Again, Darkest Hour isn't terrible. It just wasn't that compelling. I assume you saw Sully. You know how it kept within an insanely narrow story in terms of plot, the likes of which they had to stretch and pull just to somehow make a full movie out of it? I felt that way about Darkest Hour. However, Sully was far more enjoyable.

I gather that Gary Oldman is a big favorite for Best Actor, which I can't hate simply because Gary Oldman is awesome and I'll be happy for him if he wins. However, his performance in Darkest Hour is nothing special. I preferred John Lithgow as Churchill.

I actually never saw Sully.

Was looking forward to Darkest Hour, but if it ranks below Phantom Thread? Yikes.

It was an easier watch than Phantom Thread FWIW. I can just muster more objective appreciation for Phantom Thread, largely (but not solely) on the strength of Daniel Day-Lewis.

Just saw The Post. Enjoyed it more than Call Me By Your Name, but The Post is more my type of movie, whereas CMBYN is definitely not.

So I have not really mentioned the whole Eagles winning the Super Bowl thing here, because I didn’t want to come off as a stereotypical Philly fan. I do want to mention however that I have been at Disney World all week, and on more than a few occasions have seen complete strangers who are wearing Eagles gear just walk up to each other and high five or even hug each other. It’s a thing of beauty and my wife is in complete awe. I don’t know how common this is with other teams but I’d like to think it’s a Philly thing. Either way it’s pretty great.

As much as I feel zero happiness for Philly fans, I can identify. This vid of Seahawk fans reacting to the NFCCG the year we won the Super Bowl is the rare time I was brought to happy tears just by watching other kindred souls melt down in happiness.



Sports are awesome.

Took me a while to get around to it after this sequence, but confirmed, this was a good recommendation. Very much enjoy this show.

Zach Woods (previously Gabe) is one of the funniest parts of Silicon Valley IMO. I was lukewarm on him on The Office as well.

Not that he's that different from the Gabe character here, but Zach Woods comes off as likable to me in this clip:

Unless you turn out to hate CMBYN, it looks like our biggest difference is going to be about Three Billboards.

I can forgive some dumb stuff, but this movie had WAY too many illogical scenes that by the time they got to I just figuratively threw my hands up and said "**** this".

It was so infuriating that I started to go back and retroactively think about other scenes that didn't bother me at the time, but do now. Even writing that paragraph above is annoying me.

AND STILL was somehow better than Darkest Hour. First 30-40 minutes were actually mildly intriguing. Middle hour or so dragged a ton. And anyone who was a part of that final 20 or so minutes should be shot out of a cannon.

That part might be the single worst scene of any BP nominated film since the end of Sixth Sense.

It's nominated for 6 Oscars and I won't even care if it won 5 of them (though I really think Chalamet should win Best Actor). But it even being considered for BP is insanity.

New BP rankings:

1 Call Me By Your Name
2 Lady Bird
3 The Post
4 Dunkirk
5 The Shape of Water
6 Three Billboards
7 Phantom Thread
8 Darkest Hour

Largest gaps are before and after Dunkirk. 2 and 3 as well as 6 and 7 are practically ties.

Molly's Game was solid. Hated that scene but it certainly didn't ruin the movie. Idris Elba was outstanding and should have received a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Also really enjoyed I, Tonya. Robbie deserves an Oscar for that.

I greatly enjoyed the end of The Sixth Sense at the time, but admittedly I find that movie to not hold up well at all with age.

Kevin Costner was pretty rough in Molly's Game. I mean, he's never been much of an actor...he falls into that category of "likable dude who mostly doesn't totally suck, and has landed parts in some good movies," but I did think he was noticeably bad in this one. I didn't like that scene you referenced either, and honestly I don't think the screenplay was nomination-worthy either. I get that I might be particularly sensitive to this as a lawyer and a past poker fanatic who still plays now and then, but there was just so much ham-fisted explaining of topic-specific points in order to make topics accessible to the mass audience, and even while appreciating the necessity of that goal, I thought the execution of the explanation stuff was really clunky.

CMBYN still isn't playing at a MoviePass-eligible location near me, but it looks like it may be arriving on Friday. Hoping to get to that one and I, Tonya over the next week.

I Tonya is a lot of fun if you enjoy dark comedy.

Speaking of poker I just fit in a session at the MGM National Harbor before driving to EVOLVE101. Was on the business end of a squash match playing 5 card PLO—strong hands just refused to hold up.

I think I’m going to see if I can work a profile of Darby Allin for Spectacle of Excess when I’m there.

I had a live poker hand not long ago wherein I limp-reraised a maniac all-in preflop with AA. He called me without much delay and flipped over A2.

Flop 346r. Not great, but obviously still a big favorite. Villain says, "Alright, not bad. Keep it small."
Turn pairs the 3. Villain yells out, "YES!" I had to at least spend half a second confirming to myself that he hadn't just sucked out, or even picked up any outs.
River was a blank.

He didn't protest as the pot shipped my way - obviously he had to have realized that he misread the turn or something - but he also never really acknowledged his strange outburst.

Went to a poker game for a Meetup group last night and half the people took at least 10 seconds on the river to correctly read the board/their hand. Maybe it's my location, but live games feel softer than they did back when I was in college during the poker boom

My local casino's games aren't great IMO, definitely not as soft as boom-era games in my neck of the woods. Most tables seem to just have one standout terrible player at a time and then some meh players that have leaks but aren't anything worth salivating over.

Indiana isn't soft, really? I can't fathom many grinders populating those games, unless you mean tables are just full of old man coffees

Lots of old dudes among the apparent regs, and most of them aren't terrible, nor are they fond of giving a ton of action.

The games seem winnable enough for a good player, but it's a far cry from Party Poker.

Holy ****, that aspy boss woman from Silicon Valley is the same actress as the "yada yada" woman from Seinfeld? Mind blown.

WTF

Those are 20 years apart. She's aged quite well.

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir confirmed GOAT.

So what the hell is with you crazy bastards who frequent the POG politics thread?

I follow politics pretty closely, but I tend to see limited value in engaging in frequent forum discussion. Except in POG. I don't see limited value there; I see MASSIVE negative value. I pop my head in there once every six months or so and it's always just that conspiracy nut holding court over a derail.

I don't have a good answer for this.

She also played the main non-live in friend on two guys a girl and a pizza place.

I've wound down a bit on my participation. It's essentially turned into the Luckbox variety conspiracy theory hour thread.

I would have more of an amused point-and-laugh relationship with conspiracy nuts if I saw it as harmless idiocy rather than being a non-negligible source of the broader dumbing-down of society that has continued to cause more and more very real damage.

By the way, reading my post back, it's not particularly well-worded. Broadly speaking, there's significant value in exchanging ideas on the issues of our day among people who you feel can offer value with their unique point of view, but keeping an ongoing caustic dialog with those who don't bring a respectable point of view is what I regard as low-value, and unfortunately far too much political conversation these days is either the caustic, pointless bickering or some variation of a self-congratulatory echo chamber where little is actually being learned.