Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Andrew_R_2000 - Well, your adventure just begins then. I hope it’s a good one. Live long and prosper.

Wall of Text inbound!

@ThanosReXXX Halle Berry in general doesn't fit the role. Most of the big names are just themselves in whatever costume the role requires and Halle Berry has always been a bit of a joke in some circles. She was famous for being a pretty waif as an actress (not a comment on her personality but her acting) and many of her roles in the 80s and 90s reflected this. She also doesn't have the nuance for Ororo Munroe's background, Ororo is half African-American and half Kenyan. While Ms. Berry is mixed herself, she very obviously did no research on her character and there is none of the cultural dissonance, nor does she have Storm's leadership personality. Storm is a goddess, a leader, a thief, a fighter (not a warrior as she doesn't have Logan's code of honor even though she is a good woman in her own right) a teacher, yet she is very fragile, struggling with her identity as a mutant and a woman (goddess or orphan Kenya girl with touches of New York/Jersey in her?), she struggles with her power as she was sometimes as concerned about it as Jean Grey is (part of the source of their friendship) and yet she still has the trauma of losing her parents (her claustrophobia...) so tragically. I get that it is hard to display some of that nuance in an ensemble movie and it is a Fox movie which was a kiss of death but it is possible, Hugh Jackman did it (despite being WAY too tall for his role), Patrick Steward did it so I can't give her a pass.

She has improved as an actress in action films a little but there is still too much of the "I'm Halle Berry and I'm loved because I'm hot" factor rather than actual acting (kinda like Angelina Jolle who had her wheelhouse but not a ton of nuance..but that improved as she aged/took more diverse roles). Don't get me wrong, some of it is hollywood, action/strong women roles are just now coming into their own with women actually learning/doing stunts or working out to fit the role but Ms. Berry is still imo old black hollywood, which is a face and not an actor, not the method of becoming a character. And it works, black spending power is at about 1.1 Trillion and we fiercely support our own (Tyler Perry built an empire of bad movies and plays after all..I know I shall get roasted for that but Medea isn't funny.) and for a while we didn't stereotypically support fantasy/sci fi comics as much as other groups in part because of lack of representation. That is changing, it isn't weird to be a nerd and AA anymore (thank goodness because I was sure I was going to catch a charge if one more person told me I was trying to "act white") it isn't weird for mainstream America to like superheroes (although I had one funny incident where a Jehovah's Witness came to my door decrying super hero movies and I was wearing a marvel vs capcom 2 shirt at the time) so I hope that as the X-men are rebooted that we will get an actor that understands the character.

Don't get me wrong, Ms. Berry has her wheelhouse, she is very emotive in drama, or in roles where she is a scrappy victim or in her earlier roles the surprisingly sassy girlfriend, but she is not charismatic (of course what a woman finds charismatic in a woman a man may not.) and while I won't call her a weak woman, I don't find her to be particularly strong or inspiring one. I'll absolutely admit that I am sensitive/picky about Storm. What Wonder Woman is for some women, Storm is for me. Again Storm was my heroine growing up (she still is of course but I'm talking childhood idolization) and Ms. Berry was woefully disappointing. She was not Storm. She was Halley Berry with a bad wig and some wire work.

Also, when I saw the first movie in theaters she had two accents and dropped the "African" accent about a quarter of the way in. I'm a hobbyist linguist so I will NEVER forgive her that. That was the first movie I walked out on. It sounds different from the blue ray version so there is that at least.

I've got other issues but I'm trying not to hijack this thread. I would have picked Angela Bassett. Forgive the typos, my boss is kinda staring at my screen and she is not having a good day.

Can I still play a wii console online. Can somebody tell me

@Ryu_Niiyama Fair enough. I get the personal hero thing, had a couple of those myself, and in some ways, I still do, and I can also respect a personal taste. And as you already suspected/hinted at, we probably look at things slightly differently, being of opposite genders and all.

As for the depiction of Storm in X-Men, I do have to add to my previous comment, that I actually only remember her, because for the life of me, I can't remember any of the other actresses that portrayed Storm after she did, so she at least left some impression on me, and it wasn't that bad in my opinion.

In fact, if I'd have to pass a verdict on all the movie X-Men myself, then the only two that REALLY stood out in a positive way, were indeed Hugh Jackman (regardless of his height, which I do agree with you on, obviously) and Patrick Stewart, and maybe to some degree, Michael Fassbender's portrayal of a younger Magneto. As brilliant of an actor that sir Ian McKellen is, I never liked his old and frail version of Magneto, and all the rest of them are by and large completely forgettable, and if we're going to put those under the microscope, then just about every other Marvel/Fox/Sony film will also at least have several things to complain about...

Then again: as a general rule, I've already decided LONG ago, to let go of my comic-focused tunnel vision, when it comes to movie adaptations, because they never have gotten it 100% right, and they never will. In large part due to there being FAR too much source material, and partly because you just can't translate everything imagined on paper to film in such a way that it's still believable.

For the former, just look at the whole Marvel story that we've received so far: that may be 10 years worth of MCU, but they've cherry-picked from well over 40 years of comics story lines and sagas, and some stuff has either been altered to better fit the MCU narrative, or left out altogether, because otherwise, we'd probably be looking at six movies (at the VERY least) per character, instead of a trilogy...

But about Halle Berry: I hope you didn't get the impression that I just like her as eye candy, attractive as she might look. She made some real stinkers back in the day. I mean: Cat Woman, anybody?

But watch her in Monster's Ball, or in Gothika, where she alone got positive reviews for her performance, while the movie as a whole was panned (14% on Rotten Tomatoes, 38 on Metacritic). Pretty much the same happened with the movie Frankie and Alice, where once again, she alone was complimented, while the movie itself was sent to drown in some of the lowest scores ever.

In short: just saying the lady is much more than eye candy, and that she definitely CAN act. And go and give Extant a try. If you still feel like it's not grabbing you, after like 2 or 3 episodes max, then I'm fully prepared to apologize to you for making you sit through that.

Unless of course, you don't like sci-fi movies in general, in which case you probably wouldn't even want to watch it in the first place...

@Ninfan Not by any official means, no. But there are die hard fan groups of Mario Kart, Smash Bros and so on, that host private servers. Never got into that, though. All that fidgeting to get it to work, and I never was much of a Nintendo-online gamer to begin with.

@ReaderRagfish Nintendo never did want to give up on the ‘Notes’ page at the end of the booklets, did they?

After a brain drain day at work, spirit hunting in Smash was hard! I could hardly get my act together and had to keep falling back to my giant metal Ridley. Time for running around colonial Boston with no motive.

As someone who has never followed comics, that whole conversation is as incomprehensible as explaining D&D THAC0 to a centurion.

I feel the urge to talk about trains. So... Hows about the venerable GG1?

Also, the camilla pic was kinda getting old, so now its Sonia instead!

Patch those ethernet cables

@ReaderRagfish How I deal with it is always assuming they are false unless proven true.

Same, I don’t believe leaks unless it’s my plumbing or truck. Sometimes I stay in prolonged denial for those, too.

@ThanosReXXX Thanks. I used to use TinyPic, but it kept displaying...interesting adverts that I'd rather not see, so I tried PostImage for the first time.

Just watched Aladdin and it was good. Not as good as in the animation but good as adaptation.

Meanwhile, i'm planning to watch Aladdin 2019 movie again for the third time tomorrow.

I’m doing some late spring cleaning today. I was planning on yard work, but the forecast keeps changing by the half hour.

@HobbitGamer - After realizing yesterday that I was woefully unprepared to just go buy a weed eater/string trimmer/spinning yard work machine, I made a quick pivot to spring cleaning my garage. I still had my snow blower, salt spreader, and winter gear sitting out. I put them all away and lined the walls with fun stuff. Bicycles, tricycles, wagons, squirt guns, fire pit, frisbees, balls, plant/tree supplies. My kids were very excited. They’re off on a wagon adventure right now.

@bimmy-lee Luckily we only get snow once every 4-6 years here, so I don’t have to fiddle with winter gear. But the flip side is that things grow 11 months a year 😂. January all the yard tools get cleaned, oiled, and greased, then they’re back in service.
It still didn’t rain, so I managed to ride the mower across the neighborhood to do my friends lawn, weed, then begin to take my driveway back from crab grass. It tried annexing 3-4 inches on the each side.
Do the youts have those old Radio Flyer wagons? Are those even a thing anymore?

Now I’ll actually get to cleaning once I find something to put on the tv. Maybe I’ll finally see what this Spongebob show is all about

I'm still waiting until 2AM here to watch The Sims 4 presentation from EA Play today. Hopefully my wish will comes true...
25 minutes to go.

@HobbitGamer - You’re a good neighbor! There’s very little outside work more rewarding than putting a nice straight edge around the hard surfaces and driveway. It’s just so fulfilling when you’re done. I bet the crab grass can take it over pretty quick. When I worked for parks and rec in Portland, I had a square park .25 mile on every side. It had been years since it was edged. I did every inch of both sides of the sidewalk. Cut, scrape, load, dump, repeat. Two miles. It was almost two weeks of work. So fun.

Radio Flyer is indeed still flying. Seems like they offer more than ever. That’s our wagon, though it’s probably not much like you remember. It’s enormous and all plastic, including the tires. It has a canopy, fancy drink holders, and storage. My parents bought it. The old fashioned metal or wood Flyers with rubber, air filled tires still exist, which is what we wanted for them, but my parents showed up with this monstrosity and were like, “It’s bigger AND it was cheaper than those old fashioned wagons.” Ah well. The kids love it, that’s all that matters.

If I could make a suggestion for background noise while cleaning, I would suggest Mister Rogers Neighborhood if you have Prime. It sounds crazy, but I’ve recommended it to a couple friends; and they love it. It’s like stress therapy while you work. Some great songs as well. “Tree, Tree, Tree” is a personal favorite. This is the third time in a week I’ve typed his name on this site. It’s starting to get a little out of hand.

Sigh.... 😢😢😢
The Sims 4 will never going to Nintendo Switch. 😭
I have watched EA Play about The Sims 4 just now and..... No mentioning about Switch version. It just only about New Expansion Pack: Island Living on PC, PS4 & Xbox One. 😔
My reaction was not really excited despite in my heart i still happy to get another new stuffs, but since i have to play in PS4, I wasn't really happy to play The Sims 4. It was like my beloved games trapped in wrong machine as hostages. I just gave a "little handclap" for The Sims 4 new stuffs.

Dang it ! 😤
I still have to keep my PS4 Slim for playing The Sims 4 and Portal Knights.
I guess EA is really really Abysmal right now....

@Anti-Matter - Ah, sorry. I was hoping you’d get it. Now go to sleep young man!