While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[Masada]

i swear to GOD if those IOT FASCIST-MONGRELS try one more EFFING time to impose their LAWS on me, i will napalm their hometowns and take the people they grew up with and bury them in a mass grave

You forgot the cross burning and funny hats.

 

[ChiefDesigner]

/tips a rubbish bin

youu can't spell RIOT without IOT

 

[Terrance888]

The second u really completes the image there.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Diversity accentuates our strengths and diminishes our weaknesses.

If one day you look back and see proud NESer traditions forgotten and trampled... It was not IoT's fault. It was your fault for taking things for granted and failing to live by those principles yourself.

 

[Crezth]

Also, for not gassing the IOTers when we had the chance.

 

[Symphony D.]

In the same way that multiculturalism is often a tool of the oppressor to silence the oppressed by denying the downtrodden the tools and space with which to articulate that a boot treads upon them, so too does the NESer who speaks of unity with the IOTer use it to advance his agenda. Did not the esteemed Michael Corleone say "keep your friends close but your enemies closer?" Beware of he who would embrace you in your so-called cultural distinctiveness, for he does so on his terms and in his heart he dreams himself your master.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Well indeed, Symphony has exposed my true agenda...

'Anti-racism works toward true equality, while [multisubforumism] just seems to mean harmonious co-existing under a strict set of conditions where [NESers] hold positions of authority'

 

[Symphony D.]

So in Limitless, Bradley Cooper gave up hanging out with hung-up on Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis and has become a writer. He meets with his ex's brother who gives him some drugs but these drugs make him super smart (he's got a 4-digit IQ! this isn't questionable at all!) but despite being literally smarter than Sherlock and Batman after having done the fusion dance (Batlock, not Sherman) he doesn't immediately use his super intelligence to ponder deep questions like Who made this drug?, Is there more of it?, How long do the effects last?, Are there side-effects?, How do I get more?, What is the black goo?, or Are there other people on this drug?, and instead of immediately setting about to secure a supply of the stuff (see: the vastly superior The Bourne Legacy) he finishes 90 pages of his book.

Also it makes his eyes a bit more blue heh Dune reference natch KILL EVERYONE WHO UNIRONICALLY USES THE WORD NATCH

So his ex's bro dies and he scores more pills! Not sketchy! He finishes his book, then invests in some stock using Russian loan shark money, and becomes rich, leading to a job interview with Robert De Niro. He also finds out that he's blacking out and losing time at random and maybe killed a woman. Did he kill her? Meh. All this happens over some indeterminate amount of time but he uses hundreds of pills and he only takes them once ever 6-8 hours at the minimum. Also he's surprised when he runs out. Can you tell this guy is super smart? Maybe he should've shopped at S-MART.

So he goes to talk to his ex to ask about the pills and finds out she was on them too and now she looks 40! Totally not hot. Also most of the people who took them and stopped died. So now, finally, super smart Bradley Cooper finally decides to start looking into how these pills work. Bobby De Niro hires BC to do a business merger for him. Some shenanigans happen with the Russian loan shark and a love interest and you don't care and neither do I. Everything goes south but it all works out for BC.

A year later, BC has sold his book, is still rich, and is running for Senator, and Bobby reveals he bought out the company that'd been producing BC's drugs the whole time and also shut down BC's private lab, but BC is way smarter than him and had several labs working on it and they already fixed it and he maybe made the effects permanent and the movie ends with his love interest wondering if he's really off the drug and of course he isn't ya dumb broad who would give up being super smart?

It's an okay premise but literally every single thing about the execution is bad and even Skeletor and Starscream are more intelligently written than Eddie Morra because Eddie Morra is only as smart as Leslie Dixon and Leslie Dixon apparently isn't that smart (though she did make probably >$100,000 off this script so she's a good capitalist). Do not write supposedly really smart characters this way because I will find a way to put a pair of scissors through your monitor even if you live on Mars.

 

[Shadowbound]

While you're on your movie watching binge, I should point out that wunderdrug was supposed to create feelings of invincibility, and that Bradley Cooper didn't run out of the drug, his stash was stolen. So it's perfectly reasonable that he had some plan to acquire more before he ran out, which got thrown for a loop when his supply disappeared faster than he expected.

I like how the book ends better. Instead of an ass-pull ending, the main character dies after realizing that a fellow druggie is President.

You should do Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Plastic Skull next.

 

[Symphony D.]

The last one of these that I watched was in January. I don't deliberately watch terrible movies. I'm also not going to bother doing something RLM already smashed.

You're right about how he lost the stash, but he also lost it to his attorney, whom is likely not a very accomplished pickpocket. He's outfoxed by his Russian loan shark, who's intelligent enough to know how to amplify the potency of the drug by injecting it. He also hires multiple labs to redesign the drug despite being the smartest person ever and so implicitly being capable of learning biochemistry and easily redesigning it much faster himself. So he's super smart, but essentially worse than everyone else at everything until the end, and also bad at time management.

The people who made the drug aren't using it despite the side-effects only being an issue if you stop taking it, when they control the entire production line. Robert De Niro also isn't using it to rival him, despite now controlling a production line and knowing he's on it.

The list of utterly incomprehensible decisions given the advantages conferred goes on. Chronicle was a better handling of "You now have <superpower>" than Limitless, and that's a bad sign.

 

[Grandkhan]

I feel not enough emphasis was put on Bradley Cooper's spontaneous declaration that he literally 'rewired his brain so that he's permanently on the drug, all the time, without having to take it.'

Why does he have multiple laboratories working on it then? Why does the original laboratory work on it? And why doesn't Robert de Niro start taking the genius drugs if he's got access to a permanent supply - in fact, if Bradley Cooper can become president after taking magic space drugs, why can't Robert de Niro just take them himself and become President properly without having to beg BC for power?

The ending of that Limitless falls really, really flat. I spent the entire movie thinking it was just an extended (though quite enjoyable, I guess) anti-drug metaphor, up until the last five minutes when any message or point kind of spontaneously evaporated through the magic of deus ex machina.

 

[Symphony D.]

Movies I've Seen That Aren't That Well Known That You Should Watch As Listed By My Netflix Ratings:

5:
The Man From Nowhere (Ajeossi)
The Yellow Sea (Hwang hae)
Man on Fire
Snatch
Drive
The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Jo-eun nom nappeun nom isanghan nom)
Four Lions
Vengeance (&#24489;&#20167;)
Exiled (&#25918;&#8231;&#36880;)]

4:
Harry Brown
Flame and Citron
A Company Man (Hoi-sa-won)
Largo Winch
The Show Must Go On (Uahan segye)
Side Effects
John Dies at the End
Adrift in Tokyo (tenten)
Primer
Rough Cut (Yeonghwanun Yeonghwada)
In Bruges
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Boksuneun Naui Geot)
The Constant Gardener
The Chaser (Chugyeokja)
Bunraku
Secret Reunion (Uihyeongje)
Primal Fear
I Saw the Devil (Angmareul boatda)
Let the Bullets Fly (&#35753;&#23376;&#24377;&#39134;)
Point Blank (À bout portant)
Life Without Principle (&#22890;&#21629;&#37329;)
Election (&#40657;&#31038;&#26371;)
Oldboy (Oldeuboi)
Margin Call
New World (Sinsegye)

Korean cinema is pretty good and Johnnie To basically doesn't make bad movies.

 

[Crezth]

I feel not enough emphasis was put on Bradley Cooper's spontaneous declaration that he literally 'rewired his brain so that he's permanently on the drug, all the time, without having to take it.'

Jesus Christ, really? That's some anime-level "oh but didn't you know" bs.

Also seconding In Bruges.

Moderator Action: Watch the language...
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Perfectionist]

In a better world we'd spend the next page or two quoting it at each other, but the FASCIST MODS and their CENSORSHIP make that a bit difficult.

 

[Tee Kay]

It wouldn't happen if this was an Australian forum

 

[Grandkhan]

Jesus Christ, really? That's some anime-level "oh but didn't you know" bs.

Also seconding In Bruges.

Moderator Action: Watch the language...
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Yep.


Link to video.

Maybe they're trying to be ambiguous but the ambiguity doesn't work when they tell you which of the options didn't happen.

I actually really liked In Bruges so I'm curious what Symph thinks of it.

 

[Kozmos]

Infernal Affairs is also an okay movie. It was used as a basis for the Departed.

 

[Lord_Herobrine]

Diversity accentuates our strengths and diminishes our weaknesses... If one day you look back and see proud NESer traditions forgotten and trampled... It was not IoT's fault. It was your fault for taking things for granted and failing to live by those principles yourself.

-Daftpanzer 2014

 

[CivOasis]

Saw Primer, enjoyed it. Started to watch Snatched, fell asleep (had nothing to do with the film, I was just tired). Other than that, haven't seen any of the movies on that list.

 

[Symphony D.]

I actually really liked In Bruges so I'm curious what Symph thinks of it.

It is a good movie. I believe Colin Farrell primarily emotes through his eyebrows.