RyanSz

Playing on a PS4 here and yeah not having major issues. Out of the 65 hrs I've already put into it it's only crashed three times and the rest is the usual bugs you see in huge open world games. Yeah it's dishonest to put an review embargo on consoles, but seeing some of the clickbaity reviews after the fact where article thumbnails make it look like PS2 graphics are equally as bad. It's a funny thing I've noticed with how critics and players react to major Triple-A titles that have a bit of build up to them. On one hand you have CDPR who have been teasing and promoting the shit out of this game for eight years by the time of its release and by all accounts went at a pretty steady pace to develop the game with no real crunch until this last year to try and get the game out in the current generation. The end result was a game that had serious problems and needed massive patches on release to fix them (the patch I had to download when I put the disc in the first time was 47GB,) and it is being lambasted for said result. On the other hand you have a developer like Rockstar that even though everyone knows they are working on a game, no one really knows what it is until about 18 months before its release and it's a gradual marketing strategy that usually starts with a title/logo reveal followed by quick teasers and eventually full trailers and gameplay footage. They got lambasted with the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 because it was revealed that they were working almost 100hr work weeks to make the game and make it as immersive as many had every seen in a video game. The difference though was that the game came out with virtually no bugs and only the usual glitches an open world game has like animal skins being on the wrong animal. Outside of that the game was the game of the year in both critical and financial terms. I'm not saying time crunch is the way to go but the hypocrisy of the game playing public with these two games is astonishing, because you can bet if CDPR was allowed to finish the polish on the game and do a proper release on next gen systems it would be lauded as a masterpiece, but the push was being made for a release NOW. And of all the people playing RDR2 who also bemoaned the crunch had noticed a glitch or some piece of realism they felt should have been there that wasn't, because Rockstar didn't crunch to get it made, they would be giving it the treatment Cyberpunk is getting right now. I mean in RDR2 the balls on the horse you ride retract if it's too cold, that was a time crunch decision, and if it wasn't in the game there would be some reviewer who also studied equine science in college who would go after Rockstar for the lack of realism in the game and say more time should have been spent on adding to the overall experience. Not saying one is more ideal than the other but everything I've been seeing and reading regarding this debacle has been a bit overblown by quite a few outlets. Granted CDPR did not help their cause with how this was marketed, but the backlash and clickbait was insane in response to the game.

Same, I expect there to be bugs in a game this size and have just learned to live with it, but damn some people go nuts when a game isn't as perfect as they pictured it would be in their head.

So the game I'm playing now is Cyberpunk 2077 and holy shit if it isn't a direct sequel to Johnny Mnemonic. Keanu's character is essentially what Johnny would have become after the movie and there are characters that are addicted to upgrades or see them as a religious venture like Dolph Lundgren's character, plus a version of the Ice-T anarchist group live out in the barren wastelands surrounding the city. The game even has the laser whip as an optional weapon!

It all depends on your idea of interesting, but it does play an important part in finding out where you need to go in this city to continue cases. It's not a huge part of the gameplay and doesn't deter from the great environment and sense of dread built within it. It was also one of those games I had to push through at points as I have a fear of open water and there are creatures aplenty inside the water of this game.

Then I misheard that line and I don't want to pull it back up with subtitles.

I've now put more thought and search for logic in a mediocre film than I have for any of the great films I have seen within the last year.

Am I also the only one wondering why that super armor she wore at the end, which was apparently made from all of the best armor on the Amazon's island, basically came apart like aluminum siding in a Florida storm? In the flashback it looked like it served it's purposed of holding off the attackers, who didn't think to leap frog a guy from their shoulders to attack her in the giant opening over her head, but in the final battle the lightest touch would send strands of metal flying from it.

There was also brief talk of a checks and balance for Lord having the power where it's mentioned he should be dropping dead at any moment because the power is too much for a human body to contain, so he is in constant need of healing. It is also playing into the greed mentality of the 80s where he's wanting more but after a while realizes he needs to be alive to enjoy it so that's why he goes to the uber-tv station to in hopes find a way to beat the system of getting everything he wants while also healing himself enough to enjoy it because he's not banking the returns on wishes at that point so by the end he's hoping with every person wishing he can gain enough health returns to balance out the torment his body is going through making frivolous wishes for people.

Going by comic film logic as well as Monkey's Paw/Wishmaster logic, she made her first wish with the physical stone that made her popular and 80s beautiful, but the apex predator one was made with Lord as the physical embodiment of the stone, so another loophole. In this instance it would have made more sense for Diana to grab hold of Lord and make a wish to set things back into reality where the stone wasn't found or it got destroyed in the jewelry store robbery, thus negating everyone's wishes, including hers and thus making a better resolution to her Steve wish. Whenever he took something for a wish it was something the person had to be able to give him, like taking the holdings of his business partner or the army of the king, so he couldn't say "yeah I'll grant your wish for a 12 pack of New Coke and in return Wonder Woman breaks her knee," unless the person had a good connection to her to where it would be a serious loss for the person. It's not great logic for a 2 1/2 hr movie but it's what they were going with.

Just a bit of warning in that it really does not hold your hand in regards to how you solve cases or where you go in the world as while you can set waypoints on your map, you will continually refer to it to find where the hell you are going. Plus some of the clue and reference searches can be a bit tedious if going through city archives and records and cross-referencing things isn't your cup of tea. I had no problem with it but being a librarian that was kind of already par for the course for me.

They gloss over the wish power by referencing the Monkey's Paw story, but instead of getting three wishes the person only gets one. Lord does the most obvious choice of a wish that every kid thought of the first time they saw Aladdin by essentially wishing for more wishes, but in this case Lord does it in a roundabout way with a loophole. So in essence he's able to get multiple wishes by directly deciding what will be taken from the person making a wish, while before the stone took something of equal value to what was wished for (Diana's powers for Steve's life, Wiig's humanity for her beauty/popularity/enhanced abilities). As for the time jump, that just unfortunately falls into the same issue I had with Captain America jumping back to his present to live his life with Peggy Carter at the end of Endgame, unless there is mention in the Phase 4 of the MCU where things like Vietnam and 9/11 had different outcomes, basically Cap just held all that info in his back pocket so he could be with his first love, which is incredibly out of character for him. As he had already used his one wish, he couldn't make another. The only way he could have done something like that would be to trick someone into making a wish on his behalf, as he was doing in the later half of the film. The end "fight" is definitely the weakest part of the film where it's basically a Gordon Gecko with everything being gained going up against the message of "don't be greedy" and he decides to follow that message. If anything I was waiting for the follow up concerning his son's wish to have his dad's greatness, which made me think that all of the burden of being the wishing stone was going to be placed onto him rather than Lord, but it never came up after the wish, which seemed like a big deal as Lord was utterly shocked by it and seemed almost regretful then of everything he was doing. The wish thing definitely seemed to play up to the stereotype of the "Me Decade" that the 80s has become to be known as, but also, did not a single person keep their wish? I'd love it for just a handful of people to be like "nah I'm keeping this sweet Porsche if that guy is keeping his nukes." As for continuity, WB/DC did make mention that they are basically going a multiverse route with their films from here on out after trying to copy the MCU and its continuity to little success. The Flash movie that's coming out will be based on the Flashpoint story from the comics and that way writers and directors don't have to feel tied down to trying to make their project fit within a certain storyline or continuity. I understand why they did it and am interested to see where they go with it, because that just means more films based on some of my favorite comics. That's not to say they won't have a tinge of continuity running through some of the films but it won't be like in the MCU. As for Batman, no one really knew who Wonder Woman was at that time, Bruce Wayne may have remembered the wild wish incident from 1984, but not known that Wonder Woman was involved with it, especially since the people of the world only heard her voice, plus he had no idea she was a demigod in BvS until he found Luthor's file on other metahumans on Earth, he just thought she was a corporate spy given how she snagged the information that he was looking for on Luthor's servers.

So finished watching She Dies Tomorrow and boy was that a misfire. It's definitely not the worst artsy horror film I've seen, that still belongs to Kuso and Be My Cat: a Film For Anne, but it definitely pushes the Mumble-horror notch up to ten. What was worse was that it's a fairly interesting idea of basically Inception where the planted idea is your death, but it doesn't do much with it to make it worthwhile.

It is very much an early 90s era Carrey and I am assuming that when he got on set the director just said, "you do you." Ben Schwartz was also really good as Sonic and gave life to a character that really has been on fumes for the better part of 20 years.

Loved Color Out of Space as well and was utterly suprised by how decent Underwater was. Also ended up really enjoying Sonic the Hedgehog and wondered why we can't have more of THAT Jim Carrey these days, as well as The Hunt which ended up being a pretty good action flick. If you've been playing as many games as I have and are on a Lovecraft kick, definitely check out The Sinking City which is set in the world and works of HP Lovecraft and goes about breaking down how kind of fucked up he was as a real person with his beliefs.

Well Man of Steel's budget came a lot from the heavy CGI it had and even though they aren't the huge names that they once were, Russel Crowe, Kevin Costner, and Diane Lane, aren't cheap to hire and neither is Amy Adams. With WW1 there wasn't much CGI outside of showing off Amazon Island and the final fight scene, most of that film was practical war movie effects and costuming so it cost a lot less, plus Gal Gidot wasn't commanding a paycheck like she is now, same for Patty Jenkins. For BvS and Justice League you had a couple big things separating it from WW1 in that the cast had some established names in it, A LOT of CGI especially in the case of Justice League, and considering how they were these pipe dream films fans never thought they would see, especially BvS, they poured a boatload into marketing the films, which is also why both barely broke even at the box office. I could see some cuts being made to music licensing after the fact given how much Disney has bled this year. with it reportedly losing $90 million/day with its parks closed around the world, and in all honesty that might be answer. It will be the same thing that happens this year when the next four Marvel films come out, as you can bet Black Widow and Spider-Man 3 are getting the lion's share of budget and marketing in comparison to an unknown entity like Shang-Chi. Hell I could see Spider-Man getting a budget similar to JL considering it looks like they are really pushing the multiverse angle with this film and bringing back old villains and the actors that portrayed them in the other Spider-Man film iterations, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a former Spider-Man actor or two to make a cameo.

Yeah and again I was giving a huge benefit of the doubt in guessing it had to do with trying to finish a bit over half done but when I looked it up just now and saw that all shooting of this was finished back from the start of 2019 to reshoots in mid 2019 with post production being finished in December of that year, there is no excuse now for the look and issues that the movie had.

If I recall she mentions the original origin story of her being made out of clay by her mother, which was carried over in the AMAZING Brian Azzarello New 52 version of the character which was set around the Greek Pantheon in the modern DC universe. It is revealed later in both the movie and comic that she is an illegitimate child of Zeus, making her a demigod, though in the film it is done more for the reveal as her being a "god-killer" left by a dying Zeus to stop Ares, Zeus would also shield her homeland from Ares as part of his final act. As for the sequel, I liked it for what it was, as the leads were great and it had better villains than the first film, but damn you could tell how hard the shutdown had hurt production and they were just trying to make the best of a horrible situation. There were numerous shots of Wonder Woman "running" that looked worse than the original Superman film and I felt that the final confrontation between WW and the main villain was a bit lacking in oomph. Also how in the blue fuck do you have a movie set and promoted as being in the mid-80s and NOT HAVE A SINGLE licensed song from the era?

For movies since I didn't see much in regards to new stuff this year my choices were fairly limited but here are my ten in no particular order. Host, Birds of Prey, The Gentlemen, Tenet, You Cannot Kill David Arquette, The Old Guard, Becky, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, The Devil All the Time, The Invisible Man, Palm Springs Bottom ten: The Empty Man, Tremors: Shrieker Island, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, Antebellum, Capone, The Owners, Money Plane, 6 Underground, The Stalker, Fantasy Island Since I did a helluva lot more reading I did end up reading a lot of good comics/graphic novels: the final volume of East of West was one of the best ends to a comic series I've read in a long time, Doomsday Clock, Money Shot, A Walk Through Hell, Moonshine, Joker: Killer Smile, Basketfull of Heads, Harleen, Count Crowley, Batman: the Three Jokers

I've seen bits of the Bobby Long film but I remember it getting pretty decent reviews when it came out and seeing the DVD box in Hollywood video, which makes me feel older, but I don't think it'd be a great fit for the show as it's not batcrap crazy or incredibly bad. Definite high point of listening to this show and being on this forum for so damn long was seeing the actor who played Ricky in Sleepaway Camp just sign up for the forum and chat with people for that films episode while a definite low was the summer of 2013 when the recommendation sub was inundated with weekly recommendations of whatever movie came out that week, made by a brand spanking new account, who would then just troll hard whenever someone said the recommendation really didn't work with what the show was. It went on for WEEKS before they just got bored with doing it. At least knowing this is a recap/replay episode I can make some time to listen to my audio-grab of the now lost last live episode and its near 2 1/2 episode length.

A year or so ago I got to talk to comic book cover artist Tim Bradstreet, who is most well known for his cover work on the Punisher and Punisher Max series written by Garth Ennis, which was the big impetus for the Thomas Jane Punisher movie being made in the first place back in 2004. From what I got from talking to him, he basically said that Jane really shot himself in the foot by being a bit of a diva on where he thought the series should go, which led to him leaving the sequel which then became Punisher: War Zone. Bradstreet also said Ennis and he would talk at length about how watered down the 2004 Punisher film was, especially in comparison to the comic at the time, which while not as graphic as the Punisher Max series was, it wasn't the "Punisher pranks criminals with popsicles and parking tickets" that the Jane movie ended up being, despite being rated R. Bradstreet would also say how Jane acted on set and in the pre-production of the sequel are really what started his downturn towards the stuff he has been doing for over a decade now. As for Cusack, there was an interesting article that came out this year where he blamed his downturn on the fact that he is so politically outspoken and he didn't care if that turned people off from seeing his movies. But what was odd to me was that he wasn't right leaning in his politics, which I could see a reason he could blame for not getting great parts, but he is very left leaning, which isn't as different from others in Hollywood, so for him to say that is the reason he's been relegated to straight-to-video for much of the decade when others who are just as vocal as he is, if not more, is just hogwash and complete blindness to whatever the real issue is.

In regards to Draft Day that was mentioned earlier, I ended up watching that on a business trip and while the ending is completely unrealistic that any NFL team, let alone the Cleveland Browns, could finagle so many key moves to get every player and trade needed to become a Super Bowl Contender within the next couple years, the film did a pretty good job of showcasing the behind the scenes drama of what the draft day is really like. It also had some good moments of Kevin Costner dealing with family drama of trying to live up to his dad's legacy and a few other bits that were pretty decent; Ironically, when that movie came out the Browns did a life imitating art where they made a bunch of big trades and moves in order to get at the time a couple key players. Unfortunately, the big name that they traded picks for Johnny Manziel, who ended up being one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history by being a total dumpster fire on and off the field.

After listening to the episode I am glad to hear I am not the only one who recognizes that Home Alone 2 is the superior Home Alone film. Saw it at least three times in the theater when it came out and it still ranks at the top of my Christmas film list. 1. Home Alone 2 2. (tie) A Christmas Story and Home Alone 3. Scrooged 4. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 5. Gremlins Also, quick poll of the forum, has anyone recently re-watched the Tim Allen Santa Claus movie? I'm rewatching it and realizing how utterly fucked up it is. Not just the fact that Tim Allen inadvertently causes Santa Claus' death 10 minutes into the film, but the fact that the sequels showed that by the Santa contract, he has to have a wife and children, so what happens to them when their Santa dies? Are they sent into exile or do the elves kill them to complete the coup? Then there's the scene where Allen is talking to his elf assistant who brings him coco, who remember all the elves are played by kids in the movies, says she looks good for her age when she mentions being over 1,200 years old and she says she's already seeing someone in the wrapping department. This them then leads to later in the movie where he's walking to his sleigh with a group of elves to the song "Give Me All Your Lovin'."

So I've started watching Archenemy and so far it's pretty good in a grounded attempt and a Neveldine/Taylor gritty superhero movie. Paul comes in around the 30 minute mark and is batshit insane in it, would love to hear about how he developed the character he plays.

How fucking dare you make me choose between Robocop, Reba, and AC Slater. The obvious answer for best choice is Robocop's body, Reba's voice, and Mario's Jheri curl mullet.

Not really considering they've had Reba McEntire and Robocop play the character and David Allan Greer has been actively trying to get cast as the character, this just seems to be the natural progression. Honestly surprised that there hasn't been an animated version yet outside of the anime game that came out a year or so ago.