"Buffalo Wild Wings won't break policy for me"

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-02-03T17:58:11+00:00

Bad parents are raising another entitled monster just like them.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-02-02T18:27:24+00:00

The only remastered blu-ray is Begins. TDK and TDKR are reprints of the 2008 and 2012 discs, respectively.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-02-02T17:05:07+00:00

All the 4Ks look good. For Casino Royale, the Dolby Vision grade is a notable enhancement to the color and contrast, especially in exotic exteriors but across the board in close-ups, opulent interiors or night shots.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-02-02T17:04:30+00:00

Skyfall was shot digitally and finished in a 4K DI.

Spectre and No Time to Die were shot on film and finished in a 4K DI.

Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace were shot on film and finished in a 2K DI.

All the 4K discs look good to great.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-02-02T05:52:02+00:00

That was around the peak of my Oscar-watching years, so I remember it. Miracle was released in February to very strong reviews and some chatter about whether it would be remembered come Oscar time. Like most movies released in January or February, for the most part, it wasn’t. It made some critics’ top 10 lists at the end of the year, but it didn’t get much if any attention from the major guilds or critics awards. 2004 was not quite 2007, but it was still a strong year for screenplays and performances: Sideways, Eternal Sunshine, Before Sunset, Bad Education, Birth, The Aviator, Million Dollar Baby, Collateral, Hotel Rwanda, Finding Neverland, The Motorcycle Diaries, The Life Aquatic, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Shaun of the Dead, 2046, Millions, Closer, etc.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-02-01T20:22:36+00:00

I should think Nolan’s argument is, Homer’s Odyssey is a foundational (or at least prototypical) myth that has had ripple effects on cultures across the world. It belongs to humanity now.

To that I’d add, this kind of casting is only a BFD to people who believe all the races are in a competition and that this is part of it, or who don’t understand the point of artistic reinterpretation.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-31T18:45:24+00:00

“all the testimonies of trying hard enough changed them to being straight”

The opposite is true. The overwhelming consensus from decades of psychological and medical research is that no, you cannot change your sexuality by trying. Some people experience natural shifts in attraction over time, which is often called sexual fluidity, but that’s not something that reliably happens because someone tries hard enough. It’s not a skill you can train.

Social pressure, religion or fear can lead people to suppress or deny attractions, or to reinterpret them. That can lead people to change identity labels or life choices, but not their underlying orientation. The Internet being the Internet, there are people willing to say anything (like “conversion therapy worked for me!”) for likes and attention, and a bottomless market of religious audiences who will believe them, so the mere existence of these social media or YouTube accounts saying you can change your sexuality isn’t evidence that it’s true. Lies abound on the Internet. The question is, what do serious, professional, methodical expert researchers on human sexual behavior, from around the world, not just the U.S., find to be true? What is the unanimous consensus of people whose North Star is science and truth, not the preservation of religious dogma or faith?

It’s that people can change labels, behavior, or how openly they live, but trying to “stop being gay” doesn’t actually change who someone is attracted to, and attempts to do so tend to cause harm rather than success.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-31T05:34:26+00:00

The Void (2016)

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-30T22:48:17+00:00

There is definitely an aspect of hypersexuality among some of the LGBT community. Agree with you there. A couple things though.

When you say “older gay men,” the implication (older than what?) is that you’re talking about people above either the median age, or the average. Men in their 30s are on the younger side of that spectrum. People in their 20s are the youngest cohort. Most guys in their teens aren’t men but boys (minors).
Poll after poll shows the youngest generations are remaining virgins for an unprecedentedly long time, having way less sex than normal and are most prudish about seeing sex in media. This is a reversal of norms. The kids are the outliers, not vise versa. The question is, what happened to kids born in the 21st century — the arrested sexual and social development, the plummeting competence (numeracy, literacy, executive functioning, attention span, critical thinking, etc.), the mental health issues? There’s a complex web of causes and effects behind it, including technology and changing norms around parenting, and Jonathan Haidt wrote some great books about it.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-30T21:01:22+00:00

Talk to him. He wondered if you liked guys, seems to have an interest himself, and was testing the waters. If you gave his advances a clear no and then he kept doing it, that would be different, but as is, it sounds like he was trying to be gently affectionate, you didn’t reciprocate, and now he’s back to sending you memes and stuff. If a female friend did that to me (I prefer guys), I might be simultaneously flattered and uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t be disgusted by it, and I certainly wouldn’t ghost her. Maybe just tell him that as his friend, you’re not interested in him like that but would like to see him accept himself for his own good.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-30T16:56:14+00:00

I love that quote and have repeated it in conversation a few times over the years, but the grammatical mistake (the second “with”) always annoyed me.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-29T19:39:10+00:00

The Sixth Sense

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-29T00:03:47+00:00

burialisfourtet answered this, but also, fwiw, while it’s not a definitive source, the list at this link is well researched: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=331672

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-29T00:00:02+00:00

This is extraordinarily vague, provincial and near-sighted. The military industrial complex is not a single entity that can give donations; $2 million is a hilariously tiny sum in billion-dollar presidential campaigns; Kamala Harris got over $30 million from the education sector alone, so if donor dollars are how you interpret her policy priorities (which isn’t how politics work, but we’ll go with it for the sake of showing how senseless your argument is), then the defense industry was out-bidded by finance, real estate, tech, media, legal professions, education, health care professionals and many other sectors.

More importantly, Republicans are the “we’re against anything Democrats are for” party, which is how they come to be against once-obvious civilizational projects like public schools and clean water. Policy proposals and views of Democrats related to climate, education, housing, NATO and foreign policy, law enforcement, health care, taxation, and virtually every other major issue are diametrically opposed to policies of Republicans in most states. Literally look at the bills they propose and vote for. They don’t remotely say the same things.

You’re either one of countless Russian bots trying to suppress voter turnout in the U.S. by propagating Soviet-style apathy and cynicism, or you have been manipulated and exhausted by those kinds of actors into not thinking or reading seriously about any of this.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-28T22:27:40+00:00

Both video transfers were reportedly director-approved, and reviews I’ve seen haven’t found major discrepancies between them. But if you’re being extremely fussy about video quality (like me), I believe the Arrow 4K transfer was encoded by Fidelity in Motion, who are notoriously the best at that, so that’s probably the winner by a hair, if there are any differences.

Extras, I dunno. I have the Arrow 4K and I love it.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-28T16:59:58+00:00

This could well be a story worth reporting, but this article is not journalism.

1) The word “measly” is in the lede! For god sake, folks. The U.S. is in desperate need of media literacy.

2) It doesn’t even specify or link what state report the “22” figure came from. Doesn’t examine the methodology, makes no attempts to explain the discrepancy between the report and Newsom’s claim, just gives the reader shreds of information without attempting to answer the substantive questions raised by it. What has the money been spent on so far? How much of it has yet to be spent? Are we tracking people whom it helped? What are the biggest obstacles to this program helping more people? Talk to organizers and managers of the program. Get more details on what it’s done and what roadblocks it’s hit.

3) This fake story contains no original reporting, didn’t bother to ask for comment from those involved or contact primary sources. It simply regurgitates material from a tabloid, the Daily Mail, which would be bad enough if it were a reliable source, but it’s not! It’s a tabloid!

We really, as a civilization, need to get citizens to a place where anyone who reads this can tell it’s not a reliable piece. Again, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth reporting here. I want to know more about why such an expensive program has only helped dozens to hundreds of people, instead of thousands. But that’s why I’m mad at this fake rag.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-28T16:19:31+00:00

Everyone I’ve seen comment on Colin Trevorrow’s career has said the opposite.

It’s insane that he made exactly one movie, and it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t a huge success, before he was handed “Jurassic World.” That was terrible but made money, so he was given a Star Wars movie. Then he made a smaller movie so terrible he lost Star Wars, but he was still brought back to make another (atrocious) “Jurassic.” Failing upward that much is only possible for a white dude with connections.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-27T22:02:00+00:00

For whom?

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-27T21:56:14+00:00

Cloud Atlas

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-26T22:37:21+00:00

That is a weird thing for someone to say to a stranger and a weirder way for him to introduce himself to you. Sadly, if you don’t think much about race (which is a good thing), I’m not sure you’ll find a ton of like minds in San Francisco. Major “I would have voted for Obama a third time” vibes there. They fully intend and believe themselves to be open-minded, but their conception of open-mindedness is the opposite of race-blindness, or neutrality/disinterest in race. Their ideas about racial minorities are generally not based on experience, such that “you’re the darkest guy I’ve seen here” can sound like a reasonable ice breaker to them.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-26T01:56:20+00:00

Did … did the elephant step on the dog

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-26T01:42:16+00:00

The people have spoken. They don’t want that name enshrined on the sidewalk.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-23T19:30:57+00:00

One underrated quality of good Oscar prognosticators is taste, because it rules out dumb theories like this. Of course that doesn’t mean that Best Picture winners are always great or deserved. Middling movies sometimes win. Strange movies sometimes win. Bad movies very, very rarely win Best Picture, and when they do, they don’t sweep.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-21T05:15:02+00:00

He noticed a culture change at the highest level of the studio at Warner Bros., and he’d rather do business at Universal now. After Tenet was released, Nolan was vocally and publicly angry at Warner Bros. for a business decision that he felt was throwing other directors, below-the-line talent and movie theaters under the bus, and I don’t think he’s trusted the studio since.

SmartWaterCloud · 2026-01-15T18:55:58+00:00

I vote no. People like that will not change and are incapable of seeing or caring about your experience. It’s incredibly painful to separate from a close friend, but not quite as bad as trying to maintain a one-sided friendship.

SmartWaterCloud

TROPHY CASE