
Everything posted by Michael*
- Trumpland U.S.A
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Personality Test
I won't lie Andy, I'm a tiny bit miffed about being considered 12.5% less regal than you. King/Queen: 43.75% Warrior: 12.5% Magician: 25% Lover: 18.75%
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Marvel's The Inhumans
Latest trailer. It introduces a new version of one of the characters and hints at following a certain arc from the comics, so don't look if you don't want to know. The reviews so far have ranged from poor to mediocre, but we'll be able to find out for ourselves soon enough.
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Unmade, Unfinished or Unreleased Movies
A few more details about Justice League: Mortal.
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Unmade, Unfinished or Unreleased Movies
Earlier today I stumbled upon quite an interesting video detailing the development and eventual cancellation of George Miller's unmade Justice League project. Given what Miller accomplished with the Mad Max series, his vision for Justice League was always one of my favorite "what ifs" in the world of film, but being reminded of that got me thinking about how many more "what ifs" were out there. Are there any others, regardless of genre, era or reason for cancellation, that stand out as good examples?
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Atomic Blonde (2017)
Better than I expected, actually. It looked great (Charlize seems to take a few cues, stylistically at least, from Deborah Harry), had a killer soundtrack and didn't take itself too seriously. No real pretensions of being anything other than a casually entertaining Wick flick of course, but it does what it sets out to achieve.
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Football
The transfer window slams shut (© Sky Sports News) then. Considering Grayson's job description of feeding 5,000 using five loaves of bread and two fish, yesterday wasn't too bad for us. I think we all assumed that the proposed loan deal for McCormack was on the cards, but we have three strikers in the squad with another two still to come back from injury, and have at least rebuilt in a few areas that were seriously lacking. Let's see where we are in January.
- Trumpland U.S.A
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Fallout (series)
Something about Fallout 4 just didn't click for me. I shelved it after doing just enough to catch the ending, and haven't quite felt motivated enough to explore any more. It felt good initially to wander around the wasteland, looting and discovering some of the small-scale tasks, but whenever a character entered or you found yourself in an urban area, it became very flat very quickly, with mostly cliched writing.
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The Rise and Fall of Medal of Honor
For the longest time, I was under the impression that Allied Assault was actually the first Medal of Honor game. I didn't realise there were installments for the PS1 beforehand. Generally speaking though, I find that I can only get properly immersed in a first person shooter if they do something really interesting with the story, a la Bioshock or Half Life. Overall, I think it's a taste that I've yet to acquire.
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Blade Runner 2049
The first of the three short films, which are intended to help bridge the gap between the first Blade Runner and 2049, appeared today. This one offers some insight into Leto's character Niander Wallace and his role in the story.
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Marvel's Luke Cage
First look at the second season, spoilered as a precaution for any folks who have yet to watch Defenders. Also, I'm not sure if Lucy Liu being brought in to direct the premiere of S2 is common knowledge, but it was news to me when I heard it just the other day.
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I'm celebrating 500 posts because I'll never get 1000
Quality is better than quantity and besides, I already think of you as a forum mainstay. Congrats on the 500!
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Football
I don't know if half-watching as Newcastle helped themselves to the title last season had convinced everybody that the Championship would prove similarly breezy for us this year, but it does seem like our expectations of this division are a factor in our current malaise. It's been a long time since we were last here, a lot has changed and we can't expect to beat battle-hardened sides like Leeds and Barnsley by playing off the cuff, particularly with half a squad still accustomed to treating 17th-place finishes as cause for celebration. Let Grayson get on with the job, I say, even if it has to get worse before it gets better. My reservation about the likes of Terry is always how difficult it is to imagine them being motivated for an away trip to Burton or Bristol City in the same way they would have been for a Premier League game. Even if he's physically capable, which is up for debate as well, there can't have been many players who managed to maintain the same levels of intensity after only ever knowing the so-called 'big time'.
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Marvel's The Defenders
The odd thing was, although a shorter run for Defenders sounded about right in theory, they still managed to fall into an issue of pacing. Where some of Marvel's Netflix stuff suffers from having to stretch the content to fit a run of 13 episodes, this felt like they were trying to cram 13 episodes' worth of content into eight episodes. At times, it was very evident that they were really having to race in order to set up the season finale. It's like they got it back to front, the solo shows would have benefited from being more streamlined while the big showpiece crossover would have benefited from having more time to build things. Overall though, I enjoyed it. The establishment of the four leads as a team and the interactions between characters (especially Jessica and Matt, which I would never have predicted beforehand) made it more than worthwhile.
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Wonder Woman (2017)
Yeah, the idea of a film's success being wholly dependent on whether China approves of it is one that I'm not sure I like the sound of, although I realise that's perhaps a bit of a simplistic assessment. Then again, you also have things like Suicide Squad, which outperformed both Wonder Woman and Civil War without making its way to the Chinese box office. Overall though, it seems the importance of China's role in the international stakes is growing. It can help record-breaking movies become more successful, and even renews potential for sequels to perceived flops like Pacific Rim being greenlit.
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Bye
Hey @Kells., welcome back!
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Marvel's The Defenders
Reached the halfway point this evening. The fourth episode was slower with a lot of emphasis on the dialogue, which I personally prefer, but it feels like everything is more or less where it needs to be to kick off the second half of the season. I have high hopes for the thing with Elektra too, I suspect that they've been using her choices of weaponry thematically to build up the probable return of her memory.
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Wonder Woman (2017)
That's true, although I always find it interesting to note the disparity between western and eastern tastes. Something like Warcraft, which performed abysmally in the US and UK amid critical complaints that it was confusing, had too many subplots and required too much knowledge of the source material, went down a storm in China and became one of the highest-grossing films in recent memory. By the same token, I suppose one could argue as well that Wonder Woman could be just as difficult to understand without a prior knowledge of the context of the franchise.
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Marvel's The Defenders
I found the first meeting between Cage and Rand in episode two just satisfying enough to keep me hanging on, and to overlook my reservations about the Hand and what appears to be a fairly ropey, vague evil plan. Overall, if the plot is fairly simplistic but we get more interactions like it, I'd probably put that down as a fair trade-off. There was some groundwork laid in Iron Fist regarding K'un-Lun, but a lot was referenced only by Danny talking about it, which was a disappointment at the time. Even though a few different strands would benefit from having a little more context, I don't think it'll be to the extent that you couldn't work out everybody's deal quickly enough.
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Marvel's The Defenders
Two episodes in now. My hope beforehand was for the story to come out swinging and that hasn't really been the case, but it does feel like things are starting to heat up a bit as we edge closer to establishing the four leads as a team. I would agree that the Hand are profoundly uninteresting though, even with Elektra in tow.
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Wonder Woman (2017)
It's official then, Wonder Woman has now topped 800 million worldwide and surpassed Spidey '02 as the highest grossing superhero origin story ever.
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Recent Discoveries of Classic Albums
When it comes to albums that are generally regarded as classics, I always just sort of assume that they'll somehow find me eventually, perhaps via an online article, a review, maybe a chance discovery. Sometimes it's a case of wondering what all the fuss is about, but every so often something will come along that blows me away. So, how about it? What classic albums have you only got round to hearing recently?
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The Political Correctness Haters' Club
A lot of people are overly touchy-feely, humourless or just plain grandstanding, but that's much easier than engaging on a case-by-case basis. Engagement means you actually have to think, and sadly, it's something too few people seem willing or able to do. Respect and empathy, even if it's grudging, is universally desirable. It binds society.
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Problems and Suggestions for BZ - Post Here
The staff is made up of a small group of individual members who chip in when we're able.