I think the most memorable is probably The Wolf of Wall Street but it was nowhere near as awkward as it could have been. My sister and her husband wanted to see a movie with the family in theaters. Luckily the uproarious constant laughter from the packed theater was far more manageable than the awkward silence that would have happened with an at-home watch.

What really got me was that a whole group of my friends had planned on seeing it the week before, but one very difficult guy insisted that he would not go see a “boring movie about financial crime” and made such a huge fuss that we finally agreed to see American Hustle instead, which was a very tame movie “about financial crime” funny enough.

After, that guy said he was bored for the entire movie (despite the fact that American Hustle was actually pretty good). If it wasn’t for the fact that The Wolf of Wall Street is exactly the kind of movie you want to see with your friends and not your parents, and that American Hustle would have been a perfect movie to see with the family, I’m not sure it would stick out in my mind so much.

The Batterfly Effect

This is well presented and thorough, I gotta say he does a fantastic job at actually showing the big differences that make it really clear once he gets into it. I expected a lot of the Sega hardware to come up but was surprised to also learn about the current gen version of Super Monkey Ball vs the original.

I’m intrigued, I don’t play or follow Warhammer 40000 but I’ve always been interested in its concepts and style so I’m really interested in seeing that episode.

Also really stoked to see the Unreal Tournament episode since I have so many fond memories of crazy matches years ago. Definitely curious to see what they do with the Mega Man episode.

According to Schipper, the first attempt was dull because the actors were too cautious, being afraid to make mistakes; the second attempt was the opposite, as the actors went “crazy”. Schipper says he became “angry” and “terrified” after seeing the second take and realizing he had only one chance left; in a subsequent meeting, he gave the cast a “hairdryer speech … [it] was not a meeting that ended in hugs and ‘good talk.’ It was crazy. But the tension was built on knowing we wanted the same thing”. Schipper believes the final attempt was successful because there was an element of “aggression” missing from the other versions.[7]

Added to my watch list, I’m super intrigued to see how the final cut turned out.

Ah the ol’ Lemmy switcharoo!

I can’t believe I never heard about this before. This is fascinating, thank you for sharing. I’m sure some movie producer is trying to get the rights to Ken Ono’s life story if someone hasn’t already!

Without actual gameplay, I’m wondering if they included the video on the cart of them singing along to the theme song with the tennis racket guitar? I know Nintendo put a lot of emphasis on improving the sound capabilities of the GBA from previous models, but am curious how the incredible Night Trap song sounds through the little speaker.

I know of the Genesis game but never played it (though I do own the newer titles in the series), but did some digging to see what I could find to answer your questions:

Am I imagining this games difficulty? I feel like I am making little progress and I’m always getting ganged up on. / Does this game require a lot of grinding or repeating tasks before moving on?

Everything I’m finding is saying yes to both, with the grinding resulting in the increased money, stats, contacts, equipment and practicing/refining your own strategy for completing runs. Luckily, there are multiple strategies for “quick” grinding, and certain equipment and stats that really help whether it be just straight up powerful stuff or specifically helps to deal with pesky foes like ghouls. Because there are different sections to the grinding with different strategies to doing it efficiently, I’ll leave the specifics out since they get a little spoiler-y in case you want to figure it out on your own. But, do let me know if you’d like me to reply with specific strategies that may be seen as too much of a walkthrough or too spoilery for some (they don’t seem like gigantic story spoilers or anything so if the grinding gets too tedious and you stop having fun, they might be worth knowing about).

Should I be killing these innocents I see on the street? I try to get shadow runs but they seemingly always involve killing ghouls, which bend me over and spank my samurai butt. I’ve put my morals on hold and have been tediously murdering the population for the little nuyen and items they have.

Luckily the Karma explanation section on the Shadowrun strategywiki actually explains this pretty well. I went through it and it looks like a straight up explanation without story spoilers so I feel comfortable just linking it here for you: https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Shadowrun_(Sega_Genesis)/Karma#Karma

-is the samurai class the all-rounder character or should I just restart as a shaman or netrunner?

I found a really good explanation on the Shadowrun wiki: https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Shadowrun_(Sega)/Archetype. Thankfully this also gives a much needed explanation of the differences between classes without spoilers. It seems like this info is very important to know upfront depending on what your playstyle is like.

As far as the game itself, I did not play the genesis version but definitely looked into it after I got the Shadowrun trilogy that GOG games gave out for free a few years back. From what I found, the Sega Genesis version is superior to the SNES version in a few ways but a lot of people enjoyed both. I really like the style and concepts presented in the series and the newer Shadowrun trilogy seems to have taken all of that and improved on it, with each game getting better and better at giving the experience intended. I’d say it’s worth taking a look at if you enjoy the Genesis game, or if you really like the elements of the Genesis game but aren’t enjoying it so much, the newer series might be what you’re looking for.

Edit: Spelling, grammar and formatting.

Edit 2: Also, here is a link to a PDF of the original game manual for the Sega Genesis version, which helps navigate the UI and buttons, etc., just in case you need it since manuals were kind of a big deal back in the day!

The premiere episode where they try to survive on minimum wage is still one of the best day-to-day documentations of the struggle and that was almost 20 years ago, well before the price gouging of today. I wish it had as much impact as Supersize Me which actually succeeded at putting pressure on McDonald’s to make changes.

This is my yearly reminder that I still haven’t watched Melancholia (2011) and that I should at some point.

The person reacting to your comment calling them a pigeon:

This is the extreme end of things but nearly every Zack Snyder movie, extreme because it specifically goes heavy on editing saturation, contrast, etc., that takes away the aspects of realism for this look to instead make it stylized in an exaggerated way on purpose.

Joker (2019) plays with this look.

A lot of noir-esque stuff will use this kind of look to varying degrees too. Dark City (1998), and a lot of the future/neo-noirs will do this even when bright cyberpunk lights are present. Zone 414 (2021) is another one. Live by Night (2016) uses it during the criminal activity scenes to contrast against the brighter, roaring world of the rich.

I think there are a lot of better examples out there that I’m just not thinking of at the moment.

Edit: Adding Prisoners (2013), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Children of Men (2006), and Taxi Driver (1976) to the list.

Part One was available on Max about three months after the Blu-Ray release for it (Part One had digital copies released Jan 9 and physical versions released Jan 23, with Max getting it on about April 26).

I really wish they’d get specific about streaming dates but it does seem like Max is consistently getting this kind of stuff about three months after their initial release for purchase dates.

Thank you for the heads up – this is exactly the kind of thing I wish I had known going into Prometheus. Just expecting something different made the facepalms more than I can handle. I feel like knowing what to expect is going to make it so I can check out Covenant at some point without the accompanying let down that.

I definitely plan to get around to it now. Talking this out here kind of made me realize one of my big frustrations with Prometheus was how excited I was for it and how high my expectations were. Being able to go into Covenant without a surplus of hope and instead set realistic expectations will probably make it more of a throwaway watch if anything, instead of a big let down.

This too! I was actually thinking about the theatrical trailer but I was so hyped for the movie that I watched this a dozen times beforehand too. I don’t know why but I thought we’d see some more of this kind of stuff in the actual movie and was surprised that Guy Pearce was in makeup to look 104 years-old for the entirety of it instead.

Oh yes! I was very intrigued when it was announced and I actually added it to the “My Stuff” section on Hulu when it released but didn’t get around to watching it and totally forgot about it. Thank you for the reminder, I’m marking this as the next movie I watch for sure!

I think I’ll keep it on my “movies I’m not in any hurry to see but will probably check out someday” list right where it’s been then.

The trailer for Prometheus is one of the biggest catfish movie swindle experiences I’ve ever had. I was enthralled by that trailer, I remember how excited I was when buying tickets to see it and getting in our seats. As the movie went on, reality set in. There are some cool scenes but they are so engulfed by insane choices and boring nonsense that I hope the How Did This Get Made podcast (the podcast that reviews ‘bad’ movies) does an episode on it someday.

I do think Fede Alvarez will do extremely well with the visuals after Evil Dead (2013), but Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise sequel was far better at mixing the wild and crazy stuff the franchise was originally known for with modern, shocking visuals. My guess is they’ll keep the story reeled in and focus on iconic tropes and scenes in Alvarez’s style, keeping it more safe and simple which is fine. But I’m all out of excitement and will just wait and see what actually does come of this.

Speaking of, Prometheus was so hard to sit through that I never watched Covenant because of my fear of seeing those elements continued, even with how much I like Danny McBride. Watching Shane Black’s The Predator that released a year afterward did not help revive a lot of interest in that movie universe for me either. I’ve heard a lot of takes but I’m curious, would anyone here recommend watching Covenant?