@ozymandsss I play games like I drink my beer - aggressively and at a pace that's unsustainable for longer than a few hours at a time.

Microsoft's business plan seems to be "buy every company so people see value in our products, and then be nice to our consumers." I'm not opposed to it.

@dipset said in Last movie you watched:

The Talented Mr. Ripley (A+) (also jumped up into one of my favourite movies)

Correct.

Judas and the Black Messiah
The (often untold) story of the assassination of Fred Hamption, leader of the Illinois Black Panther party. This movie is essential viewing. At the most basic level, it's an acting powerhouse - Stanfeild and Kaluuya knock every scene they're in out of the park - but it stands apart from other biopics through some really smart and unique stylistic choices. There's the grounded grit you'd expect from a true story like this one, but I really loved the way King had some scenes play like they were straight out of a Blaxploitation film. Really, though, the reason everyone needs to see this is because of how relevant the story is, and how easily you can see the past reverberate throughout the present here. I'm a fairly young millenial, but I can still see echoes of the themes discussed here in how I was taught about the Black Panthers, racial injustice, and the fight for civil rights, and how this shaped much of my worldview until the past 5 years or so. The fact that it does this while presenting itself as a taut and complex drama is an achievement in and of itself. If I have one critique it's that some of the secondary performances get overshadowed by the two leads, and the scenes involving the FBI feel a bit extraneous and heavy-handed - we already know they're the villains here, so there's really no point in hammering it in any further. Still, like I said above, this is a must watch. A-

Chungking Express
The story(s) of two cops in the underbelly of Hong Kong, and the women that come in and out of their lives. This movies is essentially two movies thrust together by their setting and themes, and that's not necessarily a bad thing - the first half is almost a noire thriller rom com, whereas the second is almost a surrealist and ethereal affair. The transition between the two is both abrupt and completely natural, fitting in line with what I considered to be the themes of the movie (i.e. how do chance encounters set our lives on separate trajectories? how do are lives affect those around us? how much love are we blind to in the world around us through sheer happenstance? Is there a man with more raw sex appeal than Tony Leung? You know, a Wong Kar Wai movie). Typical of 90s cinema, there are some stylistic elements that have aged poorly (why did so many people love low framerate action back then?) and I don't think it's as visually luscious as some of Wong Kar Wai's other work, but I can't deny how much fun I had watching this whole film. The god-tier soundtrack certainly helps in that regard, too. A-

@paulmci27 All good, my dude, no harm no foul

@paulmci27 I can only speak for myself and what I saw online, but the issues I (and I think others) had with GoT in the lead up to release wasn't so much cultural appropriation but a fear that it was another entry into the canon of Japanese epics that pushed certain perspectives without the appropriate historical or cultural context. Keep in mind that this is also common in Japan, a country that often covers up, minimizes, or neglects the uglier parts of its history and culture (my mom still insists that the Japanese war crimes are overblown, which is a bonkers banana pants take), but the fear that was floating around was that this would be amplified even further by a western studio. Without having played the game, I can't say if they did a good or a bad job, but they did a fantastic job drumming up interest in tourism in the region (stymied by COVID-19), and raised a lot of money for the region following the devastating typhoon season last year. Those last two points have garnered enough goodwill for me personally to overlook any misgivings I had about the game/its production early on, and I'm actually quite happy to see this news now.

Pokemon Legends is a dream. Holy shit.

This is might push me over the edge into getting a PS plus membership...

@dipset said in That's News!:

Kinda tired of big corp doing business with the Saudi crown

Yeah, call me old fashioned, but I prefer my corporations avoiding business with literal murderers

I think Project Triangle Strategy is to Final Fantasy Tactics what Octopath (and Bravely Default, FF4Heroes of Light before it) were to FFI & III. Really excited to see more from it!