Mx. Canadian Destroyer

My Top 10 Movies of the 2023.

1. Past Lives
2. Monster
3. The Iron Claw
4. Killers of the Flower Moon
5. Anatomy of a Fall
6. Saltburn
7. The Killer
8. Oppenheimer
9. Barbie
10. American Fiction

Thought it was a very good year for movies. 

So our regular group hadn't played in about 70 days. We left on a cliffhanger of going to the home of one our characters. He had left when he was young and hadn't returned, hoping to find out what happened to his parents. 

We get there and he Dimension Doors him and 1 other party member into his childhood bedroom. The other three of us go around the back and end up in a fight with the evil druids who have overtaken his home. 

We ended the game with someone making death saving throws on the roof while the manor was on fire. Oops. I love D&D.

On 18/12/2023 at 10:46, Colly said:

Watched Dungeons and Dragons completely on a whim because we didn't have the time for Indy. Really enjoyable daft fantasy film, more please.

Pine says he's pretty sure there will be another. 

I feel like it's a great time for movies right now. There's so much to see and sort of something for everyone.

Godzilla Minus One, Renaissance, Poor Things, The Holdovers, Dream Scenario, Thanksgiving, The Boy and the Heron, Napoleon, Wish, Hunger Games, The Marvels, Five Nights at Freddy's, Next Goal Wins.

That's not even to mention all the stuff that comes out shortly... Wonka, American Fiction, Anyone But You, All of Us Strangers, The Iron Claw, Aquaman, The Color Purple. 

It's a good time for movies, I think. 

36 minutes ago, Toe said:

What happens with Stanton? I would guess the outfield is Verdugo - Judge - Soto. Is Stanton going to be stinking up the DH slot all season?

I heard they'll have him play short. 

1 hour ago, Benji said:

If you haven't watched this, I strongly suggest it. Just finished it and the final episode just makes me so furious at the piece of shit and so bad for the family, and that's with a happy ending (that's not a spoiler by the way, the real life Jan says as much as the very start of the show).

Been intrigued to watch this. Will add it to my list.

13 minutes ago, Toe said:

I'm curious to see who is the starting 3B for the Jays next season. The free agent options are not very exciting. And I like Espinal - but not as an everyday starter. 

FanGraphs has Biggio, Martinez, Palmegiana and Espinal all having about 100 PA should the team remain as is (with Schneider and Espinal splitting some time at 2B. My gut says that Barger could get a decent amount of time there though. Excited to see him in Spring Training. 

2 minutes ago, GhostMachine said:

If it wasn't for his age, I'd say take a flyer on Joey Votto, and convert him from 1st to 3rd. He actually is from Toronto, and I really don't see anyone signing him as a starter at 1st.

Even if they signed Votto (which they shouldn't, he's been pretty bad), he'd just fill in the role that Belt had this year. No reason to move him to third, especially at his age. 

6 hours ago, Lint said:

I don't like it.  All the vehicles look way too CGI. 

The great thing about Fury Road was almost everything was practical FX.  This just looks like a PS3 game to me

I don't think it looks awful but yeah, it doesn't look as good as some of the effects of the first one. 

That being said, I loved Mad Max and saw it multiple times in theatres. Then I watched it on Netflix a few months back and thought it didn't look great. I think mostly because the movie was made with 3D in mind and it didn't translate well when watching at home.

Super interesting interview if folks are interested. They chat about finding the right tone for Alex and Greg, how they feel about tasks "failing" and a bunch more sort of "behind the scenes" thought processes on the show. 

Episode 1 was incredible.

1 hour ago, Benji said:

Eeesh, it looks good, but 50 bucks with no real demo for the GM is a big ask >_>

I let Ruki play around with my Foundry login at one point. DM me if you want to test it out and I'll build you your own world to play around in.

Dr. Cox was the thing that made me not able to go back and watch it, especially the way he'd call JD a girl's name all the time. 

I've only really been able to go back and watch certain episodes or clips.

I'm in.

11 hours ago, Ruki said:

Would I enjoy Fall of the House of Usher? I don't really know anything of Edgar Allen Poe.

I didn't really know much about Poe either and really enjoyed it. It was fun going back afterwards and seeing what the references were that went over my head. I'd recommend it. 

1 hour ago, Benji said:

Search Party is really quite engaging. I'm half way through and it keeps escalating just enough that I can see it all triggering really well at the end. Looking forward to seeing where it goes. Not the show I expected but really good in a different way.

This show is wild. I would love for someone to watch the first episode and the last episode and see their reaction. 

4 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

I liked it more than the first (very good movie that I think runs a little too long, Andy Garcia's Kingpin isn't quite enough for me as the central antagonist). Not my favorite animated movie ever but maybe my favorite of the last decade?

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My theater was also one where people basically went "are you being serious right now?" at the ending, which I thought was pretty funny. I think they were right to split it into two movies but the ending does feel very abrupt. You can feel them building to it but for some reason it has a "oops we used all our allotted time folks, tune in to WCW Saturday Night where we'll air the finish to this main event" air to me.

It didn't help that I saw it the week after I saw Fast X, which also drops a cliffhanger ending in a franchise that you wouldn't expect to see something like that in (though Spider-Verse's was much more effective because you can't possibly take a cliffhanger in the Fast series all that seriously).

 

Fast X spoilers

1 hour ago, RPS said:

That Across the Spiderverse movie was something else alright. We agree it's the best animated movie ever? 

I think a fair amount of people prefer the first one.

I think there's really only one knock on the movie imo

On 13/08/2023 at 14:31, Benji said:

Watching Inside Man and it's... Eh. Definitely not as good as I hoped. The characters are shallow and the women outside of Janice are very poorly characterised. Thankfully David Tennant pulls some mediocre scripting up to a better level, but I'm two episodes of four in and I was most excited for seeing Tucci and Tennant together and they haven't shared the screen yet nor do they seem likely to. In fact Tucci's character feels like a Hannibal Lecter if he was sinfully boring, bored and going through the motions. Somehow I'm still watching, probably because it's only four episodes total, but I can honestly recommend it unless it pulls a lot back in the second half.

Yeah, I covered this for the podcast network and thought it'd be fun with Tennant and Tucci but it's just pretty bad. There's some interesting themes and ideas but it's just not executed well.

27 minutes ago, I Think You Should Busch said:

Welp.....Verlander back to the Astros for their #1 and #4 prospects.

What an absolutely surreal season to go from the most expensive team in baseball history to this.  Very hard to see 2024 as anything more than a punt now but I guess it'll be a clean slate for Stearns to work with.

Not a Mets fan but this feels like best case scenario for a bad season. Trade away Scherzer and Verlander for great prospects on the verge of a really strong starting pitcher free agent class. 

1 hour ago, RPS said:

My kids are fully on the Ticket to Ride boat. The expansions aren't expansions in the typical sense, but standalone games, correct? 

Correct, the expansions are different settings of the usual game (Europe, Nordic Countries, London, etc.).

4 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Is there any benefit to doing Barbenheimer? Like people keep telling me to do it and how interesting it is or whatever but I've seen Barbie and really have no interest in Oppenheimer.

It's only worth it if you're interested in both films. I loved doing it but unless you actually want to see both movies, why spend all that time seeing a movie you don't want to see?

I loved Oppenheimer but it's not for everyone - a 3 hour long historical character drama. 

1 hour ago, Twist said:

That's good to know. I guess my view has been skewed by watching videos online that are hamming up the role play element.

You absolutely should not compare a show that is trying to put on the most entertaining show for an audience to what your home game will look like. 

Each table balances itself to what the players (and the DM) most enjoy. A lot of YouTube D&D shows veer into the acting and roleplay of it all because that works best for a show but I can say that my personal home games look very different to those. 

13 hours ago, damhausen said:

I just wrapped it up too.

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Connor's Wedding is up there in my pantheon of great TV episodes. I thought the show had a lot of juice after killing off Logan and when it started I felt his eventual death was a narrative midpoint. They wrapped up so much, so well though that none of the aftermath of them losing the one thing that gave them any sense of personal value was needed. It would've felt odd seeing Shiv just grin and bear it as a CEO's housewife, Connor annoying the hell out of Willa when he's not an ambassador to anywhere, and Roman go on a personal coming-of-age story just in time for his 40th birthday. Kendall dealing with throwing away his marriage and any meaningful relationship with his children for a job as Waystar CEO that was now forever out of reach, however, would've been incredibly compelling.

As a result him staring out at the river in a state of somber reflection is the perfect way to end the show.

Just about every side character had their moments of brilliance too, and as the show became ever more dramatic, they provided necessary levity. 

Looking back I get the sense that they changed some of the approach to the show after season one. Most for the better, but it seemed to become much less cringey and much more committed to showing you how awful all these people are. There's chances for sympathy with the Roy kids, they had truly horrendous parents. But then you get those regular reminders that as full-grown adults they can forge their own path and, well, they don't. 

I forget when I told my wife "there's a oft-used trope that women marry their fathers" about Tom back before we saw how low he'd go. Well, I guess I called that one.

 

I like the ghost runner.

*hides in a corner*