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Messages - Frank

#61
Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...
16 November, 2019, 09:23:14 PM

Bone Tomahawk-guy wonders whether his aesthetic might be applied to the seventies crime thriller. Charley Varrick by way of Dead Presidents





I had the cold last week and watched Paddington 2* to make myself feel better, so I thought I'd balance that out with Dragged Across Concrete, a casually, shockingly violent film that makes the ballistic projectile injuries of Starship Troopers look documentary in tone.

Characters say and do vile things without comment from the filmmaker, which feels like an endorsement, but watching the film all the way to the end doesn't leave you with that impression. Zahler shows you what his characters do but isn't interested in telling you how he feels about that. 

This is a crime thriller with a shoot-out as its centrepiece, but there's more character work going on here than in Best Picture nominees. One minor player gets a length of backstory devoted to her that's the best example of the old horror dictum of getting to know someone so that when they get popped it has real effect that I've seen since Aliens (1986).


* I managed to make it all the way to the end without greetin', but when everyone clubs together to fly Aunt Lucy over and he buries his beaming face in her old lady overcoat ... you'd have to be deid!
#62
Books & Comics / Re: New Comic Book Day Megathread
16 November, 2019, 10:23:47 AM



Garth Ennis is writing a new comic - and it's not the kind of Garth Ennis comic where anyone gets anything up their arse, so everyone can relax and enjoy the storytelling!

And that's all there is to enjoy. No subtext*, no themes, no continuity wrangling or character development. This is a linear tale of a mass murderer who decides to murder someone and murders a series of people in an attempt to discover the identity of the person he's decided to murder.

The premise is simple**, but the pleasure here is the same satisfaction as admiring the formal perfection of Ikea furniture*** As a girly man who's never used a rocket launcher or punched anyone in the throat, I've no way of knowing whether Ennis is researching all this or making shit up then taking the rest of the day off to watch Columbo repeats, but he writes Rampage Procedural very well.

The technical glossary and sardonic narrative voice have their own poetry and aesthetic appeal, even if Ennis is probably borrowing them from another author I've never read. Which makes me think I'd probably have enjoyed his Dredd much more if I hadn't read the TB Grover stories that inspired him. I don't like the art, but this is worth overcoming my general dissatisfaction with monthly comics.


* I mean, it's there if you're desperate for it, in the implicit comparison drawn between the way organised criminals conceal their ill-gotten gains by buying apartment blocks nobody will ever occupy in Manhattan and the way the global super-rich do exactly the same, but you have to stand on a chair and get on your tip-toes to reach for that one.

** So simple I'm sure it's probably been done before: [spoiler]someone, or, I assume, an organisation using The Punisher's M.O in their own activities, meaning the targets of their violence assume Frank Castle was responsible and focus their revenge efforts on him instead of their real attacker(s)[/spoiler].

*** The one in the store, not the wobbly monstrosity you sweat and puff over at home, which never quite embodies the clean lines and modernity of the demonstration model that made you buy it, convincing you think the treacherous Swedes have proper versions they put in stores, constructed by master craftsmen, and boggy Airfix kits they actually sell to punters.
#63
Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread
15 November, 2019, 09:30:44 PM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 15 November, 2019, 09:12:31 PM
... in a more anarchic society there might be thousands of little ISPs, some of them run by private companies, some by local collectives, some by private and personal individuals ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37974267


It all began when the trees which separated Chris's neighbouring farm from its nearest wireless mast - their only connection to the internet - grew too tall.

Something more robust was required, and no alternatives were available in the area, so Chris decided to take matters into her own hands.

She purchased a kilometre of fibre-optic cable and commandeered her farm tractor to dig a trench. "We dug it ourselves and we lit [the cable] ... It wasn't rocket science. It was three days of hard work."

She now claims to have laid 2,000 miles (3,218km) of cable and connected a string of local parishes to her network. Each household pays £30 per month and must do some of the installation themselves.

The entire infrastructure is fibre-optic cable right to the property, rather than just to the cabinet, offering fast one gigabit per second broadband speeds.

The service is so popular that the company has work lined up for the next 10 years and people from as far as Sierra Leone have attended the open days it holds a couple of times a year.

The bulk of the work is done by volunteers and one of the conditions of service is that profits must be ploughed back into the community.

There are other independent fibre broadband providers out there, like Gigaclear which serves around 50,000 customers based in several UK counties and Hyperoptic which is active in 13 cities. They all claim to offer 1Gbps speeds.



#64
Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread
15 November, 2019, 07:21:25 PM

Nobody's talking about stopping anyone trading.

The Shark household would be free to pay Richard Branson to provide internet services in the same way they are currently free to pay for private healthcare alongside the taxation-funded healthcare provided to everyone in the UK*

It would be up to Branson to provide a service the Sharks considered to deliver the extra value and quality of service that made it worth paying an additional premium, thus driving up quality and choice (according to capitalist doctrine).


* free at the point of access
#65
Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread
15 November, 2019, 06:54:05 PM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 15 November, 2019, 06:34:43 PM
But surely the right to trade is an essential liberty?




#66
Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread
15 November, 2019, 06:15:06 PM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 15 November, 2019, 05:39:07 PM
I feel, though, that "free broadband" today opens the door for "internet driving licenses" tomorrow. That's a great way to control access - getting points on your license for visiting the wrong site or posting the wrong thing until you get banned from surfing.

The State (hiss!) can already ban you from specific sites and (in the case of terrorist offences) the internet in general, in the same way they can ban you from hanging around outside your ex's house or put you on a no-fly list.

Choosing Richard Branson as your internet provider doesn't make anyone any more or less free. Despite what Ayn Rand and Rees-Mogg might have said, there's no direct, causal connection between capitalism and essential liberties.


#67
Prog / Re: Prog 2157 - Red Army!
15 November, 2019, 05:41:58 PM




#68
Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread
15 November, 2019, 05:33:29 PM
Quote from: Steve Green on 15 November, 2019, 05:01:55 PM
The weirdest thing about the announcement was the snow ... something being overlaid on top of the feed going to both Sky and BBC.

Phil Schofield left the quantel box plugged in and set to SNOW when he quit the broom cupboard:

https://youtu.be/X3wmpGOwzHE?t=169


#69
Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread
15 November, 2019, 05:26:27 PM

Can't imagine why Pro Bear and Peter wouldn't get on.





#70
General / Re: Things that went over your head...
15 November, 2019, 04:55:33 PM
Quote from: I, Cosh on 15 November, 2019, 01:51:13 PM
In the first episode of Dead Eyes, the officer who identifies Danny Redman has lost the use of his right eye. The type of nasty looking wound that a more vain man might seek to cover up. He's been busted down to Sergeant in this parallel, but I think we can assume it's deliberate.

https://i.imgur.com/sks7X47.jpg

This is such a great observation I move that all Cosh's previous crimes be stricken from the record.


#71
Off Topic / Re: The Political Thread
15 November, 2019, 04:52:14 PM
Quote from: Professor Bear on 15 November, 2019, 02:41:31 PM
... even benefits seekers and FOB migrants/refugees with literally no money or access to infrastructure are expected to have internet access in order to fill out forms or perform job searches ...

... and kids are given homework assignments that can only be completed online. There's no argument about this anymore - once the current Labour leadership are gone, every party will adopt the policy.

They won't call it renationalisation of BT* or free broadband, which, to be fair, it's not.

Free broadband's a good shorthand for the news, but what's actually being proposed is funding broadband access through general taxation, in the same way as motorways and rail infrastructure. Or the NHS.


* Openreach, actually, the bit of BT that looks after the boring infrastructure. From a PR point of view, they should have avoided any hint of nationalisation, since it plays into preconceptions of Jezza as a seventies throwback, the three-day week, power blackouts, and Vesta curry
#72
Film & TV / Re: Your Movies of the Decade
14 November, 2019, 08:18:35 PM
Quote from: Greg M. on 14 November, 2019, 08:01:04 PM
The Act of Killing ... Holy Motors

Balls!   I'm going to go through the full charts and do a proper list.


#73
Film & TV / Re: The Mandalorian
14 November, 2019, 07:48:42 PM
Quote from: radiator on 14 November, 2019, 02:55:21 AM
IIRC, they didn't announce Pedro Pascal's involvement until very late in the day - I think they'd even released publicity stills at that point, so I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't even him in the suit.

In the same way that 99% of the time Batman's on screen you're watching a stuntman, while Ben Affleck's in his trailer, on the phone to his agent, trying to get himself out of his three-film deal.

Disney+ Pitch Meeting: https://youtu.be/iFeZx3Xkvgg


#74
General / Re: How do you read yours?
14 November, 2019, 06:56:26 PM
Quote from: Greg M. on 14 November, 2019, 06:51:20 PM
Antisemitic Wars?

Gold Star *


* If I were your editor, I'd have tweaked that to Antisemite Wars, but you're not getting paid, so do your own thing.
#75
Quote from: Max Headroom on 14 November, 2019, 06:01:09 PM
Actually asked this question elsewhere on the forum, but thought I'd try my luck again: Does anyone know how many volumes of 'Third World War' there will be? Many thanks!

Whether there are any more books probably depends on how many buy this one.

Exact details are difficult to come by, but this book will contain 'more than 200 pages', which would take us up to episode 14 or so (of 45 in total). Three books seems like a reasonable guess, but it's just a guess.