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Ran

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Everything posted by Ran

  1. There's a Netflix anime named Yasuke loosely (very loosely) based on his life.
  2. Confirmed by The Intercept and other media sources.
  3. This thread had gone very far from discussing the books, folks.
  4. Ran

    Board Issues 4

    Have you cleared cookies? Make sure to restart the browser as well. The initial 400 error you guys saw for a bit there was when we tried a change that actually made things much worse (I got it as well), but now we fixed it, I think, to increase the limits well beyond what they were originally.
  5. Ran

    Board Issues 4

    We have done some configuration changes that will hopefully fix this problem. If it happens still right now, make sure to clear all cookies for the forum. And if it persists after that, please let me know.
  6. So you're fine with someone celebrating the deaths of these individuals on the basis that they were perhaps sociopaths? And if you died in service, would it be all right for people to assume in all likelihood that you were a sociopath and celebrate your death? If you say yes, yes, that's a left-wing rabbit hole, and you're down in it too.
  7. How have I not heard of this? It looks spectacular. Variety says many of the performers are formerly-incarcerated, although obviously the film is anchored by Colman Domingo. Which reminds me, need to see Rustin.
  8. I’ll just echo that this sort of view is infantilizing at best, racist at worst. It’s really bizzare that you don’t seem to recognize it.
  9. This belies that many of the countries in Africa that have laws against homosexuality are majority-Muslim, and indeed Nigeria would be an interesting place to look: the mostly-Christian southern Nigeria has prison sentences for homosexuality, yes, but the mostly-Muslim northern Nigeria has the death penalty (by stoning). The key factor in the rise of anti-homosexuality attitudes in Africa is that it's reactionary to the liberalization of attitudes in much of the rest of the world, and you'll see this again and again in the rhetoric (including the argument that homosexuality was brought to Africa by Europeans) Highlighting differences is used the world over by demagogues, nationalists, autocrats, and dictators to further their own political ends. It's no different in Africa.
  10. Yeah, Carbonell's terrific in this. If I had to ding the show on anything, is that I'm surprised that the fight sequences are as static and uninteresting as they are, when so much else is top-notch. Very basic choreography, camera tends to be locked in place from moment to moment, etc.
  11. Andor getting a Blu-ray set releasing on April 30. No deleted scenes or commentary, but some featurettes on the behind the scenes and the world-building. Oh, yeah, Obi-Wan, too, for whoever cares.
  12. Alien's depiction of the far future as a life of dangerous corporate drudgery, with its really industrial set and ship design, was as trend-setting as Blade Runner. Scott basically gave the world two of the absolutely most important science fiction films of all time, just in term of impact on the genre that spread not just throughout cinema but into the literary world as well.
  13. Purely what I think will win. I think if I had to make a list of what I want to win, the main differences would be supporting actor (Mark Ruffalo; Downey's winning it as a lifetime achievement award, IMO), original screenplay (Past Lives is my personal choice, by a hair), animated feature (The Boy and the Heron), and ... maybe Score (Killers of the Flower Moon).
  14. This Ukrainian site offers an estimate on the cost of Russian losses. Note, however, that it appears to draw it data from the Ukrainian military and a Forbes Ukrainian-language article that tries to estimate the values. This site doesn't try to estimate values, but does track equipment losses by both sides based on open source intel. I'm sure there's probably some Russian site doing the same is estimating cost of Ukrainian losses, but I admit I've not found anything at all like the above sites. I suspect partly this has to do with the disparate sources of equipment Ukraine has, whereas most of the Russian equipment is domestically produced and part of long-established supply chains.
  15. Sugar is intriguing, neo-noir but everything I've read repeats that it has a "genre-bending science fiction" element that is pretty wholly invisible as far as this trailer goes. Hmm... The most interesting thing, IMO, is that executive producer and director of the show is Fernando Meirelles, who directed the phenomenal City of God and also The Constant Gardener. ETA: The Wild Robot trailer was wonderful, but I looked and it seems that the robot and animals all have voice actors attached, which is a shame because a mostly-dialogless film along the lines of Wall-E or The Red Turtle -- which the trailer implies -- can be very powerful. Also, corrected the information I had about Sugar. That makes a lot more sense, but it's still pretty invisible (though the bits with Sugar having strange visions and disorientation are probably a hint.)
  16. My predictions: Best Picture: Oppenheimer Best Director: Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer” Best Lead Actress: Emma Stone, “Poor Things” Best Lead Actor: Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer” Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers” Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer” Best Adapted Screenplay: “Oppenheimer” Best Original Screenplay: “Anatomy of a Fall” Best International Feature: “The Zone of Interest,” United Kingdom Best Documentary Feature: “20 Days in Mariupol” Best Animated Feature: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Best Film Editing: “Oppenheimer” Best Cinematography: “Oppenheimer” Best Visual Effects: “The Creator” Best Production Design: “Poor Things” Best Costume Design: “Barbie” Best Makeup & Hairstyling: “Maestro” Best Original Song: “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie” Best Original Score: “Oppenheimer” Best Sound: “The Zone of Interest” Best Animated Short: Haven't seen any. Best Documentary Short: Haven't seen any. Best Live-Action Short: “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”
  17. There were 22 million people in Japan, according to estimates, in 1600. Ronin, masterless warriors, would not exactly be carefully tracked, especially as they'd come from throughout Japan -- which was not really "unified" -- and so no one person would be aware of what numbers went off to act as mercenaries overseas. As to how many ronin there were, an account of one battle in this era said as many as 100,000 ronin took part, so ... even that number is very big. As it happens, accounts from both the Portuguese and Spaniards from that era show they did employ ronin as mercenaries, sometimes in large numbers. So, I don't know, I don't feel like this specific idea that the Portuguese have quietly hired ronin mercenaries to protect their secret base in Macau and that someone like Torenaga isn't aware of it (at least not to the scale and import of it) is all that strange. Nor that the Japanese had very limited knowledge of Europe and most of what they had came from the Portuguese and Spanish who had self-serving reasons to present only a partial picture.
  18. Watched Winter's Bone again recently, what a breakthrough performance by Jennifer Lawrence. Have to say, John Hawkes almost stole the movie from her in every scene he was in. Also watched a documentary called Pianoforte, following a number of young pianists taking part in the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition, held every 5 years. It's one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world and can basically make an aspiring concert pianists career. Incredible amount of dedication needed.
  19. Jesus, people seem dedicated to just showing off their terrible film opinions ATM. WTF is in the water wherever you guys all are?
  20. De gustibus non est disputandum. De gustibus non est disputandum. De gustibus non est...
  21. Yeah, have run into people who just don't like films about the mob or criminals in general, regardless of their quality. Linda doesn't care for them, for example. De gustibus non est disputandum and all that.
  22. As the source of the quote, George did praise the Mereenese Blot essays, and I think what he praised foremost was that the piece picked up the themes he was exploring and grappling with, but I don't think it should be taken that George necessarily meant that the actual plot accuracy and predictions the essays make are right. I'm sure I have the full recording somewhere still, but I'm pretty sure we got to that because the topic of how sometimes George's themes are misunderstood by people, which makes him wonder if it's a failure on his part or not.
  23. Sonny's death is a moment of heightened reality to reflect the enormity of Sonny's assassination, and the larger-than-life nature of Sonny himself, although this aspect of things is much more explicit in the novel. James Caan was an average-sized guy, while Sonny Corleone in the novel is a massive hulk of a man, not especially tall (just short of 6') but built like a bull (also, hung like one, but that's a subplot that Coppola, uh, snipped.) He essentially exists on a kind of grandiose, heroic scale, a man of excesses -- excesses of violence, of anger, of pride, of lust -- and dies in a suitably grandiose, excessive way. Coppola was right on the mark, IMO.
  24. Watched Inglourious Basterds, and I actually liked it a bit more than I have done previous times. I've remarked before that Tarantino's increasing tendency to gleeful depictions of sadistic violence, with lots of screaming and flailing, is one of the things I don't particularly like of later Tarantino films, and Basterds certainly has its share of it... but there's something rather charming in the way he homages post-war B-movies and references German cinema, and Christoph Waltz was of course given an incredible breakthrough role. Watched 20 Days in Mariupol, the harrowing documentary that gives just what it promises, through the camera of Evgeniy Maloletka and his fellow AP reporters, some of the very few journalists who stayed in Mariupol during the first three weeks of the invasion, and who captured some of the most unforgettable footage of that time (I particularly recall the maternity hospital bombing, and this film shows how they came to be on site so quickly; I recall arguing with a Russian ex-pat elsewhere who claimed it was all actors and fake news, and they remark on that surreal aspect as well, as their connection to the outside world was spotty.) Some hard, hard things to watch in this one. The way a local police officer made it his mission to get them out of Mariupol so that the Russians couldn't capture them and use them for disinformation propaganda, and the way hospital staff prepared to try and hide them in case the Russians came (by dressing them in hospital uniforms), was pretty remarkable. There was a recognition that what they were documenting was historic, and needed to get out to the world. Now most of the way through Richard Linklater's episode of HBO's God Save Texas, a limited series of documentaries about various aspects of life in Texas. He grew up in Huntsville, the prison and execution capital of Texas, and the episode is largely focused on how that touches all aspects of life in the city. Linklater's a great director, and he's on camera quite a lot, reacquainting himself with old friends from high school and college, many of them who ended up involved with the prison system on one side of the bars or another. Tokyo Vice is half way through its season, and the fifth episode was really very good, with an especially good close. And Masters of the Air was pretty good this last episode as well, I thought, though it does feel a little awkward that
  25. Yes, I was thinking that that'd be neat to see. I guess they've decided that there'll be hurt feelings for whoever ends up last in each category, and so on.
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