Upcoming Dates:

Week 4 (Final) Update Thread -- Saturday, October 29
Timasomo Showcase Thread -- Saturday, November 5

November 1-4 are for putting finishing touches on the project to ready it for the showcase. We are quickly closing in on the end!

Update us on your progress so far!

What did/didn't you get done this week?

Anything go according to plan?

Anything go off the rails?

Any successes or struggles to share?

Asking about games of any kind.

Do you enjoy something a lot of people seem to despise? Do you dislike some aspect of gameplay everyone cherishes? What beloved games do you find utterly boring? What games and mechanics are underestimated in our view? In what way games nowadays are worse than before? Conversely, do you think people look at the past with rose-tinted glasses?

I wanna know!

Switching gears from last week’s post.

After 2010, the Academy decided to switch from having a set 10 list of nominees to having a sliding scale. Meaning that each movie had to get at least a certain percentage of number one votes in order to secure a Best Picture nomination. This would lead to anywhere from 5 to 10 Best Picture nominees. But the math made it so that only 8 or 9 movies would get a Picture nomination. This was the rule until this past year (when CODA won). Why did they decide to switch to a sliding scale? No one knows for sure. Some speculate it was because indie darling The Winter’s Bone made it in over box office hit The Town. Others point to complaints from Academy member’s who couldn’t think of 10 movies to nominate.

Ever since then though, those of us into awards have wondered what would have made it in had the Oscar’s kept that set 10 line-up. Here’s what I think would have gotten in. I think some of these might be shocking to some of you.

2011:

Already in: The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, The Help, Moneyball, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, War Horse, and The Tree of Life

Next in line: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Other possibility: Bridesmaids

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was nominated at the DGA, something usually reserved for movies in the top 5. It was also nominated at PGA, the combo of which usually results in a Best Picture nomination. It also ended up winning Film Editing, which are usually Picture nominees.

Bridesmaids is another possibility, having been nominated for Original Screenplay and Supporting Actress as well as getting nominated for PGA and SAG Ensemble.

2012:

Already in: Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, D’jango Unchained, Les Mis, Zero Dark Thirty, Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Next in line: Skyfall

With a nomination at PGA plus winning the BAFTA for Best British Film along with several tech nominations, considerable critical acclaim and a billion dollars, makes Skyfall an easy choice for Best Picture.

2013:

Already in: 12 Years A Slave, Gravity, American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club, Nebraska, Captain Phillips, Her, Philomena

Next in line: Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen’s last Oscar success, getting nominations for Original Screenplay, Lead Actress, and Supporting Actress. There’s nothing else that would have made Picture, and this made PGA.

2014:

Already in: Birdman, Boyhood, The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel, American Sniper, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash, Selma

Next in line: Foxcatcher and Interstellar

Other possibilities: Mr Turner, Nightcrawler, Gone Girl

With nominations in Director, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, and Original Screenplay, Foxcatcher is an easy 9th place. In fact it’s odd that it missed a Best Picture nomination to begin with.

The tricky part with this year is what came in 10th. Nightcrawler and Gone Girl had similar awards trajectories including getting nominations at PGA (although Gone Girl was helped by being a box office hit). They ultimately both missed crucial nominations. Nightcrawler missed Lead Actor for Jake Gyllenhaal (in favor of Bradley Cooper in American Sniper) and Gone Girl missed a nomination in Adapted Screenplay (in favor of Inherent Vice). Interstellar recieved many technical nomintations and was a big hit with audiences, which distinguishes itself from Mr. Turner which recieved the same amount of nominations.

2015:

Already in: Spotlight, The Revenant, The Big Short, Mad Mad: Fury Road, The Martian, Room, Brooklyn, Bridge of Spies

Next in Line: Carol and Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Other Possibilties: Straight Outta Compton, Ex Machina, Sicario, Inside Out, The Hateful Eight

This was another year where the 9th place was very clear (with several technical nomiations as well as nominations in Lead Actress, Supporting Actress, and Adapted Screenplay for Carol).

But 10th place was muddy. All of these movies have their own reasons for making Picture (Original Screenplay nominations for Straight Outta Compton, Ex Machina, and Inside Out and several tech nominations for Sicario and The Hateful Eight). But I think what would have made the cut was Star Wars. It got several tech nominations, including a nomination in Film Editing which is usually only reserved for Picture nominees. As well as incredible hype, box office prowess, and pretty good reviews. Star Wars would have distinguished itself while the other more typical prestige contenders would split the vote.

2016:

Already in: Moonlight, La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Hidden Figures, Lion, Fences, Hell or High Water

Next in line: Jackie

There wasn’t really an alternative here as PGA and WGA were busy nominating Deadpool. And movies like Nocturnal Animals and 20th Century Women severely underperformed.

Plus, Fox Searchlight was backing this film and they’re usually powerhouse campaigners.

2017:

Already in: The Shape of Water, Three Billboards, Get Out, Lady Bird, Dunkirk, Darkest Hour, The Post, Phantom Thread, Call Me By Your Name

Next in line: I, Tonya

Other possibilities: Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049

I, Tonya got nominated for Lead and Supporting Actress and Film Editing. Baby Driver got nominated for the two sound categories and Film Editing (same nominations as Ford vs Ferrari) and Blade Runner got nominated in a lot of tech categories and won Cinematography, which are usually only Best Picture nominees.

However, I, Tonya had a lot going for it. Including the lack of genre bias (as opposed to Baby Driver and Blade Runner), and a Supporting Actress win for Allison Janney.

2018:

Already in: Green Book, Roma, The Favourite, Blackkklansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born, Vice, Black Panther

Next in line: If Beale Street Could Talk and Cold War

Other possibilities: First Man, Mary Poppins Returns

Beale Street is an easy 9th, having been nominated for Adapted Screenplay and Original Score, and having won Supporting Actress.

10th could go a couple of ways. Cold War was nominated for Director and Cinematography (as well as International). It had great critical reception, won an award at Cannes, and Amazon ended up prioritizing it after Beauitful Boy kind of flopped.

First Man bombed at the box office and severely underperformed with nominations. Missing things that were supposedly locks, including Cinematography, Film Editing, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actress and even missing Original Score in which it was supposedly the front-runner (which is what led to Black Panther winning). Even then it got a few noms and maybe could have limped it’s way to the 10th spot.

Mary Poppins Returns ended up underperforming throughout the season. But unlike First Man, Mary Poppins Returns was a box office hit, and only missed one nomination (Lead Actress). There’s definitely an argument to be made that this was 10th, and I think it would come quite close to making it.

2019:

Already in: Parasite, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Irishman, Joker, Jojo Rabbit, Marriage Story, Little Women, Ford vs Ferrari

Next in line: Knives Out

Other possibility: The Two Popes.

Knives Out got nomianted at PGA and was nominated for Original Screenplay. It was also a box office hit at a time when the Oscar’s were moving towards nominating more of those.

The Two Popes was nominated for Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay. But, Netflix struggles with more than two movies at a time (as we’ve seen in recent years with them missing Picture with Tick Tick Boom and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom). And Knives Out had more passion.

2020: Already in: Nomadland, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Minari, Promising Young Woman, Mank, Sound of Metal, The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah

Next in line: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and News of the World

Other possibilities: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, One Night in Miami

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, while critically liked, had incredibly low audience scores. It ended up missing a crucial Adapted Screenaply nomination. One Night in Miami was really weak throughout the season and Amazon ended up switching all their resources to Sound of Metal. So I don’t think either of these films would make the Picture line-up at the end of the day.

Borat got nominated for Adapted Screenplay (over Ma Rainey) and Supporitng Actress. It was also nominated at PGA and won the Comedy Globe. Maria Bakalova was also the runner-up in Supporting Actress. Borat was a big hit, everyone was talking about it, and it hit the zeitgeist in a way that few streaming films do. It was such a strong reflection of the COVID era, I can’t imagine it misses Picture at the end of the day.

News of the World had a lot of below-the-line support. And while it didn’t have a lot of passion, it was better liked than Ma Rainey and One Night in Miami, at least by audiences. It scratched a crowd-pleasing oscar bait itch that not many films did during this time.

And that’s it.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

This thread is posted weekly on Thursday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

If you'd like to help support Ukraine, please visit the official site at https://help.gov.ua/ - an official portal for those who want to provide humanitarian or financial assistance to people of Ukraine, businesses or the government at the times of resistance against the Russian aggression.

I remember I came across it here, probably posted by @Deimos in the course of a thread about Tildes' philosophy. The essence of the blog was that the truly nice, sweet people among us that make online forums a better place with their positive interactions are more sensitive to tensions and negative interactions than the average person, so they'd be likely to leave at a lower level of trolling than most of us would, resulting in a net negative for everyone on the site. Could have sworn I bookmarked it...

I found out about these types of games about three years ago. I attempted playing Zork I, as well as this other film where you’re trying to get inside something and apparently it turns into a time travel game where you meet The Beatles (and if someone knows the title of that game I would really appreciate it because I’ve forgotten).

I’ve been fascinated by some of these games. Big problem though, is that I suck at video games in general, and these text adventure games are particularly brutal. I saw some video about Zork, which were great, but for some of them (like the aforementioned time travel game) don’t have videos. So is there a way to just read it like a book. I’ve found guides on how to complete the games, but even those leave me lost and confused.

(Inspired by this conversation thread)

Any and all thoughts on visual novels are welcome. Some potential questions for jumping off points:

What are your thoughts on the VN genre/format?

What are some of the best VNs you’ve played/read?

What would you recommend to someone who’s new to VNs and wants to try one out?

How do you think VNs compare to games, literature, and other interactive fiction?

Question here is for any LGBT users:

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

In the Tildes-preferred spirit, "LGBT" here is used as an umbrella term that refers to all minority sexualities and gender identities.

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?
...working in tech?
...going through a pandemic?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

It's difficult to talk about the UK at the moment because, and it's hard to give this enough emphasis, IT'S AN ENORMOUS CLUSTER-FUCK AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL.

To give you some idea, Truss is currently less popular than Putin and is the least popular PM the UK has ever had (in the years that we measured).

There's a bill going through tonight about fracking. But it's been turned into a confidence motion on Liz Truss, and it has full hard /// three line whip, slips withdrawn. (basically, members of the Conservative Party have been instructed to vote in accordance with their party's wishes, and not doing so is serious, and can lead to the MP effectively being expelled from their party.) And the three line whip is against their 2019 manifesto pledge.

Normally, we'd expect to see MPs rebelling against this. Certainly, at the moment, a bunch of them are in the mood to do so.

There's an additional complication here though - a bunch of MPs have sent in letters of no confidence, and that could trigger Yet Another Leadership Race (they've already met the threshold, but they've raised the bar to be half the party needs to send the letters because lol who cares about rules). But, if an MP is expelled their letter no longer counts. So a bunch of MPs are openly saying they're only voting for this fracking bill because they think Truss is hopeless and needs to go.

https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1582672374369226753

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1582762437954375680

Also, Suella Braverman (who managed to be a crueller home secretary than any who've been before her which is remarkable considering the list of utterly hateful cunts who've had the job) was sacked / resigned today.

So, if there's not much talk here from people in the UK it's because nothing makes any sense and everything's changing every day.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.