Ran

Apparently the person identified actually posted on Substack with a manifesto that his action was a protest against the impending fascist takeover of the American government. If I'm reading this right, some of his evidence suggests that Conan O'Brien (writer of the cited Simpsons episode, "Marge vs. the Monorail") was deeply involved in the criminal enterprise that is Harvard which is emblematic of the larger conspiracy to defraud Americans and take over the continent

I think we should all be glad he didn't take the more typical US approach of finding a gun and taking some people with him.

I welcome people putting together a list of legitimate links to GRRM's stories at still-active online magazines, and archive.org links may be okay too. But it's obvious when a text is pirated, and we do not want links to anything like that.

Half way through Apple+'s Sugar, the "genre-bending" neo-noir detective show created by Mark Protosevich (writer of Tarsem Singh's The Cell, wrote the Will Smith I Am Legend, and the Spike Lee-directed adaptation of Oldboy) and starring Colin Farrell as the titular John Sugar, a private detective who is very good at finding lost people, a polyglot with a fanatical level of interest in Hollywood films who detests carrying guns, and a genuinely nice dude who keeps going out of his way to help people he runs into in passing. The first two episode are directed by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, best known for the magnificent City of God, and his aesthetic is rife through the show -- lots of interesting editing choices and camera angles, and (uniquely) a heavy use of vintage films as B-roll or commentary on events no doubt inspired by Sugar's deep love of Hollywood cinema. It reminds me of nothing less than the old HBO sitcom, Dream On, but it's not played for laughs, it's just a sign of how Sugar's mind free associates.

But... there's a twist, as "genre-bending" might suggest, and so far it's not clear. It seems to tie into Sugar, into the fact that he occasionally gets weird cramps or numbness, weird flashes of visions, and there's something about a society of polyglots that he's part of... Theories abound. Simon Kinberg is an executive producer on this, which may suggest the direction of the twist.

It's fun. Not too deep, a little stiff at times (but this may be on purpose), but Farrell is such a charismatic, interesting actor. Also appearing on the show are James Cromwell, Amy Ryan, and -- after a couple of episodes -- Anna Gunn, among others.

8 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

And I wonder whose idea it was for Jesse Plemons to wear those glasses.

Plemons brought them to the costume fitting himself and asked what they thought if his character wore them, per the costume designer. 

He came in last minute because another actor backed out of the role, and since he was hanging around set anyways Kirsten suggested that they ask him to fill in. 

By all accounts, a very successful piece of nepotism.

Folks, piracy is piracy. I see someone else offer links to pirated texts, they will be banned. I know the intent is good, but just about every story of George's is in print and available to read legitimately.

Netflix revealed that S4 will be filmed back to back with the final season, S5.

Did not know anything about Transformer One. So basically applying the LEGO Movie formula to Transformers... could work.

All of the novels are worth reading, IMO, but my favorite remains Fevre Dream despite what flaws it has compared to Armageddon Rag which really is a very, very strong book.

But the short fiction is the best stuff of all. In the 70s, George had a run there where I've seen critics opine that he was among the top short fiction writers in the genre in that era. "The Way of Cross and Dragon", "Seven Times Never Kill Man", "Bitterblooms", "The Stone City", "Meathouse Man", and on and on. Dreamsongs is a great book to pick up if you're interested in the short fiction.

Watched The Sympathizer, Park Chan-Wook's adaptation for HBO of the Pulitzer winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Robert Downey Jr. features as a CIA agent who interacts with the lead character, known only as the Captain, played by Hoa Xuande, who is a North Vietnamese mole inside the South Vietnamese secrete police. It's shot with Park's typical verve and style, cutting back and forth in time, and features a pretty nail-biting sequence as the Fall of Saigon begins and people are rushing the American air base to try and get one of the last flights out.

It's quite good.

For All Mankind renewed for a 5th season... and getting a spin off titled Star City, showing events leading up to the start of the first season from the Soviet perspective. It's described as a "paranoid thriller". 

Very strong penultimate episode. I know GGK is watching the show, or at least he was when it started airing, but there were passages in this episode that reminded me of his work, and makes me wonder if Clavell was any sort of influence on him. (Kay's a much, much better prosodist, of course.)

20 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I'm more in the traditionalist camp there (even if I admittedly have no horse in this race).

Notre Dame is a historical landmark, so it should remain as original as possible.

I find that strange. I think the major elements that make it identifiable now, like its spire and stained glass, should stay as they are... but I don't really see any reason why plain glass windows that are unremarkable and that no one remembers (except in that they don't compare to the stained glass elsewhere) can't be replaced. Hell, they probably have been replaced, as glass cracked or broke, and are more Theseus's Ship than anything.

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Yeaaaaaaaahhhh…

No.

Even to upgrading the north tower windows? Remember, the spire and stained glass are from the mid-19th century. Nothing says that the Cathedral needs to be entirely stuck in the mid-1800s. Something that's a clear upgrade seems reasonable.

8 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Huh?  I thought Notre Dame was being rebuilt as it was.

It is, but there were debates about it, and Macron has been a big proponent for adding modern touches. He wanted a modern spire, that was vetoed, then he proposed replacing the (perfectly intact) stained glass from 1859 with modern stained glass, I think that's also been vetoed or at least people aren't keen. I saw a nice proposal of replacing the north tower's plain glass windows with contemporary stained glass as a way to update.

Heartening to see members of the public joining efforts to save the artworks in Børsen, though. I think I read that they were able to save quite a lot, between the efforts to contain the fire and the efforts to get things in danger to safety.

Shame about the spire, though. Such an awesome design.

Decided to Google and Reddit surfaced this idea of MIRVs coming in, both by night (very clear) and by day (less clear, but still, you'd probably be able to see it with the naked eye as they streaked down out of the sky):

Speaking of Conan, he featured in probably the greatest episode of Hot Ones of all time: 

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Well, not if vault tec was planting them.

Right. But even if they didn't, would we really see an atomic warhead coming in before it exploded at the distance we see the city at? I don't know. Maybe not.

The one thing I wonder at when we saw the explosions was... would we actually see the bombs falling before they hit? Probably not. I guess they'd just be MIRV style warheads, right, on ballistic trajectories? I tried to rewatch the scene to see if they CGed a blip of dark something plummeting to the ground prior to each explosion, but no.

Finished Ripley, a new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, written and directed entirely by Steven Zaillian (writer/co-writer of Schindler's List, Searching for Bobby Fisher, Clear and Present Danger, Gangs of New York, Moneyball (with Sorkin), The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, and The Irishman). It's an absolutely gorgeous show to watch, shot in sumptuous black-and-white by cinematographer Robet Elswit (There Will be Blood, Good Night, and Good Luck, Bologie Nights, Mangolia, Punch-Drunk Love, etc.), with really great production design capturing 1961 Italy. Zaillian uses some very formal camera work and tropes -- I particularly love all the shots of people going up and down stair cases, sometimes brightly-lit Italian village cliffside climbs, other times dark interiors of old palazzos. 

I do think at eight episodes it meanders a bit -- it feels very "European" -- and the biggest flaw, in my mind, is the casting -- everyone is too old for this story. Andrew Scott's Ripley is reptilian, a cold sociopath who hides behind vague amiability, but he's at least 20 years too old for the part. Johnny Flynn (younger half-brother of GoT's own Jerome Flynn, aka Bronn) is also about 15-20 years too old, and his performance is that of a very mediocre, kind of whiny trust fund baby, nothing like Jude Law's lively, 1000-watt presence in Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley, but the TV show follows the line of the books closer in this regard. While it raises one question for me -- why would this nebbish Dickie Greenleaf let Tom hang around for months if neither he nor Marge likes him; this is a question Minghella's version fixes by making Dickie wilder and Tom capable of easy latching on to his obsession for jazz to appeal to him.

Also featuring is Dakota Fanning as Marge, a quieter and more studied performance compared to Gwyneth Paltrow's, but it works well. Alas, the show does not have a Philip Seymour Hoffman to inhabit Freddy Miles, his loud, smarmy cruel frat boy who makes a big entrance and steals every scene he's in. They go a very different direction with Freddy (perhaps closer to the novel), where he's a sophisticated Brit, a "playwright" allegedly, but a wealthy dilettante mostly. He's played by Eliot Sumner, the non-binary child of Sting (the singer, not the pro wrestler), but there's no toying with the idea that Freddy is anything but a male on the show (we get a glimpse of his passport at one point). He's much quieter in his sneering, more sophisticated than Hoffman's character, but in the end Sumner's is among the least of the main performances.

Anyways, it's very sumptuous, and fun. I prefer Minghella's film because it's more direct and I think the changes made to the story really work, but if you want to see something much closer to the novel (except I gather it veers strongly at the end to do its own thing), this is it. Though I have seen people say the 1960 French film Purple Noon, with a young and beautiful Alain Delon as Ripley, is worth watching.

(Oh, also, John Malkovich has a cameo in a cute nod to the fact that he played an older Ripley in Ripley's Game.)

It tells a relatively complete story within its 8 episodes, with a couple of hooks leading to a next season. There's no reason someone shouldn't see it just because the 2nd season is an unknown.

Howard and the game's design director both say it's canon and imply people are jumping to conclusions about some things. Maybe there's a mistake or something, but the canonicity of the general story of the show does not seem to be in question.

@Corvinus85

Probably a joke reference like that. I also liked how they basically look like oversized golf bags in terms of their shape, which is poking fun a the concept of Brotherhood of Steel squires caddying for their knights.

Pretty sure any uses of 'Wyl' without an article are just like Ned being called 'Stark'. I don't think we know his first name.

Re: Moldaver,

It's retrofuturistic, basically a representation of how people in the 50s thought the future would look -- kind of recognizably like their era, but with their aesthetics applied to the "futuristic" bits.