I can understand that, but, from my biased perspective, that take is either unsupported by what I wrote, or requires a remarkably uncharitable reading. I asked for help, he provided it, and suggested I could use ChatGPT in the future to answer questions like this. I confirmed he had found the correct answer and explicitly thanked him for having taken the time to do so. I did reject his suggestion that I should just prompt a chatbot in the future though. I attempted, clearly unsuccessfully, to couch that pushback by underscoring again (for the second time in as many sentences) my gratitude that he took the time at all, but I stand by my question: what is the purpose of this community if the top level response to most questions is, “you should try prompting ChatGPT. It’s like Google but with faster and better results.”

Despite his assertion that I’m a tech hating Luddite, I have no issue with AI output being cited in this forum. When I balked at being told I should use ChatGPT instead of posting here, he assumed I was rejecting AI altogether and decided to take his ball and go home.

Idk, maybe I’m just having a legitimately unpopular opinion here, but my read is that communities like this one exist, in spite of their gimmick being well suited for a chatbot question, specifically because people want to interact with other humans, not bots. So, I stand by my original point, suggesting an OP in this community should prompt a bot is missing the point: not because AI is bad, but because, if they wanted to avoid human interaction, they would have asked the bot already.

On the bright side, I’m reconsidering my hunger for human interaction and am coming around to the idea that maybe it isn’t worth the effort lol

I understand this is not everyone’s default assumption online, but, please, give me the benefit of the doubt that I am engaging with you in good faith.

I have no issue with you having used AI to find the result. Truthfully, I’m surprised that the AI was able to find it so easily where a regular Google search, even with search operators, kept returning wildly inaccurate results. What I commented on, couched by attempting to underline my gratitude first and foremost, was that this whole community is built around, “There’s this thing I vaguely remember, can anyone help me find it?”. As you say, yes, clearly AI is well suited to this task, given it found the item in question based on what I wrote in one go. So, almost every post in this community could have “I plugged your prompt into AI and it thinks this is what you’re looking for: […]”. What then, is the point of this community?

I am arguing that this is not the space to be evangelizing chat bots, not because they are an inappropriate tool for this task (or whatever other issues people might moralize about on here), but because to do so actively robs the community of further content, in the sense that the lesson it imparts is, “Don’t ask here, ask ChatGPT”.

Of course, I could be misapprehending your intent. If so, I’d like to know where I’ve gotten off track.

Here’s hoping, though I can’t imagine they’ll command the same budget nowadays, which makes me wonder if the style will need to change. After 15 minutes or so, I adjusted to the stylization of Alita’s appearance and it didn’t bother me, but I have to imagine ditching that touch could save a fair chunk of VFX change. Making every frame containing your main character a visual effect shot can’t be cheap.

This is the correct story. I appreciate you finding it. Google was not cooperating. That being said, and I do want to underline that I appreciate you having taken some time to search for it, the entire point of this community is to help one another find esoteric bits of media with a more personal touch than a search engine or an AI chatbot. Responding to any post here with “have you tried AI?” is sorta missing the point, even if you’re factually correct. It’s kinda the “Let Me Google That For You” of the new era.

Sorry man, I’m not knowledgeable enough about computers to provide a summary, but I’ll mention this fun tidbit: apparently, the shipped version of task manager contained thus guy’s home phone number in the code by accident. He commented it out, but left the phone number in there, which means he can find instances of the source code being hosted online by reverse searching his home phone. Which is still a number he maintains, and he asks people not to call. Which is a bold thing to leave in the video imo

In broad terms, sure, but we’re talking about the business of theatrical exhibition here, which over the past several years has had a real rough go of it. In some ways, this is because the industry is addicted to shooting itself in the kneecaps at ever opportunity, and in some ways because COVID accelerated the trend of people waiting for VOD rather than seeing something in the theater. So, a movie smashing box office records in today’s environment is still newsworthy.

No I hear you. I just think you’re letting your negative perception of that element of the game’s community weigh in a little too heavily on your analysis of the game. People being annoying by talking about the game like beating it is a badge of honor (spoiler alert guys, you’re meant to beat the game) and your assessment of the Souls-like gameplay loop are, at best, tangentially related.

No shade to you, by the way. How the culture receives and talks about media is as big a part of its legacy as any constituent element of the text, and it’s a worthy subject for criticism. It’s just that, in my opinion, criticism is sharpened when the author is very clear about when they cease to review the game/book/movie and when they start to review the phenomena around that media.

Fwiw, this subject has been on my mind since reading a review of the movie Eddington in which the author talked about the temptation to stop talking about the movie and start talking about the subjects the movie was touching upon. I have been making a concentrated effort to improve my critical writing this year, and that line resonated with me. So, this diatribe has been fermenting in my head for awhile now, and your post was my excuse to get it out. By no means do I mean to lecture you on how you should feel about Dark Souls or it’s fandom.

Depends on how reductive you’re being. To me, your initial assertion that Dark Souls isn’t difficult (or is not as difficult as an online game) because it’s ultimately just a test of your pattern recognition / memorization and reflexes is ignoring the forest for the trees. If I applied that same mindset to playing an instrument, I could argue that, mechanically, they’re the same. You learn a boss’ pattern (I.e. learn the sheet music) and then it’s just a matter of moving your fingers to hit the requisite inputs.

Of course, I think most people would balk at describing making music as nothing more than playing the right notes at the right time, and rightly so. We tend to attach a certain amount of ineffable poetry to that act. I’m not saying that they’re 1:1 equivalent, mind you, but I’ve heard enough folks discuss a Souls boss fight in musical terms (tempo, rhythm, crescendos, etc.) to see the parallel.

I’m sure, prepared correctly, it’s lovely, but liver and favs beans sounds like a Fancy Feast variety.

That’s fair. For me, those first Bond movies are like a travelogue. Not only to a different place, but also a different time. So, I forgive the parts of From Russia with Love (for example) that drag, because I can still luxuriate in seeing Venice at that time. With Thunderball, the big “destination” is the Bahamas if I remember correctly. Coming so soon after Dr. No’s Jamaica set stuff, and the focus on filming the sea floor more than the scenery, just leaves me underwhelmed ultimately.

I’d be curious where you rack and stack it later.

Idk man, Tron is a weird franchise. For one, I dispute your assertion that the consensus is the movie is bad. By and large, the takes I have come across boil down to, “It’s okay…but why is it here?”.

Review aggregators (while not the be-all-end-all of a movie’s reception, hence Bridges’ quote in the article) suggest the critics are about evenly split and audiences are generally higher on it. At worst, the response is mixed.

The reason I bring this up is because, if your comment had a mishap with the Internet Wayback Machine and was sent back in time 15 years, I wouldn’t blink an eye at “Ares”. I’d have just automatically subbed in “Legacy”, cause there’s no way I would have guessed the Disney was going to make the same mistake a third time when it comes to Tron.

Hoo boy, I generally enjoy early Bond, but I feel like you’re being too kind to Thunderball. As I understand it, the underwater photography was pretty astonishing at the time, and it certainly feels like the movie was structured around the idea of SCUBA being the new hotness. Unfortunately, now that those concepts are relatively quotidian, you’re left with a slow, clunky movie whose big action sequences are (by nature of being filmed underwater) slow and clunky.

Whenever I get the urge to go back and watch the early Bonds, Thunderball is always one I skip.

My God, I long to experience a fraction of your appetite for film. Call it poorly managed ADHD (I usually do) or whatever else you like, but I cap out at like 3 movies a week, maybe even less if one is particularly challenging.

Now, I like Constantine just fine, or at least I remember liking it, though I acknowledge that that could be a case of the last sequence of that movie being so awesome it forgives a lot of the sins of the first hour and change. I’m a sucker for interesting character actors doing interesting work, and the Swinton/Stormare combo at the end is so choice.

With that being said, what do you do with a Constantine movie now, especially if you want to cast Keanu again? Like, the safe thing to do would be a reboot I would think. The 2005 movie isn’t exactly a totem of pop culture, even if it’s rep has improved since release, and it’s not like it was a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material.

I can just see a studio exec sweating in their office trying to decide between the “legasequel to an IP which still has a few dregs of pop culture recognition” or the “franchise reboot which promises to ‘get the adaptation right this time’” buttons.

The on-set intimacy coordinator gave me the go ahead! They said, in fact, “squish that spider or so help me you’re going to NEED a paid professional to conduct intimacy in this bedroom”.

Friendly cuddles without consent? That’s assault, brother!

Ive been growing my hair on t over the past year and half and every time I go back into the salon, I show my gal a series of images from a different Kurt Russell film. It’s been working out pretty well for me this far, next up is getting the beard to match…

JACK: “I’m beginning to feel like a little bit of an outsider here…”

ALL: “You are!”

I don’t know which article you read, but I can tell you straight up that you’re mistaken about what this photo is showing. Middle camo is holding a big thing of pepper spray or similar irritant, which IS designed to be deployed at this range.

This, of course, doesn’t change the fact that dipshit shouldn’t be in Chicago, let alone pepper spraying (presumably non-violent) priests, but we don’t need to invent misdeeds, there’s plenty real examples to choose from.

The director’s previous film, Leon: The Professional, features a 12 year old Natalie Portman falling in with an adult hitman who seems to be developmentally stunted in some ways. Over the course of the movie, Portman’s character “falls in love” with Leon. To the movie’s credit, this is clearly not reciprocated, but it still features a scene where Portman puts on lingerie (over her clothes) and does an impression of Marilyn Monroe’s famously horny “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” routine.

Put that right next to The Fifth Element, which features a savvy adult male who becomes the guardian of a woman who is physically an adult but mentally a child, and you’ve got a kind of gross pattern. Still though, I’d argue all of this, on its own, is easily defensible as artistic expression.

Where things get suspect is when you factor in the director’s personal life during the making of these films, as he started “dating” a 15 year old (who he met 3 years prior) before writing Leon. He was 32 at the time. They married after she became pregnant at 16.

Also, that “child-like” performance Mila Jovovich gives in The Fifth Element? Well it’s important to note that the director wound up getting divorced from his child bride because of the affair he was having with Jovovich. At least she was 18 at the time, but, still, when placed into context, yuck.