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8 votes
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The Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2018 (Pt. 1)
8 votes -
A book list by/for CIOs
4 votes -
'Red Dead Redemption 2' fails to justify its own excessive existence
11 votes -
America’s thirty-eight essential restaurants
4 votes -
Whiplash (as reviewed by a jazz musician)
5 votes -
Alcatel 1X - A $99 phone that’s actually usable
6 votes -
‘Amazing Grace’ film review: Aretha Franklin lives in this resplendent gospel concert film
5 votes -
Recently watched Night of the Living Dead, and I was very impressed
"How could a low-budget, black and white movie from the 60s possibly scare be that scary." I thought to myself as I was purchasing my ticket for the movie. I was going to see the movie, because I...
"How could a low-budget, black and white movie from the 60s possibly scare be that scary." I thought to myself as I was purchasing my ticket for the movie. I was going to see the movie, because I had always heard that it was a good movie. I thought that this movie couldn't possibly be scary, so it had to have other merit to have it be considered a good movie.
I left the cinema that day quite spooked. I was amazed at with all of it. The true horror weren't the wondering ghouls, but the interaction between the people inside the house. It was a social experiment more than anything else. What would happen if six people were placed inside a house, with a wounded child, and impending doom closing in on them? This is the question answered by the movie. A power struggle between Ben and Harry, about the safest place in the house to hide, led to the death of Harry. Everybody sided with Ben, and in the end he only survived the longest because he hid in the cellar as Harry had suggested from the beginning.
TL;DR
I found the fighting between the survivors in the house to be very spooky.5 votes -
Hackers (1995) - reView ft. Macaulay Culkin | RedLetterMedia
13 votes -
What Isaac Asimov taught us about predicting the future
14 votes -
RED Hydrogen One Review: I Wanted this to be Great! (MKBHD)
5 votes -
NPR First Listen: Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers, 'Bought To Rot'
6 votes -
Red Dead Redemption 2 review – gripping western is a near miracle
8 votes -
The iPhone XR
12 votes -
Why reviews work in the information age
7 votes -
The poison squad: One chemist’s single-minded crusade for food safety at the turn of the twentieth century
6 votes -
The Death of Stalin
4 votes -
‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’ is the culinary travel show that home cooks need now
9 votes -
What to eat in Portland's strip clubs
8 votes -
Equipment review: The best traditional and enameled cast-iron skillets / Pans and our testing winners
4 votes -
Doctor Who: Fans hail Jodie Whittaker in female Doctor's first appearance
13 votes -
Korean McDonald's VS. Burger King in Seoul, South Korea
5 votes -
Red Letter Media discussing original Psycho
9 votes -
OPPO Find X review: Are phones only about Style now? - LinusTechTips
9 votes -
Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk, my take. Discussion welcome.
Adjustment Day is a parody, at least I hope it is, of a United States dystopia. The concept is rather ambitious, but the author rises to the task. The prime conspiracy theory behind the book is...
Adjustment Day is a parody, at least I hope it is, of a United States dystopia. The concept is rather ambitious, but the author rises to the task. The prime conspiracy theory behind the book is that throughout history, civilization has periodically weeded out young men of 18-24 through war and whatever other means available to keep society from returning to the dark ages. Who does this in the U.S? Why, your government, of course.
In this version of the conspiracy, the young men turn the tables. Most of the book is about what happens after Adjustment Day. I've only read Fight Club and Choke by Palahniuk before this. All I can say is the cynicism and nihilism of those two books seems increased tenfold in Adjustment Day. Do you have a conservative conspiracy theory that you think about from time to time? They're all in here. I'd even bet that the author comes up with some you've never heard before.
In a satire that is as biting as The Sellout, Palahniuk presents several characters who live through the aftermath of the event, including the originator of it. But instead of nobody talking about it, (like in Fight Club) everybody is talking about this new bizarre movement/social-political revolution. As you go down this rabbit hole of irrational rationalization, it's easy to lose sight of what is going on. Scenes and characters are switched at the beginning of random paragraphs, causing me to back up every few pages.
A good example of Palahniuk's treatment of infrastructure is given by a new form of money that comes out of the movement:
Officially, the order called them Talbotts, but everyone knew them as skins. Rumor was the first batches were refined from, somehow crafted from the stretched and bleached skin taken from targeted persons. People seemed to take a hysterical joy from the idea.
Instead of being backed by gold or the full faith of government or some such, this money was backed by death. The suggestion was always that failure to accept the new currency and honor its face value might result in the rejecter being targeted. Never was this stated, not overtly, but the message was always on television and billboards: Please Report Anyone Failing to Honor the Talbott. The bills held their face value for as long as a season, but faded faster in strong light and fastest in sunlight. A faded bill held less value as the markers along the edges became illegible.Because the money had a shelf life, people had to work all the time. At the top of the hierarchy were the young men who had put their lives on the line during the Adjustment Day revolution. They would get the money from some source and give it away to their workers and people they knew, spending it all as fast as they could.
If that sounds ridiculous, you haven't even scratched the surface of this world. Chief among the topics are racism and prejudice toward everyone you can imagine. All in all I found the book a little tedious. Palahniuk puts the crazy theories in the mouths of people who voice them so convincingly that it becomes surreal. If you're a fan of the author you might like it. But practically every paragraph seems engineered to be offensive in some way, to someone.
Let's just hope Chuck is making all this stuff up.
6 votes -
The Brutal Truth About Climate Change: William T. Vollmann’s latest opus is brilliant, but it offers no comfort to its readers
24 votes -
Video game 'Donut County' asks big questions about gentrification...
7 votes -
iPhone Xs max durability test
3 votes -
Some thoughts on "Humans"
So I've spent nearly the entire weekend watching Humans and I wanted to share what I think of it and maybe get some discussion going. For those who are not familiar with it, the basic premise is...
So I've spent nearly the entire weekend watching Humans and I wanted to share what I think of it and maybe get some discussion going.
For those who are not familiar with it, the basic premise is an alternate reality present day where "synths" - robots that replaced humans in most menial tasks - are part of everyday life to the point of being a common household item. Within the first episode we learn that there are a handful of synths that are sentient - thinking, feeling individuals. The show explores the implications of that - how previously-servile machines becoming sentient would impact society. There are many parallels to contemporary issues around racism, xenophobia, fear, and I think the show does good job of handling the topic. It is a smart, well-written sci-fi drama.
So, did anyone else here watch it? What do you think of it?
PS: While the post itself doesn't have any spoilers, the comments do.
9 votes -
“The iPhone XR is depressing” — UnboxTherapy. TLDR: It has a low screen resolution only to artificially make it less premium than the iPhones XS and XS Max, to compel people to buy these two, instead.
22 votes -
The best inexpensive mandoline slicers
7 votes -
How Asia got crazy rich - Toward a materialist history of Crazy Rich Asians
8 votes -
Destiny 2: Forsaken review - Hallelujah, Destiny’s back
5 votes -
ArsTechnica's thorough iOS 12 review
16 votes -
Star Trek: Galaxy | re:View
6 votes -
William Vollman's Carbon Ideologies Is The Most Honest Book About Climate Change Yet
8 votes -
Top ten worst fruit in the world
15 votes -
What to watch: Recommendations from the US Labor Day holiday weekend binges
Needing a down weekend, the spouse and I settled in to watch TV, and discovered that Starz' series, Counterpart - spoiler warning, is one of the better series we've seen in quite a while, let...
Needing a down weekend, the spouse and I settled in to watch TV, and discovered that Starz' series, Counterpart - spoiler warning, is one of the better series we've seen in quite a while, let alone among science fiction stories. Though The Expanse wins for sheer SFX pyrotechnics and breadth of technical scope, it's wonderful to sit in for a deep, thoughtful drama like Counterpart. The series focuses on character, story, world-building, plausible plotting, and avoidance of the usual alternate universe cliches. Counterpart is a genuine Cold War Noir spy thriller which happens to occur in a science-fictional setting, and the writers have managed to avoid or refresh the tropes of both genres in ways that ask interesting philosophical questions. It's quiet, slow, and meticulous in a way that most current television writing seems to have abandoned. There's tense action, but no primary colored-supersuits, no scary aliens, no gaudy laser beams, just... a split of history that leaves two distorted mirrors, reflecting each other.
J.K. Simmons' performances in the roles of Howard (Prime) and Howard (Alpha) are mesmerizing in a way that outmatches Tatiana Mazlany's Orphan Black characters. There's a slow unveiling of the respective parallel worlds' history, with continuing evolution and interplay of characters and relationships, which brings to mind the best of series like The Wire or The Americans.
To the extent that Counterpart borrows from literary canon, the most significant underlying influences are John LeCarre's find-the-mole games in the Smiley series, China Mieville's The City and the City, and Philip K. Dick (particularly, The Adjustment Team).
The really guilty pleasure, and the lightweight pressure relief from the grimdark of Peaky Blinders or Counterpart, was a spit-and-giggles Canadian production called Letterkenny. I didn't have high hopes, but the 22-minute episodes are exactly what my brain needed to get over the daily doses of blah.
The opening credits of each episode refer to the fictional rural Ontario town of Letterkenny as follows:
There are 5,000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems.
The plots are barely coat-hangers, with most of the comic tension spent on interactions among the Hicks (farm people), Skids (creative-but-disaffected Internet subculture wannabes), hockey players and Christians - a/k/a small-town tribes recognizable anywhere in North America. The portrayals are caricaturized enough to be both humorously offensive and humorously sympathetic simultaneously. [Could be some toxic racial/gender meta, but mostly, the treatment of women and minorities is in keeping with the setting.]
The banter, and the utter Spock-like deadpan of Wayne (the toughest guy in Letterkenny)'s Hick character are the stars of the show. Some people have complained that the rapid-fire use of heavy dialect in the dialogue is impenetrable; that actually helps with comic timing. When your brain catches up to what was actually said, it's like receiving a two-by-four between the eyes of funny. I've got a bit of home-team advantage in the midwestern North American dialects area, and usually get it on the first run, but it's good enough to re-watch happily if the spouse needs a do-over. Transcripts are available, but watch the show before looking.
We now have a new battery of in-jokes and gag lines to add to our secret spousal language - "Hard no.", "That's what I appreciates about ya", "...and he was never the same after that."
There's really nothing quite like Letterkenny, and it's exactly smart/dumb enough to make fantastic comedy. Two seven-episode seasons are currently available on Hulu.
5 votes -
Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
I saw this movie last week, so I thought I'll share some thoughts on it. First off, spoilers! Be warned. I start of by saying, I'm not really a romcom fan in general, and wasn't specifically into...
I saw this movie last week, so I thought I'll share some thoughts on it.
First off, spoilers! Be warned.
I start of by saying, I'm not really a romcom fan in general, and wasn't specifically into watching this movie because it was an all Asian cast. I grew up watching Chinese dramas (HK, mainland and from Taiwan), and so many of them are romantic comedies. So, though I love the idea of Hollywood taking on more diverse stories, movies like "Crazy Rich Asians" already exist.
Having said all that, I honestly loved the movie! And I believe one of the major reasons why is the depiction of different Asians, specifically Asian-Americans (or as we're referred to in Chinese, foreign-Chinese or overseas-Chinese).
...unrelated to the movie itself, but a little background if anyone's interested...
I'm a Canadian-born Chinese and grew up when people thought all Chinese people lived in Chinatown. I literally had teachers confirm with my parents that the address I gave was correct and that it was in fact not in Chinatown. I was automatically placed in ESL classes, though English is my first language. So, little bit of an outsider in the country I was born in. When I visit family and friends in Hong Kong though, I'm the white girl. Literally everything I do is a novelty. I can write my own name in Chinese, I recognize famous Chinese songs (like Beatles level famous), or I can order my own breakfast (a bun with coffee).So back to the movie. In Crazy Rich Asians, in Rachel, I feel they captured this really well. If this movie was less Asian centric, I feel "Asia" would have been overly exotic, instead of gross wealth being exotic. If this movie were made in HK or China, I feel, Rachel would have been portrayed as far more foreign and her "Banana" qualities exaggerated.
I also really appreciated that a lot of jokes, and moments, especially the MaJong scene weren't explained. The jokes were so funny, especially the lucky red colour. I haven't laughed out loud in a theater for a while.
This post is already getting sort of long, so I might do another one on the strong women in the movie, which I believe they were really well done too. Rachel was amazing!
Who else has seen this? What are your thoughts?
Edit: I added a spoiler tag, but guess I really didn't. Still leaving it in, in case comments contain them.
12 votes -
Reflections on Farenheit 451, published 65 years ago
Finished this last night. It's been so long since I read any Bradbury for the first time. His style shows some age, but he's a really poetic and visionary writer. Published in 1953, this tale is a...
Finished this last night. It's been so long since I read any Bradbury for the first time. His style shows some age, but he's a really poetic and visionary writer.
Published in 1953, this tale is a battle between visual media and books, but taking the form of the fleeting versus the permanent, the here and now versus history, pop culture versus capital C Culture.
In a way, its datedness is a strength, because of so much of Bradbury's prophetic vision and because of the way his 1950's idea of dystopia contrasts with the more numerous recent ideas.
If there was ever an object lesson about filter bubbles, Farenheit 451 is it: recent enough to be relatable and distant enough to be outside our current filters. Readers should take note of this when relating and evaluating fiction and any work that lies outside their personal space. A valuable lesson in itself.
So often we're totally unaware of the walls we create for ourselves, our comfort zone. It's precisely because they provide comfort that we tend to stay within them.
And of course, Bradbury's whole novel is both about this issue and again a reference object for it.
8 votes -
Magic Leap is a tragic heap - Palmer Luckey's review of the Magic Leap ML1
9 votes -
'Fly Girls' tells the early history of women in aviation
3 votes -
Reader, Come Home - Digital culture doesn’t have to make you a shallow reader. But you have to do something about it
9 votes -
New and a bit alarming: pt 3: Beauty and the Beast (2017) review
4 votes -
Is there any interest in a weekly movie review thread?
So this is something I've been thinking about doing for the last couple weeks, but I've been super busy working on a project and haven't had too much time, and I didn't want to start something if...
So this is something I've been thinking about doing for the last couple weeks, but I've been super busy working on a project and haven't had too much time, and I didn't want to start something if I couldn't commit to it. Now that my project is almost finished I've got more time to both watch movies and talk about them with random internet strangers, which is why I'm here now asking about a weekly movie review thread.
I watch maybe two or three films a week, but often struggle to find anything worth watching. And so for all of you out there with the same problem, I'd like to start a discussion thread where users post a movie review on one film they've watched recently and children comments are free to discuss the review, the movie, or just ask questions in general about the movie.
Here are some questions I have about how this would function, and I'd like your opinion on them.
Is this something that users here actually want?
Like I said earlier, I feel like this could be a helpful tool for people wanting to watch a few things but not knowing what to watch, but there are plenty of reviews and things like that out there, and this might not be something that users here want.What should be included in the review?
To me what immediately comes to mind is a very imdb style review (with no spoilers) that comments on directing, acting, set, camera angles, etc. Maybe giving it a rating out of 10? How long should it be? I don't read a whole out of reviews though so I'm not 100% sure the best way to go about this.How often should we have a discussion thread?
I'm thinking a weekly thread would be nice, probably on Monday for two reasons. First, it allows anybody who's busy over the week day but has some time off on the weekend for films and writing reviews to write one, and secondly, it means we can call it Movie Monday, which sounds better then Movie Tuesday :pAny other questions or things that need to be discussed for this to work well?
18 votes -
1,160 miles in eleven days: A grand tour with the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio
2 votes -
Why 'Some Like It Hot' is the greatest comedy ever made
4 votes -
Galaxy Note 9 hands-on review: A $999 water-cooled, AI camera beast
7 votes -
Another scifi/horror review: Cubes
13 votes