WestRider

8 hours ago, Ish said:

Lee is clearly phoning it in in several of his later Dracula pictures (there were seven of them made over 15 years, Marvel Studios ain’t got nothing on Hammer). In his own autobiography, he admits that he hated the scripts and disliked the way the directors were making the movies... But, damn Lee is fun as hell to watch in them.

In an odd way, I’m actually reminded of Lee whenever I watch something with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The Rock has been in several truly goddamn awful movies and a handful of good ones... He’s also been the star of several movies that should have been bad, but solely because of the presence of the Rock, they became good. I just can’t help it, if the Rock is on screen, I will enjoy what I’m looking at. I just cannot not like the guy.

 

Yeah, this was the last of the Hammer Dracula movies that I hadn't seen. It's def not on par with the first couple, but much better than the couple in the middle where he ignored the script and just hissed, and blows the preceding Dracula A.D. 1972 out of the water.

Kurt Russell is another actor I feel like that about. I've seen some absolutely terrible flicks that were still quite enjoyable, solely for his scenes.

This evening's entertainment was Tremors 4: The Legend Begins. In some ways one of the weaker entries in the series, with some SyFy Original level acting from a few of the minor characters, it's still a whole lot of fun, and the way that it plays around with the range of character types from the previous movie is very well done.

17 hours ago, jollyork said:

No worries. Get some rest and the clowns on this forum can make more fun of us. 

Thanks for being understanding. Let me know when you've got another time that works.

A Peek at Peak Pique: Why It's OK to Get that Angry at the English Language XD

15 hours ago, Ish said:

If Christopher Lee was a fictional character, no one would ever take the story seriously. He’d be the biggest Mary Sue in all of literature... 

And yet...

I can think of a few other people who would be unbelievable as fictional characters, but I'm pretty sure Lee is top of the list.😄

Speaking of Lee, my latest movie watched was The Satanic Rites of Dracula. Even tho this was the end of Lee's time playing Dracula, and he'd burned out on the series about 4 movies earlier, it holds up pretty well. It definitely helps that most of his screen time is shared with Cushing, but the script and direction also seemed better than the previous couple of Hammer Dracula films.

1 hour ago, Ish said:

That’s true for the scene overall, but Christopher Lee’s half of the fight is great. He had some mobility issues during filming (he was 79 years old at the time of filing AotC) which limited his ability to perform much footwork, so any shots where you can see his legs and he’s doing it rapid movement, it’s probably his stunt double. But Lee actually worked closely with the fight choreographer and his stunt double to make sure that Dooku fought the way Lee would have.

One of the greatest failings of the prequel trilogy, IMHO, was that the severely under-used Christopher Lee. If I was directing them, TPM would have still been mostly the same but I’d have had Darth Maul taking orders from Darth Tyranus. AtoC would play out mostly the same, only with a surprise reveal at the end that Darth Tyranus was himself the apprentice to Darth Sidious... RotS wouldn’t have had Grevous in it at all, with Dooku replacing him for most of the story. Then when Anakin fell to the Dark Side, he’d kill Tyranus late in the second act as part of his becoming Darth Vader. (Oh yeah, I’d also have named his character damn near anything other than “Dooku.”)

Christopher Lee was a world champion fencer, did most of his own stunts and participated in more on-screen sword fights than any actor in history... and his was in his thirties and forties for the bulk of them. Lee was FIFTY-ONE when he made The Three Musketeers... Which I mention purely as an excuse to share this clip:

The prequel trilogy actually has a perfectly solid story, it's just the execution that ruined it. Totally could have been fixed with some dialogue re-writes and re-casting a couple of people.

Lee got one of his earlier film roles basically just on the strength of his skill with a sword and his fluency in Spanish. He also holds the record for oldest person to perform on a heavy metal album and the oldest living person to make the Billboard Hot 100.

He was basically a Chuck Norris meme, except it's all actually true.

On 2/9/2020 at 11:47 AM, jollyork said:

Weav is correct. However, @WestRider, I could play you Monday or Wednesday night around 8. 

Ugh. I am particularly sorry about this since I know scheduling is tough for you, but the last couple of days have been way busier than I expected, and I don't think I can keep my eyes open until 8 let alone til the end of the game.

Whoa. Found someone who is that ambitious. In a different way, but still. Wow.

Sorry, I got sloppy with my wording. By "working", I didn't mean motorized. I'm not that ambitious. But something where the lift platform can actually move from one level to another.

The Burrowers: Much better than I was expecting, but it is one of those horror flicks where some of the human characters come across as far more monstrous than the titular monsters. Really, the monsters are just a macguffin, just there to create and exacerbate conflict among the different groups of humans.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: The Gathering

They're both Hasbro properties. No rights issues. Both settings are already part of multiverses with all kinds of variations. And Jace and Twilight would probably be adorably nerdy.

33 minutes ago, fingolfen said:

Making a movable elevator would be somewhat challenging, but I'd love to see it!

I got the basic idea from this Instagram. It involves a lot of tedious filing and checking to make sure the cog teeth are enough smaller to be able to move, but not so much that they can't hold it in place.

Looking great!

I got one of those kits, but I've mostly just been working on trying to use the parts to make an actually moveable elevator. Haven't seen one finished except for the box art, which is always sub-optimal.

The House of Night and Chain, by David Annandale. It's pretty good overall, and there are some interesting ideas about anti-Chaos practices, but I still put it down feeling disappointed. For all its strengths, it just doesn't manage to live up to the awesomeness of the title. Something with a title as badass as "The House of Night and Chain" really needs to be better than "pretty good".

1 hour ago, jollyork said:

Weav is correct. However, @WestRider, I could play you Monday or Wednesday night around 8. 

Wednesday evening at 8 works nicely. See you on the pitch then!

Night of the Big Heat: Or, as it was re-released, with a title that made it actually seem interesting, Island of the Burning Damned. Too much of it is wasted on a crappy love triangle, but the parts with Christopher Lee and/or Peter Cushing are worth it.

@jollyork When's a good time for you? I can make pretty much whenever work as long as I have some notice, but evenings are usually best.

1 hour ago, Ish said:

And some sort of special rules in place to allow those armies where it’s thematically appropriate to make some other units to either count as scoring (e.g.,  White Scars Bike Squads).

30K actually does this fairly nicely with their Rites of War, which let you break the FOC in various ways (and/or allow normally non-Scoring Units to Score), at the cost of having to abide by restrictions in other places. As with so many other things, the details are where the balance issues show up, but the basic concept is a pretty good one.

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010): All the elements are there, but somehow it just completely falls flat. For all the menace he should have, Krueger here is just some A-hole with a bunch of crappy one-liners and an annoying laugh. Rooney Mara and a number of members of the supporting cast turn in solid performances, but not enough to give it the life it's missing. Or to overcome the fact that a bunch of them are in their mid-20s and playing high school students.

9 hours ago, WestRider said:

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir: The only suitable map is the territory itself. The only review that can do it justice is the book itself. Seriously dark, but also extremely funny, often at the same time. I can't wait for the second one to come out in June. I really want to know more about the setting and meet more of these people.

Oh, yeah, there are a few more elements particularly relevant to this crowd here. Lots of aesthetic overlap with 40K. An immortal God-Emperor who has ruled over humanity for 10,000 years after having died and resurrected himself, super anachronistic combinations of tech, gratuitous skulls everywhere.

Also, the word-craft is amazing. There are constant combinations of themes, idioms, and phrasings that absolutely should not work, should just clash horribly. But somehow, they fit together seamlessly.

On 2/4/2020 at 1:11 PM, Ish said:

It’s been my opinion for years that most of the problems with WH40k and WHFB, across all editions, stems from GW using six-sided dice. This creates a fairly narrow band of possible outcomes and makes the “gap” between results seem a lot bigger than they would be with say, ten-sided dice. No easy fix for this, I’m afraid.

Way back when, I started doing some conversion work for "Warhammer 4d10". I think I might still have those notebooks around. Using the new Apocalypse system as a base for a d12 version might also have potential. The biggest practical issue is that it's more awkward and expensive to get d10s or d12s in the kinds of numbers required than it is for d6s.

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir: The only suitable map is the territory itself. The only review that can do it justice is the book itself. Seriously dark, but also extremely funny, often at the same time. I can't wait for the second one to come out in June. I really want to know more about the setting and meet more of these people.

Chopping Mall: I was expecting more of a slasher flick based on the title, but it was still a fun slice of 80s cheesiness.

3 hours ago, Ish said:

Have you tried conquering Gaul? 

8 hours ago, Ish said:

I’ve been a fan of Rose McIver for years and iZombie really let her show her range as an actress. I’m hoping she gets more attention.

That's really one of the main selling points. She practically becomes a different character in each episode. Reminds me of TMas in Orphan Black. Great work, very fun to watch.