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Emperor

@Emperor@feddit.uk

A geologist and archaeologist by training, a nerd by inclination - books, films, fossils, comics, rocks, games, folklore, and, generally, the rum and uncanny… Let’s have it!

Elsewhere:

  • Yrtree.me - it’s still early days for me in the Fediverse, so bear with me

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

Oklahoma public school students could soon earn credit through ‘Satanic Temple Academy’ ( www.kswo.com )

The Satanic Temple is once again announcing plans for the Sooner State after a bill was sent to the governor’s desk which could allow students to receive class credits for religious and moral instruction off school campuses....

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HAIL Satan indeed. 🤘 Also Eris and Discordia as a different type of devilment is at work.

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Excellent, it's the one I voted for.

Chinatown at 50: has there been a greater screenplay since? ( www.theguardian.com )

Sometimes conventional wisdom is true: there has been no greater original screenplay in the last 50 years than the one Robert Towne wrote for Chinatown. None more elegantly plotted and politically charged, none more literate and historically evocative, none more pungent in its hard-bitten dialogue and sophisticated in its play...

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Definitely give it a spin.

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Yes, there' a 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition out, although most of the extras aren't that worth having (it doesn't even have a booklet) and they'll, hopefully, make a standard 4k at some point.

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As one commentator says, they're over-complicating it - they just need to create stories people want to see, not feel they have to in order to keep up or because the franchise holder needs X amount of content a year. If people are force-fed from the corporate sausage machine then they tend not to like it. I'm pumped to see Deadpool and Wolverine, as I was for GotG 3 and The Suicide Squad. Most other Marvel movies (and most of their TV shows) have been about introducing or reworking characters for some future project, not about telling a great story this time around. I'm still enjoying most Star Wars TV shows but Kenobi was awful because it felt so corporate-mandated - let's rework that film we mothballed into streaming content. In fact that problem arose because Disney decided that, come-what-may they were going to have a Star Wars film a year and it all went horribly wrong because they didn't bother with an actual plan for the Sequel Trilogy. It's just amazing we got a great film out of it (although with hasty reshoots) and a decent one (more Donald Glover as Lando please). And don't get me started on the Sony Spider-Man Universe!

Meanwhile, everyone involved in Deadpool and Wolverine seem pumped that they get to tell this story, James Gunn has been given a free hand to make the films he wants to see and if they form part of a franchise then that's gravy - not the point (you'd better not let my down now Gunn!).

Deadpool & Wolverine's Chances Of Hitting $1 Billion Skyrocket After Breaking A Franchise Trend ( screenrant.com )

Deadpool & Wolverine is projected to be a box office behemoth and its odds of hitting $1 billion are even better after a recent update. Marvel is currently going through a rough patch compared to its Infinity Saga days, and some claim that its issues stem from superhero fatigue. However, that's harder to defend after seeing the...

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While there will be some minor cuts, none will affect the “the integrity of the storytelling” or the “Deadpool spirit.”

I believe it's the 11 Paul Rudd jokes, as the Chinese love him.

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It’s not “superhero fatigue” it’s “almost nobody fucking stays home from the theater when they’re interesting infectionsly sick” fatigue.

I go to the cinema a lot (5 times this week, but that's because I'm doing the Lord of the Rings trilogy over three days) and never caught Covid - big cinemas have good air conditioning and I've yet to have anyone coughing and spluttering during a screening. Meanwhile, my friends keep passing Covid around the pub like it's free cake.

I think "superhero fatigue" is in large part "write a film I give a shit about fatigue". Marvel especially have been writing films that serve the franchise rather than telling story creators want to make and people want to see - BP 2 was the worst example of that. The best recent examples are GotG 3 and The Suicide Squad (which have me optimistic about DC's upcoming output), with an honourable mention going to Shang-Chi (although it threw it away in the last act by making it a standard CGI slugfest).

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Looking at the mock-up, it seems like there is a path for people down one side but it's a wide bridge and there's plenty of undergrowth for animals.

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Adi Shankar is an interesting guy, just seems to go out and make the movies he wants to see.

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"They are sensitive and they are completely covered in prehistoric markings which remain to be fully studied and any surface damage to the stones is hugely concerning.

“A rich garden of life has grow on the megaliths, an exceptional lichen garden has grown. So it’s potentially quite concerning.”

This is important - they aren't just a bunch of old rocks, they develop a "varnish" and an ecosystem that can protect them.

They say it's just cornflour and will wash off in the rain but people tend not to coat ancient monuments in cornflour, so we don't really know what the effect might be.

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You might have to state your sources there.

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Do what the French farmers do - back a muck-spreader up to the main doors and turn it on.

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Would be a shame if the refineries were to suffer malfunctions… or the trucks/ships to suffer constant breakdowns…

I am surprised that people haven't taken How to Blow Up a Pipeline (book or film) as more of a guide. I presume, as the climate apocalypse intensifies, protestors might escalate.

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I'm aware of the tunnel and at no point would it "destroy Stonehenge". There are concerns that construction might harm as yet undiscovered parts of the wider ritual landscape.

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Do you know how I would go about buying and filling a muck spreader.

You can hire one from any number of places, like here. I quite like the side discharge spreader for drive-bys as long as you knew the range.

To fill it try a pig farmer as they usually have large ponds of the stuff they want rid of - chicken shit or bull shit are also available for symbolic reasons.

Plus Rishi Sunaks home address would be a totally unrelated useful fact to share.

His home has already been vandalised as I assume the address is in the electoral register. I was quite surprised they got through security and I assume it's been tightened up since. Driving a large farm vehicle at the house seems quite a good way to get shot.

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I wanted a source that backed up what you said.

Forget Rotten Tomatoes, New Viewership Data Shows What's Really Going On With The Acolyte ( screenrant.com )

The Acolyte, Disney's newest Star Wars TV show, may be being review-bombed - but new viewership data gives a sense of what's really going on. The Star Wars fandom has always been prone to division, but Leslye Headland's Star Wars Disney+ TV show seems to have become a massive flashpoint. The Acolyte has been review-bombed on...

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It's because they smell nice and make us have feelings.

Nosferatu trailer is in theatres this weekend, attached to The Bikeriders ( www.joblo.com )

The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman writer/director Robert Eggers‘ remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic Nosferatu (watch it HERE) is set to reach theatres on Wednesday, December 25th – and if you’re anxious to see the trailer, you’ll have the chance to see it this weekend, but only if you head out to see...

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Being a pasty ginger, I understand his reluctance to bare unprotected skin outside.

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Still umming and ahing over the top 10 this year but a rough list so far would be:

  1. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
  2. Dune 2
  3. Civil War
  4. Late Night With the Devil
  5. Abigail
  6. Poor Things
  7. Furiosa
  8. The First Omen
  9. Boy Kills World
  10. Lisa Frankenstein

I expect Deadpool & Wolverine to steal the top slot. Other contenders: Longlegs, Joker 2, and possibly Alien: Romulus.

Worst: Madame Web

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I just realised The Holdovers sneaks into 2024 - I was crudely sorting my ratings by year, which obscured it's actual UK release date. I might throw it in at #7 and then consider moving it up.

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The first 10 minutes might be the best bit - you can feel your IQ drain away as the film continues.

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If we're talking jidaigeki (as they include Lady Snowblood) then also up for consideration:

  • Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (2003)
  • Kwaidan (1964)
  • Kuroneko (1968)
  • Onibaba (1964)
  • Lone Wolf and Cub (1972-1974)
  • The Hidden Blade (2004)
  • The Twilight Samurai (2002)
  • When the Last Sword is Drawn (2002)
  • 13 Assassins (2010)
  • Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
  • Shogun's Samurai (1978)
  • Ugetsu (1953)
  • A Story from Chikamatsu (1954)
  • Goyokin (1969)
  • Irezumi (1966)
  • A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) / Floating Weeds (1959)
  • Samurai Banners (1969)
  • Oniwaban (1978)
  • Unforgiven (2013) - not that one but a samurai remake

See also my list: jidaigeki

Not a lot survives from before WW2, here's the earliest I'm aware of: Jiraiya the Hero (1921)

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As they included Lady Snowblood (which isn't really a samurai film) I took it as an excuse to broaden the scope to jidaigeki in general.

‘Smile 2’ Trailer: An Evil Curse Haunts a Pop Star in Paramount’s Horror Sequel ( variety.com )

Paramount has unveiled its first trailer for “Smile 2,” the follow-up to the 2022 breakout horror hit. In the sequel, out Oct. 18, a pop star (Naomi Scott) is driven mad by an evil curse that takes victims in the form of a creepy smile....

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I'd quite like a piss-take if the prequels, then one of the sequels. Although, quite a lot of the Sequel Trilogy took the piss anyway.

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I may be trouble.

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It's a pity but, given Furiosa underwhelming at the box office and Tom Hardy being a pain to work with on Fury Road, I didn't have my hopes up.

Here's the Latest Update on A24's "Crystal Lake"; Charlize Theron as Pamela Voorhees?! ( bloody-disgusting.com )

A24 and Peacock’s planned Friday the 13th television series “Crystal Lake” went up in smoke earlier this year, with showrunner Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal”) being fired from the project and leaving the fate of the small screen project unclear. So what really happened? The Wrap just dropped one hell of an exclusive report...

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I might be misremembering, but wasn’t this happening elsewhere like, 2 or 3 years ago, and it was just an art thing someone was doing?

The end of the quote from the article does go into that and it isn't comprehensive as I went to see one near me during lockdown.

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Sounds like it is clear who is behind it, unless there is some reason to not believe them.

Anyone can claim they did it but I am unsure they've provided proof. A NM art collective might explain the more local occurrences but they've been found across in the UK and across Europe, which sounds like international pranksters were at work.

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And I'm pretty sure that is the best explanation, I just want more details.

The one I saw would have been difficult to install without any locals spotting it happen, which they didn't, so I am very impressed and would be curious to know how they did it.

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Iy definitely would have needed someone with local knowledge as you wouldn't just stumble across the location. They must have kept very quiet about it as I know someone who lives right by it and they haven't heard anything. However, as it was in a protected wildlife area, they may have been prosecuted for doing it, so there is an incentive to stay quiet.

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So are you suggesting I did it? I'd be proud to put my name to that. Unfortunately...

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The new trend as of late was most recently exemplified by Dakota Johnson’s comments on “Madame Web” after the Sony-produced film flopped at the box office. Johnson told Bustle that she understood why the film was “ripped to shreds” by critics, citing that “art does not do well when it’s made by committee.”

...

“You’re telling me you signed up for a Marvel movie,

In all fairness to Dakota Johnson, she didn't sign up to a Marvel movie, it was a Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU) film and that is a very different beast. She also didn't sign up to the movie that was eventually made, as there were a lot of changes made to the script after she inked her deal and, while the quote they gave is a little... pretentious and open to ridicule, she has gone into more detail about what went wrong.

However, she must have been aware of the reception to Morbius and her agent should have given her an overview of the SSU bizarrely trying to milk to Spidey IP without Spider-Man which is doomed to failure as Venom is the only character who can carry their own story and still the lack of the old web-slinger harms those films too. Unless someone comes up with a great idea for a story, they need to stop trying to build a franchise without it's lynchpin. Some of those characters only work as antagonists and some have developed their own independent stories but only as part of the larger Marvel IP (as Morbius has). So she should have known better going into this or seriously lowered her expectations and treated it as just a payday.

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Having it spread over 7 communities kills activity rather than keeping 1 community alive.

Having three dad communities on lemmy.world is weird and needs sorting out but one of the advantages of subject-specific instances is that they can give a different spin to a topic.

On English-speaking social media, it all tends to become very US-centric - the UK (and, presumably, Canadian, and, hypothetically, an Australian one) allows for people to have more local discussion as the logistics (schools, benefits, the legal system, etc) can be very different.

By the same token, I wouldn't want all the other dad communities merged into the feddit.uk one (which is the most active, despite the Mod being AWOL, which is easily fixed) as it isn't just a general dad's discussion, although all dad's are welcome, of course.

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Last point: as a non-native European, I never really paid attention to the English-speaking social media being very US-centric, hopefully that’s a bias we can correct here on Lemmy.

I'm working on it. And there are Canadian and Australian instances doing their bit too.

Movie Trailers Are Killing Movies ( www.gamespot.com )

A great movie trailer can single handedly turn a movie into a success story--like that genius Cloverfield trailer in 2007 that didn't say what the title of the movie was. But it's more common these days, I'd argue, for a trailer to have the opposite impact. A generic trailer can so thoroughly dampen hype for a film that...

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Lockdowns help highlight a lot of “just because it’s what you do, not because it’s actually good” things for people.

Lockdown hit entertainment venues across the board as people found it cheaper and more convenient to just stay at home. The manager of my local pub says a chunk of his clientele just never returned. The cost-of-living crisis has just made it worse as prices soar.

Theatres are generally awful.

I have excellent options where I am - a community-run cinema a few minutes away and a multiplex 15 minutes away (that has reclining seats, good air cin, plenty of space, etc and I have a monthly pass which hammers the price down - I usually cover the cost in a week).

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Might be a you problem as I just subscribed.

Try the direct route: !canvas

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