Thats such an amazing gift, My family got me and like 10 friends tickets for Indian jones : Crystal skull. It was such a fun experience. I am a huge Indian Jones fan, so it was fun. (not a great movie on par with temple of doom). I imagine having the whole theater for the Spider-verse movie is going to be great.
Its very sweet that he wants to wait so his friend can go.
Across the Spider-Verse really benefits from being an animated movie. It allows them to show characters, objects and scenes in a variety of styles that you canāt get with live-action unless you use a ton of video processing or add in animation.
For example, there were a few scenes where they had an over-the-shoulder shot and the character whose shoulder youāre looking past had some sort of outline floating an inch or so away from their skin. I have no idea what thatās supposed to represent. Thereās other scenes where I was wondering if it was supposed to be a 3D scene or not. (I saw it in 2D.)
Other ways this works is when a characterās appearance changes during a scene. It isnāt a morph effect like a Skrull changing into a human or the liquid metal Terminator changing its shape. Maybe more like a shift to look more like a printed comic book. Also keep in mind that Peni Parker is a character that was designed in 3D but was rendered to look like 2D because she comes from an anime world.
Conversely, by being animated, it allowed them to incorporate some live-action elements very fluidly and take a shot at Spider-Man: No Way Home In my opinion, this helps them tackle the Multiverse in a better way than the MCU is doing.
Across the Spider-Verse ends on a cliffhanger, as will Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One (obviously). The current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes should not delay the release of Beyond the Spider-Verse next year since animated movies and TV shows have different production methods and employees than live-action projects. Dead Reckoning, Part Two will be affected because the actors are on strike.
This is one youāll want to get on DVD or Blu-ray instead of just relying on streaming, on demand and other cable subscriptions to watch. And instead of watching it in your DVD/Blu-ray player, watch it on your computer using a program like VLC Media Player so you can slow it way down, more than a DVD or Blu-ray player provides without resorting to repeatedly using frame advance. There is so much going on in the action scenes and the camera angles change so much, youāre going to miss a lot unless you can watch it in slo-mo. More than Into the Spider-Verse had.
The bonus is youāll have time to see all of the in-movie comic book-style captions that were use and all of the Easter eggs. And youāll be able to turn on subtitles for when thereās overlapping dialogue or the music and sound effects wash out the dialogue. (Watch Voxās āWhy we all need subtitles nowā to learn why that happens, even when Christopher Nolan isnāt involved.)
Hold onto that thought. Iāll have something related to this later.
Friday, a big battle begins: Barbie versus Oppenheimer.
One is the world-famous doll, and whether you love her or hate her, this movie is for you (according to the previews). The other became death, the destroyer of worlds.
One used so much pink paint in all the sets that it caused a global pink paint shortage. (Really, they did.) The other set off a real explosion that looks like a nuclear explosion.
One has the lead actress going to interviews and events wearing Barbie-inspired outfits, some of which are near-duplicates, and it isnāt Cillian Murphy. Iām not sure if pinkās his color anyway. The other had the cast leave the premiere not long after they got there because the actorsā strike had just started.
Both look to be really good films, but one has the distinction of making Tom Cruise a little unhappy because IMAX theaters switched from showing Mission: Impossible ā Dead Reckoning Part One to this other. But he canāt be that unhappy because he bought tickets to see both films.
Hereās some really great info about IMAX and how it relates to Oppenheimer.
The film for IMAX movies is 70mm wide, but each frame in the film is three times larger than a standard 70mm film. The film comes on a huge platter that you have to use a pallet jack to transport. Loading the film into the projector involves threading it through a huge number of tensioners and guide pulleys, going up and down and all around. The audio for the movie is on separate media so you have to also make sure the start of the film is synced to the audio.
Christopher Nolan likes IMAX. He meets with the IMAX people when heās planning a film. The maximum length of time for an IMAX film used to be about 2 hours. Interstellar came in at 2 hours 49 minutes and the platters had to be enlarged to support it.
He then comes to them and says his script for Oppenheimer is 180 pages for 3 hours. IMAX concludes that it would just barely fit if they add extensions onto the platters. The film when loaded on the platter weighs 600 pounds and is 11 miles long. Noland says that is probably the longest length of a movie that IMAX will ever support. It is. If you go to the 10-minute mark in the video about the London Science Museum assembling the film and getting it into the projector, thereās less than an inch of clearance between the edge of the re-extended platter and the frame next to it.
Some of the IMAX theaters are having issues showing it. The movie has been stopping at various points. From what Iāve found, Iām not sure if itās due to mechanical issues with the projector, like strain from the extra weight, or if itās because projectionists trained to handle IMAX are getting scarcer so somethingās not getting set up correctly.
Thereās portions of Oppenheimer that are in black & white. KODAK created a special 65mm format that hadnāt been done before.
A person named Arjun Thulasidharan Pillai recorded the trailer on his monitor (using a separate camera, unfortunately, instead of a program to capture the video directly). The countdown timer changed every time you would watch it. Arjun got it when it hit zero. According to one comment, it was synced to match the minute when the Trinity test occurred on July 16, 1945.
I need to go explore the official movie website, and someday Iāll make it down to visit the Trinity site myself. In the meantime, I might dig up my copy of Infocomās Trinity text adventure.
You didnāt mention that pics of some of the IMAX theaters showed that theyāre dependent on an emulator of a PalmPilot that hasnāt been made in years!
I tried the Trinity text adventure several years ago. Iām either too ADHD for text adventures or it just was too artsy to grab me.
Well, how about that. Retrocomputing as a core of a professional business.
My old old job is running on a mainframe from the late 70ās. In 2000 we had to make it think it was 1978 (I think that was the year that matched up) and then rewrite all the programs to add 22 years to everything.
Well, itās more than 22 years later now. Did they have to reset it again?
From what I heard, yes. There is so much data on this machine and custom software to track this trade union pension plan thatās been a client since the 50ās, plus another three or four from the 60ās that it will never be cost effective to replace it until it dies.
Saw the DnD movie (2023). Holy wow it was fun, goofy, campy, and really refreshing. At least for me comic book/ nerd movies have gotten really stale, so DnD was a fun romp that like i said felt refreshing and fun. I didnt need to know 50+ movies of lore to really enjoy it. 8/10 needed more dice.
Iām sorry, Chris Pineās character was not a bard. Level 10 commoner with ranks in diplomacy, maybe. Iāve played a 3.5e bard and currently play a Pathfinder bard and my character rocks.
Oh he was for sure not a bard. He was a tactician at best.
Both the Dragonlady and I howled with laughter at the dread dragon Diabeetus.
I care less than zero that it was not true to DnD rules, it was a terribly fun movie and we adored the cameos from the old animated series.
It was a fun homebrew campaign! I hope a sequel gets made that is as well written.
8 posts were merged into an existing topic: Dungeons and Dragons
Watched XXX:Return of Xander Cage yesterday evening.
Sort of okeyish, but it is more aimed at the teenage crowd than at us old farts
The usual stunts, wisecracks etc is also present.
Watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
All that I will say is that it is regarding the genesis of Rocket Raccoon, one of my favourite characters.
There are a couple of tearjerker episodes, so take a box of tissues with when watching this.
I saw The Flash on HBO earlier this week. I think it got more criticism than it deserved because people were focusing on Ezra Millerās personal problems and asking how Warner Bros. could let the movie be released because of them. I do agree with Honest Trailers that Barry #2 is annoying but being around him did help Barry #1 mature at least somewhat. And the CGI babies in the rescue scene are an example of how not to design CGI babies.
Despite all the multiverse mumbo-jumbo where they tried hard to have a different explanation of how it works than weāve heard before, it did good in showing the consequences of trying to change the past. When trying to prevent a moment that defines who are, things are going to change, and it wonāt be the way you expect they will, no matter how many times you try.
A crime spree of assault and battery, burglary, trespassing, along with quite a few accusations of child molestation and grooming charges are a bit more than personal problems.
It pays to be a media figure with the right political slant. You and I would be in jail, and someone like Chris Pratt would have been cancelled after the first few incidents.
edit: customer came in and I finished the post instead of saving itā¦
There is something about the world that just lets people actively destroy themselves like this, give them all the credit in the world for having mental issues, but not actually expect them to get treatment and get better. I should feel for them because X, Y, and Z is wrong with them, despite the fact that they can afford decent treatment and fix the problem, instead we just shake our heads and watch them assault, berate, or generally freak out another person.