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timwakefield

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Posts posted by timwakefield

  1. I just finished One Bad Rat--I liked it so much.

     

    I moved recently and there's a pretty rad comic book shop right near me. I went in again today and found a hardcover of One Bad Rat (I asked if they had any Bryan Talbot). The shop owner was like, "I think it's signed," then he flipped through the first few pages and was like "Sorry, I guess it's not signed." But it was $25 which is totally reasonable since it's in great condition, crisp pages, bright colors, etc, so I got it.

     

    Took it home, and it's totally signed. Not that that adds a whole lot of value or whatever (it's signed "Bryan Talbot, 900/1000"). So he signed 999 other copies too. But it's still cool, and I wanted it whether it was signed or not.

     

    I took a break from comics for awhile but I'm excited about them again, partly cuz it's a ton of fun to browse around that shop and it has a massive selection of new and old stuff.

     

     

    Anybody reading any cool comics lately?

  2. Mike Trout will end his career as the second best player ever.

     

    So, behind only Babe Ruth? I'm assuming we all agree that Ruth is the best all-around player ever. If you have somebody other than Ruth though I'd love to explain why you're wrong.

     

    But it's also really motherfucking hard to be a better all-around player than Willie Mays over a lengthy career. Do we all have Willie Mays 2nd? It has to be him or Barry Bonds and it's a little bit easy to argue against Bonds. Ted Williams is the 2nd best hitter ever (behind Ruth...although Williams can also make an argument for #1), but he wasn't great at anything other than hitting.

     

     

     

     

    I mean, Trout just turned 24 and looks like a dead lock for the HOF, which is insane. I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just goddam hard to put together a better career than Willie Mays.

     

    Who are your current 1-2?

  3. So I saw Birdman awhile ago.

     

    Yeah. Wow.

     

    I watched the Oscars so I knew a little about the movie but didn't know too much, and had managed not to hear that it's a motherfucking ONE HUNDRED MINUTE LONG SHOT WITH NO CUTS or whatever the length was until it finally cuts. That was honestly what blew me away the most. Hitchcock's Rope was a movie I saw as a kid and was probably the first time I thought about cuts and how movies are put together. He had to cut every ten minutes or so cuz that was as much film as a camera could hold, but they're nearly all hidden cuts. They're pretty obvious when you're looking for them but it's still great.

     

    The shooting in Birdman blew my mind. I'm sure there's behind the scenes documentary features and detailed explanations/good guesses at where all the hidden cuts are but I haven't looked any of that up. There were a small handful of obvious hidden cuts, like when they enter and leave the bar, when they go up to the roof -- basically I can think of maybe 4 times the screen goes black for a quarter-second because the characters are in darkness -- but most of them had to be digital and I really couldn't tell whether a shot was actually a 20-minute shot or if there had been 2 or 3 or 10 digital cuts in there when the camera did a quick pan or whatever. There were definitely some long-ass shots though.

     

    I feel like the opening shot of the film was legit, no cuts, for 15 minutes or longer until Keaton brain-slams a vase into the wall and the camera does a really quick pan and it seemed a relatively easy spot for a digital-stitch. But it didn't look like it cut, I just thought 'oh they could sneak a cut here', and I have no idea if they did. And all the floating and flying shit was brilliantly done, and there were a couple things that were so good they were funny. Like when the cameraman passes behind Keaton as he's sitting in front of a big mirror (this happens multiple times) and you can see the full reflection and everything but the camera and cameraman are invisible.

     

    I wasn't expecting the long shot(s) so I didn't pick up on it at first, that it was seriously all one shot and not just some very long shots. And I kept waiting for it. Like they can't go an hour without a cut, this is ridiculous.

     

    And the Raymond Carver production could have been over-the-top terrible but instead it was perfect. Like his play was soooooooooooo bad and misguided but it was very believably bad, which made it hilarious.

    • Like 1
  4. Sox are getting murdered tonight but off to a good start. Xander Bogaerts is off to a great start, Mookie Betts is playing really well (his batting average sucks but it's a tiny sample and he's been crushing the ball right at people), Hanley Ramirez is killing it, and Clay Buchholz pitched 7 shutout innings on opening day and then gave up 7 runs in the first inning tonight. Fuckin Buchholz.

     

    Really hoping Blake Swihart gets called up soon and they're just holding him back a couple weeks in AAA because of the whole 'extra year of team control' thing like with Kris Bryant. He's the top catching prospect in baseball (strong on offense and defense), and our young defensive phenom Christian Vazquez went down with Tommy John surgery in March so Ryan Hanigan is our primary catcher at this point.

     

    We have to figure out a way to get Rusney Castillo onto this team because we gave him $72 million and he's in AAA so he can get regular at bats, but he's very much ready to go and was great last September.

     

    Also we signed 19-year-old Yoan Moncada for $31 million, who's also from Cuba. It's a long time before he plays in the majors but it's pretty awesome that we got him. Scouts have said he would have been a likely #1 overall draft pick or close to it, if he'd been eligible. And I think there's gonna be an international draft in the future so the Sox spent a lot of money on a gamble but it's because pretty soon you might not be able to negotiate with guys like that, you'll have to wait in line to draft them.

     

     

     

     

    Also, how bout that postseason? The Giants are so boring, but it was still an amazing season for the Royals. The Wild Card game against the A's is one of the best games I've ever watched.

  5. I loved Vice, but Birdman is the best movie I've seen in years. Vice was great, though. It was PTA's Big Lebowski.

     

    Huh. I haven't seen Birdman yet but I've been looking forward to it. Now I'm a bit more excited.

     

    Inherent Vice still got a heavy snub though. It easily could (should) have been nominated for best picture, since they enlarged that category and it can now include up to 10 nominees. Shoulda been nominated for director too, certainly over The Imitation Game.

     

     

    "Fun" Fact: PT Anderson has never won an Oscar. Really.

     

    - He was nominated for original screenplay for Boogie Nights but lost to Good Will Hunting.

     

    - He was nominated for original screenplay for Magnolia but lost to American Beauty (he was also up against Being John Malkovich).

     

    - He was nominated for adapted screenplay, directing, and best picture for There Will Be Blood but lost to No Country For Old Men in all 3 categories.

  6. Inherent Vice is pretty easily the best 2014 movie I've seen. I haven't seen a lot of the nominated movies, but it's lame that PT didn't get more love for it from the academy. He did write the screenplay and is nominated for adapted screenplay but probably won't win, and that's its only nomination other than costume design.

     

    It was leaps and bounds better than The Imitation Game, which is nominated in most of the major categories but which I thought was pretty disappointing. I love me some Cumberbatch but the film just wasn't great.

  7. Honestly that was one of the best game's I've ever seen. Instant classic. I wasn't even rooting that hard for the Royals. I definitely like them but I also like the A's, mostly because Jon Lester. I was rooting pretty hard for the Royals when they fell way behind though, cuz who doesn't love a crazy comeback.

     

    Good luck with the Angels, they're really good but boring as hell and I have zero interest in seeing them in the WS.

     

    Oh and Dyson stealing third base was some Dave Roberts 2004 ALCS shit. If he's out, the Royals season is almost certainly over. Helluva game.

    • Like 1
  8. yeah his career is in the toilet so he went back to that old booty call who always gave it up.

     

    I looked him up because, yeah, the last thing I know he was in was We Bought A Fucking Zoo. He apparently had a role in the latest Terry Gilliam movie, The Zero Theorem starring Christopher Waltz, which I'm really looking forward to watching.

     

    Anyway, the point of this post is to say that he's also gonna be starring in The Martian by Ridley Scott, coming out next year. I recently read the book, and it's really really good. Very highly recommended. It's a pretty funny and exciting science fiction book, more science than fiction. "The Martian" isn't an alien but a human in the near future who is stranded on Mars after a manned Mars mission goes wrong.

     

    The dude who wrote it was a computer programmer or something and worked on it in his spare time, then went to publishers with it and they all said no. So he gave it away for free on his website. And it blew up because it's really good, and now it's a Ridley Scott movie. I actually recommend the audiobook. Much of the book is the main character dictating his daily log entries, and it makes a ton of sense to listen to it rather than read it.

     

    http://www.amazon.com/Martian-Novel-Andy-Weir/dp/0804139024/ref=la_B00G0WYW92_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411140800&sr=1-1

  9. American Hustle

     

    i was underwhelmed honestly. didn't really think it was that good.

     

    I saw it recently and I liked it a lot. I didn't totally love it, but I thought it was very good. The characters were interesting, and the acting was pretty fantastic. Also Louis CK shows up out of nowhere. And Robert freakin De Niro. It was funny, cool, intriguing, etc.

     

    The plot left me wanting more though. It wasn't as interesting as it should have been.

  10. Under the Skin.

     

    It definitely wasn't awful, but I also definitely didn't watch it all in one sitting. Scarjo gets super naked in it a few times, which is nice. There were some pretty amazing scenes where she is fully clothed too. Also some of the creepiest shit I've ever seen.

     

    I went into it knowing it was basically an art film and that it would be slow, so I wasn't thrown by that. I also knew it would be a little creepy, but goddam, it is extremely creepy.

     

    People complain that there's no plot or whatever but, objectively, there is, and it's not that subtle or anything. It's slow and repetitive, but it really is mesmerizing.

     

    Visually stunning, and that soundtrack, goddam. Maybe I'll post a couple screenshots later. I recommend it if you want a really creepy beautiful artsy film.

    • Like 1
  11. I loved this show from episode one, but that long tracking shot is what knocked it into the stratosphere for me. Never seen anything close to that on TV before.

     

    That shot was absolutely epic. The only show I've seen that's done anything even close to that is The West Wing, which I don't think you've watched and I don't know if you'd like. Anyway, they never did one as amazing as the one on True Detective, but they used lengthy complicated shots multiple times per episode, and it really added to the busy and exciting atmosphere of the show.

     

    There's one I remember where the camera eventually ends up on a crane which was pretty stunning but I can't seem to find it on youtube, but these are some good examples.

     

     

  12. Larry Kramer is one of about 10-12 main characters in the book. Whatever else he might be, he was also one of the first people anywhere in the world to recognize how incredibly serious the outbreak of gay pneumonia might be, and to tell anyone who would listen. Like, when a lot of researchers still thought/hoped it was a bad batch of drugs, he was telling gay men to stop having sex.

     

    I'll have to watch that movie after I finish the book.

  13. How to Survive a Plague

     

    It's a documentary following the early years of AIDS in America, and the formation of ACT UP and TAG. It was great, really great, and not just because I'm a fag hag. It's mostly made of archival footage, you can see how dynamic and persuasive and thoughtful these activists were. The movement started with some chaos, but then rolled and changed into hardcore scientific study and systemic critiques.

     

    The timeframe also put it in the beginning of a political movement telling its story directly to the media, and how much weight they gave that (a lot). I enjoy story telling, and ways people shape their message. The end of the movie is a celebration of protease inhibitors.

     

    I'm reading "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts. You should read it if you haven't, it's brilliant. It's basically the definitive work on the early years of the AIDS epidemic, starting at the very very beginning and focusing mostly on America. It follows patients, activists, doctors, politicians, etc, and you get all these personal stories while also getting the larger picture of how the disease spread, what people did or didn't do about it, how the scientists and doctors worked to find a cure, how politics got in the way, and everything else. It was written in 1987 so it really is just the early years. Shilts was a San Francisco reporter who was gay so it's told from the ground floor but also, like I said, it's brilliant investigative journalism covering everything at the CDC and NIH and everywhere else. It doesn't just focus on San Francisco.

     

    It's super long but totally gripping. I'm not even quite halfway through - they finally just came up with a name for the disease ("AIDS"), but they still haven't isolated the virus or even become 100% certain that it really is a communicable virus. Before that it was called, by various different people: gay cancer, GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), and other similar names which for obvious reasons didn't stick. Still only a few thousand people have died at this point in the story (1983) and it's already kind of heartbreaking. It's about to get utterly devastating, but it's a really incredible story.

    • Like 2
  14. I'm glad you liked it! Yeah if I hadn't read Heart of Empire by him I probably wouldn't have really considered reading a comic about an abused girl running away from home, but I knew he was great from that and at the very least that the art would be gorgeous.

     

     

    I took a little break from comics the last week but I should really dive back in, I have so much stuff I wanna read.

    • Like 1
  15. And ok, maybe it was a tiny bit unfair of me to give a mid-80s song as an example of terrible Clapton since so many major artists spent the 80s being terrible. Bob Dylan is one example. But most of the songs I mentioned aren't from that time period. Clapton covered Little Wing in 1970. Jimi covered a Clapton song too, and if anything, improved it.

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLCmBppGAKY

  16. Thanks, though, for offering your keen opinion on Eric Clapton and his 'sappy soft rock ballad' and becoming Kenny G in the context of never having actually heard the album.

     

    "Never having actually heard the album." Okay, well you're the one who decided to make the conversation about Clapton entirely about that one album. "Tears in Heaven" appears on Clapton Unplugged, I have learned, but that's not the original version. The version I've heard, the studio version, the single version, is not from that album. So I wasn't even talking about that version of the song. Maybe Clapton Unplugged is great. It's not the album I was talking about when I said he's Kenny G.

     

    And I didn't even say that's his worst song or anything, just that it was a sappy soft rock ballad.

  17. Explain to me how Clapton: Unplugged is 'rocks version of Kenny G'?

     

    I dunno, I haven't heard his Unplugged album. Maybe he did do some decent stuff in the last 30 years, maybe even some great stuff, although I'm not sure I'd like it much but that's just personal preference. Maybe I was too harsh. I just find his bad stuff to be so unbelievably bad, and all the more striking because he was so good at the start of his career with The Yardbirds and Cream.

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt2qBm4qS4w

     

    You cannot convince me that song isn't trash. His cover of "I Shot the Sheriff" is an abomination (I'm not in love with the original or anything, but goddam is Clapton's terrible). His cover of Jimi's "Little Wing" just makes me wonder why the hell he bothered. Maybe his Unplugged album is great. He's done a lot of shit though.

     

    One thing we can agree on is that Art Tatum is brilliant.

  18. It happened like 20 years ago and his kid was a toddler, making it ultra-sad (it's not like he was a drunk overprivileged 20 year old).

     

    He wrote the sappy soft rock ballad "Tears in Heaven" about it, although he'd stopped making anything worthwhile at least 15 years before then. The fact that he used to be a badass rocker made it all the more depressing when he slowly transformed himself into rock's version of Kenny G.

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9FkEjOBJuw

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwprrAEL9-E

  19. I didn't really follow the spoiler/non-spoiler drama earlier in this thread cuz I still haven't read the 5th book (started it but got bored) and didn't want to see a spoiler, but I'm pretty sure the actress who plays Arya just called out at least one or two of you, probably Hank from what I gathered:

     

    I’m so sick of going on the internet and seeing all the book readers being snobby, spoiling it for other people, then saying, “Well, it’s not a spoiler. The books have been out for years.” Like, couldn’t you just stop being mad for a second and let other people enjoy the show?

     

    Here's the rest of the interview, but, ironically, it contains what I think could be considered very minor book spoilers so beware if you haven't read the books: http://tvline.com/20...ady-stoneheart/

  20. Pretty crazy trade deadline day, especially in Boston.

     

    The Red Sox traded away:

     

    Jon Lester

    John Lackey

    Jonny Gomes

    Andrew Miller

    Stephen Drew

     

    and got:

     

    Yoenis Cespedes

    Joe Kelly

    Allen Craig

    Kelly Johnson

    Eduardo Rodriguez (decent pitching prospect)

    and a draft pick

     

     

     

    And David Price to the Tigers? Didn't see that coming.

     

    The Stephen Drew/Kelly Johnson trade (salary dump) is the first trade between the Sox and Yankees in 17 years.

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