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grudlian.

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Posts posted by grudlian.

  1. Posted

    17 minutes ago, RyanSz said:

    Yeah there was a wired article about a decade ago where a guy was buying up those cartridges because Nintendo Power would actually list full names and hometowns of participants, which is insane in of itself, who had received the cartridges as a consolation prize to not winning the top prize of a savings bond. 1990 Geo Metro (which was odd since the majority of competitors were under the age of 16), 40" TV, and gold Mario trophy.  Most of the people he bought them off of had no idea how valuable the item was and were surely pissed when they saw how much profit he was making with them. There is a rare gold cartridge being sold on Ebay at the moment for a reasonable million dollars or a grey version for 150k, both sealed and rated so they are legit.

    Also if you wanna see the nutty documentary about the lengths some people go to for the ultimate collection of video games, watch Nintendo Quest. It's about a guy who sets a mission to basically buy a copy of every single game released for the NES in the United States, just under 700 games, in under 30 days. It's an interesting look at retro collectors and their fandom but when you crunch the numbers you realize the amount of money this guy had to be spending to do such a task, especially as he can't make any game purchases online, which isn't covered in the film which I felt was its biggest issue. It's free on Prime and is a must watch for lovers of the 8-bit era and Nintendo in general.

    To my knowledge, every NWC cartridge owner was known and documented before 10 years ago in the NES collecting community. Maybe not quite every cartridge but damn near. I believe some are lost to time because the person sold/lost it before they got crazy valuable. I know that you could post a picture of one and people could identify its owner based purely on the condition of it.

    I came relatively close to buying one around 2004 when they were around $2000. It was on ebay and I even messaged the seller saying that I could give him $1500 immediately but it would take to my next paycheck for the rest. He wouldn't do it because he needed the cash. I wish I had asked some friends or parents for money because I'd definitely sell it for a massive profit.

    I'm currently 44 games away from a complete collection (including unlicensed games) but I've definitely given up on that. The most expensive games used to be a couple hundred dollars. Now a few of the noteworthy titles are a grand easy. I have a few but I was lucky enough to get them cheap back when they were just hard to find not stupidly expensive. 

    • Like 1

  2. Posted

    On 6/29/2020 at 7:42 PM, RyanSz said:

    I'm guessing it was something made solely for a competition version of the game, as during the various tournaments like this in the early 90s and even now with various E-Sport leagues they have to include other ways for points to be doled out outside of who won the match. I know for the things like the Fortnite Pro-Am or charity events that use it, they give out points based on how high you placed in a match so if you suck ass one round it doesn't completely eliminate you from contention. So with the whistle, while it only warps your character forward levels, all the player would be doing in a competition is playing a much harder level for the same points his opponents are playing for at easier levels, so giving a point bonus for taking that chance with the whistle can either big a big bonus for a kid if they're also good at the harder levels, or can at least bolster their score if they are struggling on the harder levels they went to so they still have a chance at winning the match.

    When Nintendo actually held the Nintendo World Championship in 1990, they did slightly modify the games slightly. Competitors played Tetris, Rad Racer and Super Mario Bros. The games themselves aren't modified but they switched once you finished your goal for that particular game. They used a special cartridge with those three games (incidentally, if you have one, please give it to me because they are worth tens of thousands of dollars).

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    1 hour ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

    I saw Gutenberg on the HDTGM instagram today and screamed. Love him. And he mentioned PARTY DOWN, which made me happy. Paul and June were both on that show and the Guttenberg Birthday Party episode is one I think about a lot. (Fleet of blimps) 

    also this weekend I watched ALONE and FLOOR IS LAVA. Thumbs up to both. 

    How gonna watch Steve Guttenberg’s Birthday agains because I just noticed that is the full episode!

    ETA: 

    @gigi-tastic since I am forum!june and Cameron is forum!paul (how are you today, Cameron?), I feel like I should offer you my emotional support services. I haven’t watched it either. 

    Cameron, who is the Jason of our group?

     

    I really loved Party Down when it was on. I rewatched it last year and, oof, there is a lot of homophobic language in it. I still liked it a lot but it was definitely a turn off.

  4. Posted

    Someone can correct me, but Return To Oz was kind of a mishmash of the second and third Oz books right? They just took characters from both and made up a movie around them if I remember correctly. I definitely don't remember the books being so horrifying as the movie either.

    • Like 2

  5. Posted

    13 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

    I’ve seen the Live version, and I liked it. They wrote a new song for it that I quite liked. I’d link it, but you might just to watch it.

     

    I liked the live version significantly more than this version. I can appreciate the movie to an extent. I like that it's kind of dirty looking in a way few movies are. The music is good. That's kind of it for me. The live version just pops in a way this doesn't.

    • Like 4

  7. Posted

    4 hours ago, Cinco DeNio said:

    I have never seen Hamilton. Is watching the film a good introduction or should I wait for Broadway to reopen? I want the same experience you folks had at your first time. On the other hand I saw or read a person saying they wish they would have known the music beforehand and were afraid they missed a lot by going in cold.

    A friend saw it knowing nothing about it except being a huge phenomenon and loved it. I'm glad I knew the album beforehand because I would not have understood all the lyrics in a live performance just from hearing issues. I don't know that hearing it dozens of times before was necessary but you couldn't have stopped 2016/2017 me from doing that.

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    20 minutes ago, Cam Bert said:

    Okay, sorry for the delay all.

    So I had a pick and it was one I've been wanting to do for awhile now. Then I read some news this morning on my way into work that changed my mind. It reminded me of another movie that I've always been interested in checking out. However, I can foresee maybe some problems with this pick. It contains a person who has become a controversial figure and some people maybe put off by that and not want to watch. I can respect and understand that. If that is how the majority feels I'm more than willing to go back to my first pick. So with that preamble out of the way my pick is...

    R-4519923-1369455724-4902.jpeg.jpg

    Screenplay by the late Joel Schumacher. R.I.P.

    Now I would much rather watch the actual Broadway version of the play. Unfortunately from what little sleuthing I have done I can not find a version that I can get here in Japan or is not region blocked. 

    Is the controversial figure Michael Jackson? Or is there someone else I'm not aware of being awful?

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

     

    30 minutes ago, ChunkStyle said:

    I thought the relationship between Shelley Long's character and her husband seemed really good but there was just one thing that was very weird.  When Gus pulls up for the blind date and is in his car struggling to put on his wig there is an off camera conversation (that I would have not caught without watching with subtitles) where Long's husband is learning for the first time that he was the inspiration for the male leads of all of those romance novels.  So after 15+ novels is Gertz the first person to ever ask a question about them?  How could he have possibly gone so long without knowing that?

    How the fuck is Shelley Long's husband the inspiration for her novels and her build for an ideal man all women would immediately fall for its a New Zealand biker named Lobo? How are the guy we seen on screen and Lobo remotely similar?

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

    Yes, his accent is terrible, but I believe the movie does a pretty good job of accounting for it. Initially, they attempt other accents , but since he's so inept at mimicry she throws up her hands and decides on a New Zealand accent because it's an accent that "nobody knows." And in all honesty, I'm willing to bet a New Zealand accent would be difficult to pinpoint in 1990's Charleston, South Carolina. There wasn't really a Peter Jackson, Jemaine Clement, or Taika Waititi blowing up pop culture at the time, and the Internet was essentially non-existent. There really wouldn't be a convenient way for Gertz to verify if the accent he was doing was good or not if she'd never been exposed to it.

    Weird that you mention Jermaine Clement specifically. He was used in commercials for the "Australian" restaurant Outback before he got big. I don't think he did much to change his accent for the ads.

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

    This struck me as especially strange, since I've actually had jellyfish salad and it's very inoffensive tasting, mostly it's a delivery device for sauce or dressing. It'd be like vomiting over eating iceberg lettuce.

    ROMAINE LETTUCE OR NOTHING!!!!!

    5 minutes ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

    This struck me as especially strange, since I've actually had jellyfish salad and it's very inoffensive tasting, mostly it's a delivery device for sauce or dressing. It'd be like vomiting over eating iceberg lettuce.

    And @Cameron H., I thought the EXACT same thing about Shakespearean comedies. I thought it was interesting since, reading Shakespeare and romance novels are such aesthetically different experiences, but this movie sort of merged the two. I'm not saying it was successful, but it was a neat idea.

    I know there is a LOT of the movie before Mr. Gute shows up as Lobo, but I think his sister's motivations would be better explained if we got more backstory on what his character was before his illness. Maybe even, for example, Shelly Long tries to hang a picture of her brother atop his Harley in the Andes mountains to remind him that, five years ago, he traveled from Alaska to South America on an epic multi-continent motorcycle/mountain-climbing trip just before he got sick. But now, he's in recovery and he shows no signs of that fearlessness and daring coming back. In fact, he's sinking deeper into depression than he ever was while sick, so Long is just desperate to make her brother well again and she sees this opportunity to contrive a romance as a way to force her brother into mental and physical health, even if they both have to "fake it until they make it," which does occur by the end anyway.

    I agree that there's a lot missing. Since the author admitted to writing a weak script, I wonder if the book fills in a lot of motivation (I have to assume not enough to justify anyone's story here but maybe a little).

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    50 minutes ago, pscudese said:

    I think he was just following her.

    But I'm still unclear what his plan was if the robbery wasn't taking place. What was Lobo's plan upon entering the rest area? 

    During the robbery, I honestly thought it was staged to make Lobo seem heroic. I thought they were really getting into this ridiculous plan. It wasn't until he started talking to himself that I realized this was actually happening.

    So, I don't get what the plan was either. It seems like his heroics made the plan work.

    47 minutes ago, pscudese said:

    I guess my hang up is... we as the viewer know Gertz is a good person, but she does judge Gus by his looks. Why spend your time on proving her wrong if you (ie. Shelly) were in fact not the "villain." Shelly should spend her time finding someone who Gus will like and in turn respect him and his eventual hot bod. A real sibling would be like, "yeah she's cute... but fuck her! let's show her what she's missing." IDK. 

    I don't blame Gertz for not being into Gus at the first dinner. It definitely wasn't just his appearance. He was also acting weird and nervous which made a bad first impression. And that meal was enough to ruin anyone in my mind. Plus you'd have this annoying woman as your sister in law. It was just a bad situation.

    Despite all that, looks are kind of important. Certainly not the most important aspect. I've certainly gotten more attracted to someone I wasn't initially into as I've gotten to know them. But, if the introduction was anything like that dinner (which wasn't Gus' fault), I'm not going back just in case they have a great personality.

    • Like 3

  19. Posted

    4 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

    Personally, I wouldn’t classify Long’s character as a villain as she lacks malicious intent. While she may come off as pushy, she’s genuinely trying to help her brother. And not just to hook up, either. She sees that he is “in love” with Gertz and is doing what’s in her power to make that relationship come about—which she 100% does!

    Yes, she is trying to prove a point to Gertz as well, but there’s never any antagonism. If she didn’t think they’d be good together, she probably would have let the whole thing slide. I also think Gus’ more radical transformation was more to circumvent Gettz’s preconceived opinions than to set up a long con. Long knows that despite how much he’s changed physically, Gertz will never be able to fully see Gus as anything other than the shy, chubby guy with the terrible toupee. She needs to completely erase that image from Gettz’s mind before they can truly have a second chance.

     

    Sure, villain is too strong but she's definitely doing a bad thing. I'd 100% cut that person out of my life if they did this to me.

    If you want to get them together, maybe have a party and invite them both. Seat them together at an event so they actually get to know each other instead of a six month minimum plan to get get brother married and justify her career as a romance writer.

  20. Posted

    17 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

    Definitely, she's a persistent liar and manipulator. The whole first scene I'm wondering why she can't just get off her brother's back about dating . . . he literally just finished cancer treatments and you're hounding him like crazy! Maybe if she stopped talking about how terrible it is that he lives alone he wouldn't be so damn miserable.

    Let's not discount Steve Guttenberg as also being a villain. How many stalkers and "nice guys" claim they fell in love at first sight and follow the person around?

    Steve seems genuinely charming in this movie once he gets healthy again but he still goes along with this plan. This isn't some spur of the moment choice. He puts on makeup and contacts and an accent. This is six months and exercise (which I guess he would have done anyway once he finished cancer treatment but still...). He isn't the mastermind, but he's still going along with the villainous plan.

    • Like 3

  21. Posted

    2 hours ago, GrahamS. said:

    It also didn’t work as a biopic.

    Even though the standard biopic formula can be awfully trite at this point, I would have probably preferred a standard biopic to this. Or maybe I should have read the wikipedia article before watching this (though I didn't know beforehand that this was based on a real person).

    For example, Fanny Brice died only a few years before the stage musical. I have to assume most people seeing this at least knew who she was. My Man was apparently her signature song and I assumed it was original to the musical.

    I don't blame the movie for my ignorance on the principal character but I think I would have appreciated this more with some kind of context. Imagine watching Judy and not knowing Over The Rainbow was her song. 

    • Like 3

  22. Posted

    20 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

    Like, one of her big things was this Baby Snooks character, which she kind of did for the press at the very end of the movie.

    255px-Fanny_Brice_Baby_Snooks_1940.JPG

    I agree, I don't know a whole lot about her, but being a  movie about a comedienne, I guess I expected it to have a lot more humor and a lot less melodrama. I mean, maybe that's not fair. It's not like the movie Chaplin is a laugh riot, or much better as a biopic, but at least it showed a little more of his craft.

    I never saw Chaplin but I was thinking of this along the lines of Apatow's Funny People.

    9 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

    Yea, this. My big question is actually, she seems pretty mediocre, right? I didn't quite get how she succeeded. She had characters and stuff? 

    I assume she was a big name at the time and very influential but kind of lost on the modern era. But I honestly don't know. 

    • Like 3

  23. Posted

    1 hour ago, Cinco DeNio said:

    I would agree about showing the first marriage.  That there WAS a first marriage kind of leaves all her angst about not being pretty kind of toothless.  Somebody thought she was pretty enough to marry so her worrying about it (and all her mother's kibitzing) didn't ring true.  However I didn't know about the first marriage when I watched this so I bought into it all.  Streisand is very good at playing neurotic.

    I also found out she played this role on Broadway several years before the movie came out.  She did a good job in the movie at making each surprise and twist seem new to her.

    Also, it seems kind of weird to have Barbra Streisand keep talking about how unatttactive she is. She's not as hot as Omar Sharif in this movie but who is?

    I came away from this movie not actually knowing any more about Fanny Brice than I did going into it. That's about as bad a thing as one can say about a biographical film. I get the feeling it's not even particularly accurate to her personality (but that's pure speculation).

    Honestly, all that takes a break seat to this just not being my type of movie. I can appreciate this. There were some great little touches like the woman married to a dentist having braces, or Fanny saying "give me six reasons why..." I like hearing the origins of a bunch of songs I didn't know all came from the same musical. But this goes in the "glad I saw it" more than I actually enjoyed it. 

    • Like 4

  25. Posted

    2 hours ago, SlidePocket said:

    Ah, Don't Tell Her It's Me. The film that would basically be the death knell of Steve Guttenberg and Shelley Long's movie careers.

    You aren't kidding. Guttenberg wasn't in another movie for five years except Three Men And A Little Lady a few months after this. For a guy who was arguably the biggest star in the US a couple years earlier, that's a huge dropoff. I wonder if he was taking a break for a while then couldn't ever get it back.

    • Like 1
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