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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • Blood Vessel (2019).

    An improbably diverse group of U-Boat attack survivors find their way aboard a seemingly abandoned Nazi vessel, discovering, in time, what happened to the previous occupants.

    The movie has 3 things going for it:

    1. A perfect title.
    2. Commitment to make-up and practical effects in most scenes(the standout being the main antagonist)
    3. The production either filmed on a real vessel, or they have very talented set decorators. Given how many B-grade creature features (esp. ones set in WW2) wind up being 80 minutes of stereotypes tramping through the woods, the production value was not unappreciated.

    Is it good? Not really. Does it make good on its premise? Also, no. Is it better than it could have been? Absolutely.

    Worth a watch for fans of foam latex.





  • I have not yet seen the sequel, but I might if I can find a good matinee deal or something. This makes me feel ancient, but I remember when a ticket was like $5 if the showtime was before 5 pm. Sadly, that seems to have gone the way of the $5 footling.

    Beekeeper is one of the best surprises I’ve had in a long time. I was looking for something new, but sorta familiar, to watch and gave it a shot on streaming, pretty much sight unseen. I thought it was just Statham.trying to cut in on that John Wick money. Which, it sorta was, but man, that script just kept out doing itself with every expansion in scope / stakes. By the time they “reveal” who the kid’s mom is, I was so on board their ride.

    I wish Statham had brought something to the role other than stoic badass. Maybe it would have been too much at that point, but I kinda wanted an actor who could match the script in brazen buffoonery. Maybe then they could have cut the FBI agents’ scenes and focused more on him. I practically snoozed through that whole B plot.


  • It’s a mixed bag tbh. I think the first one is overlong and less clever than it thinks it is. The action is competent, but not substantively better than a good direct to video shoot em up, and there’s just so much dead space between these sequences it’s almost not worth it.

    That being said, i’d rank it above Jason Statham’s A Working Man, but below Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper. Idk if that helps you at all, but I think it’s indicative of the mode this movie is trying to operate in.


  • Post your shit, don’t be excessive. If it gets deleted for self promo in one community, there’s several alternatives. If it gets deleted in every community, reassess your messaging lol.

    This platform requires OC to survive, or else we’re just a mirror for other sites. Deleting OC because it comes from the Creator seems short-sighted, but I’m also not a mod. So, ymmv.


  • Okay? Again, who are you serving by choosing this specific forum to shout that messaging? I know you aren’t OP, so consider that the royal “you”.

    It’s just tiresome is all, and I’m on the “boo, capitalism” side of things. It’s like the folks who turn every thread tangentially related to Microsoft into a Linux advertisement. Or the involuntary ejaculation of a vegetarian when the subject of diet comes up. Like, yes, these folks are probably correct about the things they are saying; you’re never going to be wrong to consider the angle being worked by a corp. However, it’s infantilizing to suggest that people are unaware that a corporation wants their money. That’s a given, and without additional commentary, it’s a positively useless statement that only serves to make people tune out the messaging, even in contexts where it IS desirable to bring it up (such as when a company is doing shady shit in pursuit of your money). Releasing a mediocre graphical remaster of a title that people have nostalgia for hardly qualifies as “shady shit” in my book. Lazy, sure, but not shady.




  • Undoubtedly, yes, the fixed camera perspective of the original RE games owes a huge debt of gratitude to Alone in the Dark. However, Sweet Home predates the original AitD by 3 years, and has a direct lineage to RE through Tokuro Fujiwara, who directed Sweet Home and produced the original RE game. In fact, RE began its life as a SNES remake of Sweet Home in 1993, and it wasn’t until production had already begun that Mikami discovered AitD and reconfigured their plans. I’m not super familiar with AitD, so perhaps he lifted more features from that game than the perspective (that weren’t already present in some form in Sweet Home, at any rate), but I didnt see that mentioned in the interview.




  • It all depends on how you’re defining “influence”. As an example, let’s look at the first Resident Evil game and it’s predecessor, Sweet Home. More people have played or heard of Resident Evil than a movie tie-in game that was never officially released outside Japan. However, a huge amount of RE’s DNA (indeed, things that fans will say are necessary to capturing the feel of early RE games) stem from Sweet Home. Hell, RE was initially conceived of as a remake of Sweet Home, until they realized they didn’t have the rights. Below is an incomplete list of features from Sweet Home that were incorporated into the first RE.

    • inventory management puzzles
    • exploring an intricate, cohesive location inhabited by monsters.
    • narrative communicated through found notes and cutscenes
    • deliberately clunky combat to emphasize player vulnerability
    • protagonist characters each have a thing they can do that others can’t (presaging Jill’s lockpick and Chris’s lighter)
    • door loading transitions

    So, which is the more influential game? The one that popularized all of these concepts, or the one that originated the concepts? I think a case can be made for both, but I lean towards the originator.





  • Meh. According to the source you posted, that exchange was simply “my wife found two reports that Apollo Legend committed suicide. If it’s true, I will not shed a tear. I will try to suppress a smile or a giggle.” Yes, considering Apollo’s eventual death, it’s shitty, no doubt.

    However, according to your source, that was in a private text to an unidentified party, who I presume is affiliated with Mitchell either socially or professionally. It wasn’t a public post, and it wasnt directed to Apollo. It doesn’t even state that Mitchell hopes that it is true. Just that he’s not going to be broken up about it. I’ve said far more inflammatory shit with regards to the barons of the American insurance industry. Does that mean that I should be found culpable for the death of Brian Thompson? I sure hope not.

    Caveat: I only read the source you posted, so perhaps there’s wider context I’m missing.