pandemicwrites

[pandemicwrites]

From Beyond (1986)

a bad movie that I really enjoyed

In which the final girl overcomes the fact that she's dressed in skimpy dominatrix gear to spray a machine with a fire extinguisher in order to banish a cronenbergian monster intent on casting her deeply into its mind

in which the final girl baits flying eels from the beyond, made material by the resonator, into freeing her from the sex dungeon of the main antagonist, who is currently downstairs consuming the head-brain of Crawford

ok, so now the bad guy is a once-human, now extra-dimensional, sentient blob of meat, bones, and ligaments. A grotesque creature that oozes along the ground, it's third eye having burst forth like an alien antenna. It has to swallow Crawford (again), as Crawford fails to crawl out of his mouth. Crawford is not dissuaded by this; he goes to war inside the creature, ripping and stabbing. The creature, through some unknown alchemy, dissolves Crawford's skin. He begins chewing and tearing at the rest of Crawford, even as I witnessed the lines blurring: as Crawford becomes him, as him becomes it, as it eats itself.

Dr McMichaels uses that distraction to leap through the window, and we get the Van Damme explosion from four angles 💥

[pandemicwrites]

I recommend reading the nonfiction book American crusade by Andrew Seidel. One of the main people talked about and it is Leonard Leo, who has been shoved into the spotlight - probably not something that he wants, but he can go fuck himself

not only is he responsible for stacking the court in favor of conservatives, and also created conditions in which the conservative supermajority does judicial activism; it turns out he also sets up $100,000 private charter jets as payment for those conservative judgments he has in his pocket

> The article noted the role of conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo in organizing the Alaska trip, including recruiting Singer to fly Alito to the lodge. The longtime head of the Federalist Society, Leo helped Alito win confirmation to the court. Singer and the lodge’s owner were major donors to the Federalist Society.

I say payment, but "justice" Samuel alito did not put it on his taxes or whatever, so it was totally not a payment and definitely had nothing to do with the 10 times the person who owned the jet had His business interests ruled on by the scotus

we have a shadowy figure setting up undocumented, $100,000 chartered jets to (conservative justices ruling favorably toward white Christian nationalist) justices in order to - and this is the only reasonable conclusion - incentivize them to vote a certain way when a certain person's interests are presented before the court.

you remember the paper that Biden had his administration create, about how unviable packing the court was? I never agreed, and it should be clear to everyone at this point that not agreeing is correct: this SCOTUS is either no longer a legitimate institution, or slipping down that path so fast that it's more "slight overstatement" than "gross hyperbole".

https://wapo.st/46i9mxm

[pandemicwrites]

cabinet of curiosities episode 3: the autopsy

what if Stargate, but add tentacles and focus on the horror of it all

[pandemicwrites]

Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist (2023, before Tucker was fired from Fox)

Bad movie that I did not enjoy. Do not watch.

There's a reporter in this named Buck. Wonder if his last name is Sarlson.

omg... Buck is interviewing somebody from a multinational something about the mental health crisis. murders, suicides, robbery is, etc have all spiked, 6 months after the rapture. they call it... the plague of evil. they think Christians existing is preventing a plague of evil.

yo... this narrator is popping in to describe with words what I'm seeing on the screen. At least, that's the best case scenario; The worst case scenario is that the writers don't know how to show don't tell, so instead I'll have to deal with a narrator throughout this audiobook

"Our military and our police were decimated by the vanishings," said the CEO of Faux News to Buck Sarlson. I'm not sure it would be worse if he were right, or if he were wrong...

The berating narrator who haunts protagonists is back. He is describing how a once-mom, whose child vanished, is sad and confused. The woman is laying on her once-child's bed, cuddling a stuffed animal. What is this narrator adding?

White Jesus has hair of comparable length to me, but his is a wig... poser.

A mother screaming in emotional agony as she realizes she will be eternally separated from her child. The omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient god who created the situation is the protagonist.

I wonder if the narrator exists to create sound in scenes that would be otherwise silent. Don't give their Christian audience a moment to think about what it would mean if they were right.

Buck is meeting with red strings, a conspiracy theorists admits he is crazy, but is somehow the first to stumble upon groundbreaking information. Red Strings walks over to the whiteboard, spins it around, and reveals that the information is diagrammed on a literal cork board with literal red cotton string. I don't like that he and I both shop at Michaels.

They name dropped the Great Reset 🥳

A film professor might tell you this film's narrator is the answer to the question, "What's the opposite of the show don't tell rule?"

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Don't miss that drive by at evolutionary biology by knockoff Don Cheadle, explaining that maybe UFOs solve the "gaping holes in the fossil record."

The bad guys: played by the literal UN

Wait, the narrator just cut off the Antichrist. Nobody's even crying in this scene... Is this legal?

🤣 They couldn't figure out how to write the antichrist's pitch for the one world economy, so they did a meta thing where the narrator just explains whats happenning (or: cuts in). I mean this quite literally.

The church's sign is vandalized with the words "All souls matter"

Oh, I've cracked the case for real: the narrator is a propagandist. The narrator detracts from the film from an artistic perspective. Best case scenario, he is telling the audience what they're already being shown, and allowing the writers to be lazy in how they write the non-verbal parts of the scene. Therefore, the narrator is included for a non-artistic reason. He exists to guide the audience to predetermined conclusions. A propagandist.

Cut too: grave robbery. This scene is confusing, because in it the narrator says (redundantly) that Chloe found what she needed, proof. Proof means you know something... Or another words, is knowledge. In the last scene, they explicitly said faith was not knowledge. This means that Chloe is no longer operating on faith, which I think means she's no longer a Christian?

Cut to: Buck Sarlson finding Jesus in the bathroom. Buck didn't even let him finish; just ran in there and started shouting and weeping. Rude.

Is this narrator supposed to be a character in the movie, or an omniscient narrator outside of the movie? I don't think Kevin Sorbo ever decided, judging from what's on my screen

Cut to: car chases a plane, hoping to catch a draft... Up into the sky? Also, why did the gunman shoot at the car buck was in earlier, but they don't shoot at the plane?

I don't understand Kevin sorbo's theology. The last days are obviously preordained, because the pastor was able to read Revelation and understand the future. But, in the last scene, married or says that there's plenty of work left to do; that it's important even if a single soul is saved. So, it looks like accepting Jesus is an act of free will not preordained, but the last days are preordained. Clearly it's not possible for our ragtag bunch of heroes to convert 100% of humanity, because if they did that the future would change. So, what does that mean for the people who are not saved? Is it a zero-sum game, because there's only 7 years, so if you're spending your time preaching in Wyoming, the people in North Carolina are doomed? Or, is it that God has a certain percentage of the population that he will not let become Christian? Like, if our ragtag group converts 49% of humanity, would God stop accepting applications?

[pandemicwrites]

about The Librarians

In a nutshell: what if leverage and warehouse 13 had a kid that was raised by the personification of campiness?

has some great lines though, "architecture is just art we live in. why don't people get that." lol

[pandemicwrites]

about last of us s1e1

I really like the way they explained how the fungi would control the people in this particular zombie scenario. it's a great reason there is no possible cure (I assume, I'm not a mushroom–studier lol)

The scene where the wheelchair bound mother gets initially infected was great, and that dog is adorable 🐕

top tier doggy, 11/10 jumpscare. I'm so sad it ran away, I hope it comes back...

oooooh shit, not only is this a fast zombie situation, this is a fast zombie grandma situation

Q: how do we end act one? A: planesplosion

[pandemicwrites]

about the debt ceiling

I predicted a while ago that the GOP house is going to impeach Biden and investigate Hunter Biden, but in the immediate future I predict the debt ceiling will not be raised and the United States Federal government will default on some of its obligations

I believe this is because The GOP doesn't understand that not raising the debt ceiling is like refusing to pay a restaurant bill after it's arrived. they're bitching about how the bill is so high after they've ordered food, then they refuse to put the charge on their credit card because that's "running up debt". the appropriate time to not spend money is before you order the food, not when you need to pay for the food. The debt has already been run up, you're just refusing to pay the bill.

What I'm saying is there's no fundamental difference between the GOP not raising the debt ceiling vs. skipping out on a restaurant bill because now, on a full stomach, the GOP think the bill is too high

[pandemicwrites]

about The Matrix: Ressurections

3/5 stars... watchable. It hovers between a 20-year retrospective and the most meta, self- referencing TV since ricklantis.

Good - Good audio, cinematography, I liked how they did some of the commentary, Neil Patrick Harris, and where they went with some of the in universe things (e.g., rewriting the landline lore) 👍

Bad - breaks the fourth wall, then the fifth wall, then the sixth wall... The self-references lean into the fan service side of things too heavily in a few instances 👎

I didn't know anything about the movie before watching it, other than the general consensus was bad. The intro had me super confused lol

I think the movie is going to live or die by whether or not it can be meta enough. Like, at least the first act is a clear attempt to update the first matrix movie, Plus at a bit of meta pizzazz, which really is just updating the movie in a different way. Not only updating the story by improving the cinematography, but also by updating the content to 2022 sensibilities. Which, least according to this film, are very very meta.

The very blue glasses on the psychiatrist are a metaphor for the blue pills that keep you in the matrix... I wonder if there's going to be an anti mental health help through line

This feels like a bunch of hot takes from stoned philosophy 101 students, shooting for profound

He's eating the steak, get it? 🥩

Even if the movie is trying to have a negative view of getting help for mental health, I Wonder if it succeeds. In reality, without the matrix, if you behaved as if the matrix were real you would be crazy. Taking the blue pills, while a poor choice in the matrix universe, is a very good choice in reality. So, well the movie tries to portray taking the blue pills as bad, and Keanu Reeves throwing them down the sink is good, even if that paints getting help negatively I think There's an argument that the film itself puts it in a positive light. Maybe. Or, I'm apologizing for really, really bad writing 😆

The elevator pitch for this movie: no, it's okay that we're doing the matrix after a dozen years, we're going to be super meta about it and that'll fix everything 😜

Ah, I finally understand: they just did a complete rewrite of how getting out of the matrix works. It used to be a landline phone, and in this movie they updated it to "getting a hack." I guess they had to do something with it, since the cell phones are ubiquitous and landlines have kinda died. The other options would be writing a cell phone-less universe (umbrella academy), embracing the fact that landlines are rare, or keeping the same pre-2000 setting 📝🤔

The conversation at 55 minutes not only breaks the fourth wall, it shatters it as thoroughly as Carrie-Anne Moss and a helicopter flying through it

" Zion was stuck in a matrix of its own"... taking the concept of the matrix and generalizes it to mean " thought patterns." More philosophy 101 stuff: be mindful of how you view the world

" I don't suppose you could still fly?" He asked Neo. The ground worbles, and Keanu Reeves does the Superman thing... fails. "Yeah that's not happening " 😆 the joke is so good

The matrix seems to to be set in a much more magical world in the fourth movie compared to the first movie. A lot of sci-fi and fantasy fiction is probably on a sliding scale, if the first leaned more toward sci-fi this one leans heavily toward fantasy and soft magic systems... Like the swarm, or giving Neo a force push, or whatever bullet time means lol

Maybe, this is just an honest extension of the first movie. Like, after the first movie, bullet time, force push, and stopping fine bullets were feats that Neo had done. It would make sense that in future fights, he would use those powers. I guess resurrections takes that fact to its logical conclusion. You can only have the scene where Neo discovers it for the first time once, after all...

[pandemicwrites]

about A Wrestling Christmas Miracle (2020)

1/5 stars... not even ironically watchable, but at some points simultaneously meta, and unaware of the meta, enough to elevate it to true comedy

The audio is so bad. It's miked terribly, peaks multiple times, and really had me micromanaging my audio throughout lol

This movie, at 19 minutes, is about a man, cosplaying as the Grinch, with his wife, are watching the home movie/ film (starring Gilbert godfried, literally). They're doing a riff track of the movie, but they think their bits are so good that they pause the movie to deliver their jokes... their bits are not that good 🥁.

Additionally, every single character seems to think that they are also comic relief... plus whatever else their character is. Like, every single character - every single one - failing to land jokes... it's crazy. To be clear, really do mean every single character... From the under five, to every single main character except the kid himself, I think

The plot of this movie has me doubting my sanity. When I'm not worried about that, I'm worried about Ken dovecchio...

At this point the plot of the film within the film ("kids movie"), there is a judge who is sitting in a vandalized hospital confronting a crowd of sloppily dressed doctors, threatening to declare then guilty, and do things worse to them than put them in medically induced comas. One of the doctors apparently shot, and then saved the life of, the judge's son... They failed to get any comedy out of this, but not for lack of trying again, and again, and again... then, that scene ends with them being sentenced to unvandalize the hospital, which is being pronounced over top of the doctors talking about how the judges son is " a little strange 🎺" and I have no idea what wtf that means

I'm just describing the movie, I don't know what's going on, this film has me more existentially confused than the fourth matrix lol

Miss Kitty cat, the character of the lead actress, looks like if Sarah Palin made a half ass attempt to look like Harley Quinn. Her husband thinks that he can buy Mexico with the $1 million ransom he's demanding for the kids movie... I'm just describing the plot of the film at this point, which I would like to point out was directed by once-sitting judge Ken dovecchio

Why does kace's Mom have the haircut of a wood elf from the fellowship of the ring?

The phone call in the movie at 25 minutes is the craziest thing I've seen all week... from the jokes that don't land to the actress not understanding how a phone call works, crazy.

They started within establishing shot, wiped to a different shot establishing the same thing, then cut to the shot itself...

[pandemicwrites]

About Letterkenny

If anyone ever thought to themselves "boy howdy do I wish trailer park boys and always sunny had a kid that grew up in rural Canada," Letterkenny is the show for you

There's a lot I could talk about, and probably will, but for now I just want to call out S2E3, the bit at 11 minutes where they go on the date... Every second of that bit is gold and had me dying 😂 🤣

[pandemicwrites]

About Doom patrol

The trilogy about the de creator was very good. Multiple times I had the thoughts that the writers were technically competent, such as the foreshadowing with her telling the guy to stab his eye out, and the fact that it turned from a two-parter into a trilogy by the hand of the very man, mr nobody, who warned against going into a trilogy.

Doom patrol is very self-referential. The memes are fairly dense I think lol

"control is a tool for fascist" is great lol

" therapy patrol" is a great episode lol. I'm surprised that they were able to pack an episode so full of therapy style stuff, but still have a fairly compelling story. Holy s***, I just saw the admiral whiskers Chiron.

"what's a narrator?" asks the mouse... Eventually the narrator replies:" You need to f*** his mind, f*** his heart, then f*** his soul. Think you can do that, lil fella?" The writers are awesome, I think Doom patrol is better than moon knight, probably better than Wanda vision, maybe better than Loki, as far as direct comparisons to MCU TV series go.

[pandemicwrites]

about Stargate infinity

I didn't know this existed until today, which I'm surprising because I enough about the Stargate universe to know that the audiobooks exist.

There's not much to say here, the show's pretty bad lol. The ending line of the first episode is notable though: just a guy in 2002 shouting yolo to an audience of children. That was pretty great.

Also notable are the lyrics to the intro song, which I've written down:

(tribal music) (per the subtitle guy lol)

Built by Ancients so long ago

The Stargate lay 'til we broke the code

Now it takes us through the universe

On our mission to get back to Earth

We are hunted and on the run

And together we overcome

Fighting evil through the galaxies

Stargate Infinity

I've said things were on the nose before, and I apologize for that, because those instances were the most subtle things imaginable compared to this intro song 🤣

[pandemicwrites]

...about Kanye being interviewed by Alex Jones

The last few episodes of knowledge fight have been amazing, but this one specifically is about Kanye West being on the Alex Jones show, which is insane.

The news articles I've seen have been titled things like "Kanye says I like Hitler", but the real story is "Man experiencing mental break - and also the black face of white Christian nationalism - can't speak coherently while being interviewed by Alex Jones, a man with a 1.5 billion dollar judgment against him - in America - for defamation"

I have to take these people seriously, because they have inroads to Trump, who is (if not arrested) going to be one of the frontrunners in the 2024 GOP primary. I don't know how to have useful political discussions when I have to take these people seriously.

Kanye is unlucky to have to deal with whatever is going on in Kanye's brain, but he's letting literal Nazis launder their ideology thru him.

[pandemicwrites]

about Hunter Biden

Reading this article and thought "oh, it's just going to be two more years of this. Hunter Biden story after Hunter Biden story after Hunter Biden story..."

American political discourse has devolved to the point where one side is screaming about the laptop of the son of the president. Hunter Biden doesn't even hold a government position, so even if the GOP wing nuts have any right to look into the laptop (and they don't), what would the punishment be? They can't fire him, they don't employ him... What the fuck are we even talking about here?

What I'm saying is right wing conspiracism killed American political discourse, and is still trying to murder American democracy.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/02/musk-leak-twitter-hunter-biden-files-00072015

[pandemicwrites]

about Inside Job season 2 Episode 5

The "getting the youth vote" joke is the most convincing argument (/s) I've ever heard to vote for the GOP I've ever heard... Vote with your parents against their interests

[pandemicwrites]

about Nick Fuentes

In case it's unclear to anyone, Nick Fuentes is 100% a Nazi. The fact that Nick Fuentes is using the white and black team "metaphorically" in his story, and winking at the fucking camera every time he says " globalists" makes that clear.

The fact that people will vote for Donald J. Trump, a man who complimented his Nazi dining companion, is reason number whatever the political discourse is dead in America

Also, Jordan's analysis on Yee's recent behavior is very good

Knowledge Fight: #752: Ye Took A Dip In The Pool

https://knowledgefight.libsyn.com/752-ye-took-a-dip-in-the-pool

[pandemicwrites]

Biden has promised to appeal to the supreme Court. I predict the SCOTUS will behave as a political entity, doing the will of big businesses and the US states that oppose debt relief.

As a reminder: this problem can be fixed at any time, the constitution of the United States of America does not set an upper limit on the number of justices that can be on the supreme Court. Biden just needs to appoint more justices.

It's unfortunate that political discourse in America is dead. Republicans are lining up to steal the 2024 election, and Biden decided he doesn't want to pack the court two years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/30/student-loan-forgiveness-5th-circuit/