Television & Movies

[goofy]

O shit, first half of Witcher season 3 is here!! Had no idea this was coming, what a great surprise.

[WAR]

This part at about 39:52 shows the inside perspective of her right hand possibly clipping as she waves it through the corpse foot (but this might just be a perspective issue), but then her left hand definitely contacts and moves the foot. So there is either a body there or their image manipulation software is advanced enough to have live interaction between real and fake objects.

[jwax13]

@goofy

* but then that raises weird questions: so where the fuck are the dead bodies? When the camera zooms out around her (clearly implying at this point that we’re seeing reality, and not any simulated displays) there’s no bodies at all. The twist we expected was that they didn’t actually die in the first episode, but the big reveal seems to be, no, actually they did. So then where did Holston and his wife go?

The bodies are there. When she bends down and places the badge on Holston, you see the badge disappear under the image of the rock. She knows his body is there when she walks into him. Everyone in the cafeteria can see her interacting with the body. The screen they are seeing is real

I started reading the first book and it’s pretty absorbing. Nearly done with it and I’d say the first season is roughly half the first book. Sounds like season 2 should be second half of book 1 mixed in with book 2 as book 2 is a prequel / how the silos came to be. Can’t see them sidelining this cast for an entire season I find the show pretty hit or miss and prefer the books, but I agree with being able to watch the Lady Jessica do anything and be interested.

[jwax13]

In other AppleTV sci-fi news, Foundation season 2 is coming in July. Lee Pace is outstanding in the first season. Also a hit or miss episode by episode show, but I’m glad they’re making so much high budget sci-fi.

[WAR]

@goofy

#1 (if you think the wide zoomed-out shot of the other silos & the distant city is real) has no bodies.

Looking at this again, wide zoom definitely does have bodies, so I think the display is just real. That makes the interior monitors brief flip to fake mode a couple episodes weird though. Also, what about the bodies of every other person to have ever cleaned?

[goofy]

@WAR

Looking at this again, wide zoom definitely does have bodies

Okay I looked at this a third time now and I think you’re right (second watch after my wife said she didn’t think they were there, I didn’t see them) (sorry for shitty phone photo but idk how to take screenshots of DRM-protected video on Mac, it just shows up as a black square if I do it the simple way)

I guess this show is entertaining if I’m staring at it like the Zapruder film lol. This feels unnecessarily confusing though, like the bodies are LARGE and impossible to miss in most shots (ex. cafeteria screen) and here they seem tiny compared to the tree and almost blend in to the landscape.

[goofy]

Article about Pat Sajak fucking off to retirement, I didn’t know he was such a deplorable?

Why Is Pat Sajak So Mad?

Because, of course, Sajak is not beloved—or at least not in the way that men are supposed to become beloved after 40 years of screen time. The archetypical game show host is warm, convivial, and an advocate for the contestants, someone who has fully internalized the agony of a bad buzzer and the ecstasy of a savvy play. Sajak, meanwhile, consistently cut the silhouette of a man who stumbled into the easiest gig on television but never seemed to appreciate his good fortune. He was, and is, technically gifted and mechanically sound, more than capable of repeating the alphabet in precise transatlantic English. Sajak was originally a radio DJ, and he orbited through a number of journeyman announcing gigs before, in his early 30s, landing as a Los Angeles weatherman. (You can still sense that local-news timbre in his airless disposition today.) Merv Griffin offered him the Wheel podium in 1981, and Sajak approached the job without ever mollifying the stiff, smug, and vaguely menacing temperament that—through inertia alone—made him an enduring star.

Most of the time, Sajak is barely able to muster a flicker of celebratory joy for the victors who leave his set with $25,000 and a trip to Barbados, and he recites those mandated get-to-know-ya contestant interviews in the same way you or I might read aloud a grant proposal. (This is in stark contrast to Trebek, who managed to find a kernel of sentiment for every librarian and professor he interfaced with.) To be more generous, you could say that Sajak’s lifelong laconic attitude might be rooted in a selfless belief that a host ought to be a minor part of a game show’s framework—that the deductive wordplay is the real star here, not a handful of bad one-liners or the increasingly wooden intrigue between him and Vanna White. But Sajak still works only 48 days a year for that reported $15 million annual salary, and he always seems as if he’d rather be anywhere else while making the hay. He won the lottery and remains forever aggrieved. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering how that tends to be the default position of the wealthy American conservative.

Yes, perhaps the reason Sajak has maintained such a curdled persona is his long-standing status as one of Hollywood’s most public Republicans—and, like many men in their 70s, he’s careered into more whackadoodle territory during the twilight of his life. Sajak’s Twitter feed is a trove of your typical conservative death-cult stuff—most of the highlights are from around 2014 or so, and all of them provide an eerily prescient snapshot of where political discourse was headed. (A choice quote from the Sajak files: “I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends.” Not quite sure what that means!) Sajak also flirted with some early anti-woke ideation, once remarking that the next big “cause du jour” will be “Plants Rights”—a joke that mirrors the exact sort of fraught boomer memes that bloomed out of the fetid Facebook swamp and are currently destabilizing our democracy.

Frasier too?!? Man I am out of it.

(Consider also Kelsey Grammer, wonderful comedian, notorious crank, and vindictive Trump supporter.)

[grue]

Finally caught Silo finale. I was right! Mostly. The “heat tape” being an actual thing/plot item that mattered was great. Not a good middle really but the start and end make it worthwhile so far, looking forward to S2 in 3 years.

[jwax13]

@grue

looking forward to S2 in 3 years.

I think Hugh (author) said it was coming 2024

[goofy]

I a.) saw a coworker recommend this without knowing what it was, and b.) saw the trailer when I opened Netflix today to watch more Witcher:

Nimona | Official Trailer | Netflix

This looks pretty cool!

[Danspartan]

Anyone see Indy yet?

[TheDuker]

@TheDuker

when they inevitably wrap up the season with some huge reveals that nevertheless leave many more unanswered questions.

Nailed it!

I’m glad you guys had the spoilered discussion about the ending because I was missing quite a bit. I really didn’t get what she was doing with the badge, etc.

I thought maybe the big reveal was going to be that

the Silo was a sealed-off skyscraper in midtown Manhattan and served as a vehicle for entertainment (and gambling) for everyone on the outside who could follow everything going on inside. Sort of a Lord of the Flies meets The Truman Show.

But multiple Silos is good too.

[goofy]

lol your proposed ending is so dark, I don’t know if I would have been able to continue watching if that was it

[fakeBaker]

I still am kinda “wtf lol” over VSauce literally Truman Showing people with the trolley problem over whether to kill one person vs several

The Trolley Problem in Real Life

The Joe Schmoe Show and Jury Duty were like hey, this is cool but obviously we should keep the stakes low and give the mark $100k at the end. VSauce was like no, we’ll do it for free and ask them to decide how many people will die. For science.

[Krayz]

Watched it tonight, it was really fun

[fakeBaker]

Hey I made a video that references this VSauce trolley experiment and the invisible gorilla and there’s an article version if you prefer

BREAKING! Prejudice Has Gone Missing

90% of people think they see it.

70% of people never see it at all.

Which one are you?

BREAKING! Prejudice Has Gone Missing

[goofy]

people who respect the superior quality of Häagen-Dazs over Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

[goofy]

The Bear as sports:

Season 2 Of 'The Bear' Is About Rooting For Your Guys | Defector

The Bear has been suffused with the familiar rhythms and stakes of sports since the first episode, and I am hardly the first person to notice, but a formula like that has the potential to go stale quickly. Season 2 succeeds through its willingness to tweak the dials and move the action away from the constant, win-or-lose anxiety of the kitchen for a bit so that we can spend more time with individual characters. We get to see how each character finds their place in the show’s community, and revel in the way each person in this ragtag group of restauranteurs fills the group’s needs. If Season 1 was about getting you invested in the team, then Season 2 is about getting you invested in the players.
…
But I’m going to be rooting for my guy no matter what, because sports are also about loyalty.

[Danspartan]

Ok. Going into Indy. Sticker shot. $15 for the seat. $15 for treats.

[goofy]

I saw this a few days ago, was interesting to see it in stats since I think we all share the “movies have gotten so damn expensive” feeling:

https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1675940433044860928

https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1675942729770233856