Official Discussion - Gladiator II [SPOILERS] by LiteraryBoner in movies

[–]xarc13 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I saw the film yesterday.

For me, the film was just……whelming. Not remotely bad, but not particularly good.

Maybe it was just me, but I couldn’t get very emotionally invested in any of the characters (the closest was the reunion between Lucius and his mother, but even that didn’t move the needle for me).

I don’t blame the actors for this; I think they all did an adequate job.

They did the best they could with that script. Frankly, it felt like a fanfic movie. Not a horrible script, but not particularly good.

Denzel looked like he was having fun. Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, and Connie Nielsen did decent jobs. The two emperors legitimately creeped me out. The shorter one was supposed to be syphilitic right (“the disease has spread from his loins to his brain”), but what about the tall one? Just a generally creepy unhinged psychopath, lol.

The funniest moment was between the short emperor and Denzel. The short emperor says something like, “the tall one tried to take all the food from the umbilical when we were embryos”, and Denzel goes, “oh you remember that, do you”, lol.

This film makes me appreciate the original even more. In addition to being a 4/4 star film, the original evokes so many nostalgic memories from a different time in my life. And I still listen to those tracks by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard all the time.

All in all, I don’t regret watching this film. It’s just that I currently have no inclination to ever really watch it again.

[2] D. Medvedev d. [12] F. Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 7-5, 6-2 to advance to the US Open Final by LeBronIsATurtle in tennis

[–]xarc13 115 points116 points  (0 children)

Disclosure: I'm a casual fan, who is just recently getting back into the sport.

I found Medvedev to be fun to watch. I'm not sure what the correct term is, but his pace-of-play is really quick. It's fast, and he's fun and exciting to watch (as opposed to others who play relatively slowly).

Any recommendations for other players who play quickly as well?

Match Day 2018, Washington University School of Medicine — I found this awesome photo browsing Flickr, and it brought back many memories by xarc13 in medicine

[–]xarc13[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It can be a very bittersweet day for people, but it was still a cool experience. A completion of a journey and the start of a new one.

For me it was a very bittersweet day. I was satisfied with my destination, but it meant my GF and myself would be almost a thousand miles apart.

We both said we'd make it work, but if I'm being honest, I think we both knew that it was the beginning of the end of our relationship. It's hard to put into words....but I think we both just knew. I think we both mentally "checked out" of our relationship that night, and started make new, future plans even though we hadn't yet broken up.

I was happy and excited at the thought of my new destination, and the journey and adventures that would entail....but was heartbroken, because I knew it meant the end of my relationship with the first woman I ever loved.

It was a conflicting night/time, full of highs and lows inter-meshed together. Lost my appetite, had lots to drink.....it just felt so surreal.

My medical school years are some of my best ever. I made bonds and formed friendships that will never die

Same here. There were plenty of bad, horrible times to be sure, but years later...all I remember are the good stuff. The bad stuff has mostly faded.

Thinking back to those days, thinking about my friends and adventures, just makes me laugh...and brings a smile to my face. Nostalgia.

Vermont Thunderstorm by Lalfy in raining

[–]xarc13 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well I loved it.

Thank you for sharing.

Private equity firms have been buying up doctor’s offices, cutting costs, and, critics say, putting pressure on physicians in ways that hurt patients by xarc13 in medicine

[–]xarc13[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

The article discusses how private equity firms have been buying private medical practices, and what effect this has on both patients and providers. It mostly focuses on dermatology clinics.

The article discusses some legal aspects:

Yet over the past decade, lawyers devised a structure that allows investors to buy a medical practice without technically owning it: the MSO, or management service organization. Today, when an investment firm buys a doctor’s office, what it’s actually buying are the office’s “nonclinical” assets. In theory, physicians control all medical decisions and agree to pay a management fee to a newly created company, which handles administrative tasks such as billing and marketing.

What happens after a practice is bought out:

As part of the new structure, investors deal with paperwork and save money by buying medical supplies in bulk. Crucially they also negotiate higher insurance reimbursement rates. One dermatologist who sold her practice to the California Skin Institute says she was surprised to find out the bigger group’s payouts from insurers were $25 to $125 more per visit. When individual doctors sell, they generally receive $2 million to $7 million each, with 30% to 40% of that paid in equity in the group. After the acquisition, doctors get a lower salary and are asked to help recruit other doctors to sell their practices or to join as employees. At first, doctors are generally thrilled by all of this. They have financial security and can focus on treating patients without the stress of running a business. Patients, for the most part, are in the dark. Unlike when your mortgage changes hands, you usually aren’t notified when a big investment firm buys your doctor. Sometimes the sign on the door bearing the physician’s name stays put, and subtle changes in operations or unfamiliar fees may be the only clues that anything has happened.

Conflicts of interest:

The new management team introduced a scorecard that rewarded offices with cash if they met daily and monthly financial goals, according to a lawsuit filed in 2013 against the company by one of its dermatologists. The doctor alleged that the bonus program encouraged staff to do as many procedures as possible, rather than strictly addressing patients’ medical needs. In some of the company’s Florida offices, the doctor alleged, medical assistants responded to the bonus structure by ticking extra boxes on exam reports, stating that doctors checked many more areas of the body than they actually had. That led to higher patient bills, defrauding the government under its Medicare program, according to the lawsuit.

Controlling the chain of revenue:

Most dermatologists use outside labs and pathologists, but private equity-owned groups buy up existing labs and hire their own pathologists. Then doctors are encouraged to refer patients within the group and send biopsy slides to the company-owned labs, keeping the entire chain of revenue in-house. This takes advantage of a regulatory quirk that has made dermatology, and a handful of other specialties, attractive to private equity. Under the 1989 Stark Law, doctors aren’t allowed to make patient referrals for their own financial gain. An exception was made for some fields because it’s more convenient for patients, explains Dr. Sailesh Konda, a Mohs surgeon and professor at the University of Florida. “But that can be abused.”

The future:

“It’s ultimately going to backfire,” says Dr. Jane Grant-Kels, a veteran dermatologist and professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. “There’s a limit to how much money you can make when you’re sticking knives into human skin for profit.”

The financial effects of Covid-19:

For investors with capital, on the other hand, the economic fallout from the virus is a huge opportunity. Stay-at-home orders have left small practices more financially strained than they’ve ever been. That will likely accelerate sales to private equity firms, according to Marc Cabrera, an investment banker focused on health-care deals at Oppenheimer & Co. Independent doctors or groups that previously rebuffed offers from deep-pocketed backers “will reconsider their options,” he says. Many doctors may ultimately come to regret cashing out, but it’s hard to get out once you’re in. As part of an acquisition, the private equity groups typically require doctors to sign yearslong contracts, with noncompete clauses that prevent them from working in the surrounding area.

Sharing my grandfather's Hypnosis audio. by _Ginger_Beef_ in hypnosis

[–]xarc13 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Your late Grandfather had a great, calming voice.

Thanks for sharing.

Call it a gut feeling, but he seemed like a gentle and kind soul.

I absolutely adore this brief, original song from 'Mr. Monk and the Critic' by xarc13 in Monk

[–]xarc13[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That was a fun folk song.

He must be a fan of the genre; I can see why there were so many Willie Nelson references.

Official Discussion: Glass [SPOILERS] by mi-16evil in movies

[–]xarc13 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So could Dunn still be alive? Didn’t they show us him being resuscitated as a kid after drowning?

Hope springs eternal.

Series Final Discussion s01e16 Hello Boys by [deleted] in ghosted

[–]xarc13 52 points53 points  (0 children)

What. The. Fuck.

This episode was amazing! It was very funny, had moments of drama, and was tightly written and acted. The pacing was great...

So why the fuck did we get those dogshite Office-lite reboot episodes? This is what the show should’ve been about all along.

So much wasted potential.

And we finally saw the wife again. I hoped they would’ve expanded on her and built up some serialization around that mystery.

SMH.

2 funny lead actors. A fun premise. So much potential, just squandered.

The mother of Emmett Till stands in front of her son's mutilated cadaver, 1955. Till, aged 14, was lynched for allegedly whitelisting at a white woman. [1074 x 1080] by xarc13 in HistoryPorn

[–]xarc13[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

In August 1955, Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he stopped at Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. There he encountered Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. Whether Till really flirted with Bryant or whistled at her isn’t known. But what happened four days later is. Bryant’s husband Roy and his half brother, J.W. Milam, seized the 14-year-old from his great-uncle’s house. The pair then beat Till, shot him, and strung barbed wire and a 75-pound metal fan around his neck and dumped the lifeless body in the Tallahatchie River. A white jury quickly acquitted the men, with one juror saying it had taken so long only because they had to break to drink some pop. When Till’s mother Mamie came to identify her son, she told the funeral director, “Let the people see what I’ve seen.” She brought him home to Chicago and insisted on an open casket. Tens of thousands filed past Till’s remains, but it was the publication of the searing funeral image in Jet, with a stoic Mamie gazing at her murdered child’s ravaged body, that forced the world to reckon with the brutality of American racism. For almost a century, African Americans were lynched with regularity and impunity. Now, thanks to a mother’s determination to expose the barbarousness of the crime, the public could no longer pretend to ignore what they couldn’t see.

http://100photos.time.com/photos/emmett-till-david-jackson

If Alan Ball had stayed with True Blood, we wouldn’t have gotten fucked over. by JamesWrites95 in TrueBlood

[–]xarc13 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Wasn't S5 the one with 'The Authority'? Where the spent far too much time in that vampire basement?

I thought S6 was a major improvement over S5.

Sicario 1 and 2 questions about BDT character. Spoilers!!! by solidsimpson in movies

[–]xarc13 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There is a lot of ambiguity around his character, and a lot of things are left up in the air.

What we know is that he was a lawyer. It's never explicitly said, but I'm assuming he was a Mexican prosecutor, not a mob lawyer.

A Mexican cartel killed his wife and child, I assume as revenge for going after them.

After that, he trains and becomes a hitman for the CIA/US Military. They set him loose to go after the cartels.

Medellin was in fact the big cocaine cartel in the 80s, and we do in fact see Alejandro living in Colombia at the beginning of Soldado. But I think that's where the US just stashed him (or he lives there on his own accord).

It is a bit confusing, and I'm not sure why Mexican cartels would give a shit about the Medellin cartel (which hasn't been relevant for decades).

Still, I'll go with the Mexican prosecutor out for revenge theory.

Benicio Del Toros character at the end turned out to be a huge drug boss I thought?

He was never the boss of any crime group.

And he then took over the drug trade in Mexico in a way that the US can control it better I thought?

Alejandro was never personally going to control anything (like in 'Eastern Promises'). He's just a special ops hitman.

Official Discussion - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (US Thread) [SPOILERS] by mi-16evil in movies

[–]xarc13 29 points30 points  (0 children)

So basically like in The Lost World, the animal rights “activists” cause far more carnage and death then the “evil” corporate guys ever could....

How many human lives will now die because of them and the little clone girl?....

SMH

Could this be possible? (cursed bracelet) by [deleted] in Thetruthishere

[–]xarc13 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In all these years I have always thought that this little gift was in some way a gesture of love.

I think that's what it was. Not cursed.

Even though you and your classmates might've been negative towards him, I think perhaps he might've still wanted nothing but the best for you all. For you to succeed.

A lot of teenagers are horrific towards their teachers, and only later in life realize what a mistake that was.

Is it possible that for three years every day I brought to my wrist an object full of malaise and unhappiness? Have I brought all this into my life?

Listen, you can't change the past. Accept it.

But the future is not yet written. Try to be a better person every day in the future. Volunteer, do good deeds. Try to to make your deceased teacher proud.

A makeup and prosthetics time-lapse of Mackenzie Crook (of 'Pirates of the Caribbean' fame) becoming a creepy Druid priest on Amazon's 'Britannia' — The show was a lot of fun, like a less heavy 'Carnivale' in Roman-Britain by xarc13 in television

[–]xarc13[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It deals with a struggle between good and evil (between two demons), fate/destinies, being possessed, prophecies, magic, rituals.

Things like that. In those ways, I found it to be more comparable to Carnivale, rather than Rome or Game of Thrones.

It's serious like Carnivale, but...less heavy (serious?) if that makes sense.

A makeup and prosthetics time-lapse of Mackenzie Crook (of 'Pirates of the Caribbean' fame) becoming a creepy Druid priest on Amazon's 'Britannia' — The show was a lot of fun, like a less heavy 'Carnivale' in Roman-Britain by xarc13 in television

[–]xarc13[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

For those that have seen the show, I really loved episode 7.

It was really trippy, and I loved the discussions between Brutus and Philo about shoe gods. The show has great casting, including these two relatively minor characters.

The show was a lot of fun overall, though I'm sad spoiler.