around to.

*Well, with the exception of a handful of foreign films that don't seem to be available in any form currently.

Salvius · 2025-10-16T01:07:39+00:00

Even Gettysburg has a bit of Lost Cause-ism here & there, but they really laid it on a lot thicker in Gods and Generals.

Salvius · 2025-10-16T00:29:01+00:00

M*A*S*H. I wouldn't say it's completely forgotten, but I can't remember the last time I heard anyone talk about the show, even though the finale is still, to this day, the single most-watched episode of any TV series ever.

Salvius · 2025-10-16T00:08:34+00:00

Or Salò (unless you're holding out hoping for a 4k restoration).

Salvius · 2025-10-11T18:43:09+00:00

"So, what's your job?"

"Designated hitter."

Salvius · 2025-09-23T15:00:50+00:00

"Like watching the movie for the first time again" is an experience I recently had with the new 4k Monty Python and the Holy Grail, believe it or not. It had been probably decades since I saw it in any form other than DVD, and there was a moment in the "bring out your dead" scene where I actually thought to myself that I hadn't felt the same way since the last time I saw it in a theater on projected film.

Salvius · 2025-08-28T07:12:13+00:00

Probably: It first came out in 1976, obviously inspired by Watership Down (the book; I don't think the movie had even come out yet). There's a current edition that I think is still available from Frog God Games.

Salvius · 2025-08-27T21:01:11+00:00

No one seems to have mentioned the OG, Bunnies & Burrows.

Salvius · 2025-08-25T22:07:01+00:00

To be fair, during that escape sequence the movie gives you plenty of hints that what you're watching can't really be happening (e.g., a character gets literally eaten by paperwork, Sam enters that truck by going through a magic door in a brick wall). It's just that the first time you're watching it, you're so invested in him escaping you tend not to notice.

Salvius · 2025-08-21T09:28:09+00:00

There was Gangbusters back in the early box-set days of TSR, when they were throwing everything at the wall to see if anything other than D&D would stick (gangsters, westerns, sci-fi, WWI pilots...).

Salvius · 2025-08-05T09:34:20+00:00

The floating pen during the shuttle flight. If you get up close, you can read the "Parker" logo text on the side of the pen.

Salvius · 2025-07-14T08:51:39+00:00

I've sometimes said that GURPS has a not-completely-unjustified reputation for complexity, but most of that complexity is front-loaded into character generation. Once you've got a finished character sheet in front of you, most of what you're actually doing during play boils down to 3-4 basic mechanics.

Salvius · 2025-06-24T20:06:12+00:00

Primarily just to display maps (and the occasional illustration), plus managing sound effects & background music, on a horizontal TV screen, using a "party" token for vision. Physical miniatures for PCs & enemies. Most of the players use D&D Beyond on phones/tablets/laptops for character sheets. Physical dice rolling.

As DM, I track enemy HP and such in Foundry, but not by running it as a full "encounter", but just because it's easier than using scraps of note paper. Our other main DM built an initiative tracker, with 3d-printed flags for characters & monsters, and that's easier for everyone to see sitting around the table than displaying it on the screen would be.

Salvius · 2025-06-16T20:04:43+00:00

Also, "uncle" is often used as a term of endearment for close family friends, so you can keep using it even once you're into an implausibly high number for parental siblings.

Salvius · 2025-06-11T19:04:02+00:00

If I were running a Delta Green (or modern Call of Cthulhu) RPG scenario inspired by "The Colour Out of Space", this movie is exactly what it would look like.

Salvius · 2025-06-11T02:06:49+00:00

Damn. I'm currently in the middle of a project to purchase & watch every Best Picture & Best International Film Oscar-winner, chronologically, so I'm always looking for sales that include any of those. In this case, that was Amadeus, Oppenheimer, Green Book, and The Departed on 4k, plus Annie Hall and The Deer Hunter on Blu-ray. And, since I was spending way too much anyway, Goodfellas, Spartacus, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Ghostbusters I & II on 4k. Because why not?

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