Jex

I really want people to think about this. After all the insane lawsuits, all the threats, all the bullshit weve seen from this admin and the targets who kneeled in fear, an average Joe called the president a Pedophile protector to his face and didn't get touched. That's the Power of a union.

Trump's attempt to crush a religious uprising might be obvious if the press corps treated everyone’s faith as equally authentic, hence equally legitimate. It doesn’t.

On this ep: how badly the Narnia movie wanted to be Harry Potter, how the movie disconnects from the war reality Lewis was writing in, how the movie gives Lewis' portrayal of women's roles short shrift, and whether the GameCube game is a secret classic (probs not!)

open.spotify.com/episode/2rJI...

I have a similar heuristic for whether to take any writing advice seriously, by asking "did Star Wars 1977 flout this"

Back for the November No Kings protest, I took an Abolish ICE sign and didn't think twice that what I was bringing was particularly radical or extreme. They do the bad things we're opposing! It just didn't cross my mind.

What ICE needs is more training. (extremely close to mic voice) potty training

The new ep of Adaptive Difficulty finally tackles that infamous white whale of both literature and film:

Tom & Jerry and the Wizard of Oz

A movie which, per its blank Rotten Tomatoes score, we now have the first published review of.

open.spotify.com/episode/4O8l...

For 248 years the streets of America didn’t feature a roving masked federal kidnapping squad that might send you a Central American death camp or just murder you themselves, but getting rid of it now is some impossible lefty fantasy that professional Democrats lamentably must struggle against.

"what are we going to do with 20,000 ICE agents if we abolish ice" well to start with I think we should all literally spit on them in public for the rest of their lives

I think if you are watching the movie already understanding he's a character you can empathize and relate to in some ways, the ending goes down much smoother.

Not that he will behave perfectly from now on, but that his focus and priorities could shift and at least improve him.

But Marty is cool and Safdie and Chalamet know it! He's funny, he exudes an aura, even his ambition and drive has admirable elements which I'm sure the successful Hollywood creators related to while writing and filming, even if it leads the character to dark places.

Happening a lot with Marty Supreme, which people are either misinterpreting or upset at the ending of,

[spoilers ahead]

because they've decided they're Media Literate, and therefore know Marty is an unlikable narcissist unworthy and incapable of change.

Been thinking recently how people are so proud/quick to discuss how they realize a protagonist is a bad person and not a good example or w/e, but this obfuscates the fact that these "bad protagonists" are generally rooted in something the creator finds cool, admirable, or alluring.

I'd say most of them are spiritual successors of Riven more than Myst, which was better at being like this

Speaking of, the Riven remake from 2024 is fantastic.

I've seen them called knowledge-based puzzle games, or "Metroidbrainias" (which is definitely too clever and insular)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

New pod episode!

As we do every new year (2 for 2!) we soldier on to the next Star Wars novelization, The Empire Strikes Back!

Is there any point to making this book at all? Do probe droids have feelings? And remember: Blue Yoda isn't real, he can't hurt you.

open.spotify.com/episode/1S74...

The Garden Party
All Summer in a Day

It doesn't bother me when people just don't like them but it's astounding that people still think it's interesting to mention Dances With Wolves / no cultural impact. They are doing it in droves under this post that's obviously bored with it as if they are going to suddenly convince someone!

They actually do keep adding ticket sales to Rocky Horror's original domestic box office. It's just that maybe a couple not sold-out screens a week with a moderate uptick around Halloween isn't actually worth as much as you would expect. Not anywhere near even a domestic record let alone worldwide.

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

New episode covering Pride and Prejudice, the novel and the 2005 film adaptation celebrating its 20th anniversary.

open.spotify.com/episode/463x...

Each episode we read the book, watch the movie, and try to take an intelligent look at the adaptation that moves beyond just judging it on a checklist of accuracy, instead getting at the heart of the themes each reaches for.

They are lighthearted and intelligent conversations that I'm proud of.

To eat up some holiday travel, may I recommend my podcast: Adaptive Difficulty

With eps on Little Women, Clue, The Green Knight, and soon Pride and Prejudice, we have a shocking amount of autumnal and hibernal content across our 16 episodes!

open.spotify.com/show/35vy6Jk...

I'm 2 years older than you and what I have to remind myself at this point is that these people can be 8 years younger than me and still be legal adults making these posts. And not all of them are adults anyway. So maybe they really didn't burn any CDs when they were 10 in 2017.

"they didn't release the good emails from the sex criminal the president was friends with"

Film is (usually) more detailed than the 4K resolution, so they go back to original negatives or well preserved prints.

In general, movies shot on film stand to gain more from the format than digital ones.

There are fantastic looking silent era 4Ks, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari!

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

New episode of Adaptive Difficulty podcast, about 2023's Mario movie! We discuss our Nintendo nostalgia, the perils of having a plot without a story, and apologies we may owe A Minecraft Movie.

spotify.link/jCg3RYieJXb

ICE is not only chasing down every random brown person in Chicago, they have a cameraman following them to film this for social media. Cruelty and inhumanity as content.

Their DGA interview/podcast was fun, mostly just Spielberg listing a bunch of moments he liked while PTA graciously accepts

In this specific case it's pretty blatantly illegal and lower level employees would be quick to get fired and blacklisted over it in any other presidency. I know it's silly to point out illegal things now but that's why it didn't happen in the past.

If not Myst then at least Riven (remake allowed). Unique in that they basically turn the experience of puzzle solving into doing anthropology and cultural immersion in a way any other medium would struggle to accomplish.

No Country for Old Men

New episode of Adaptive Difficulty - No Country for Old Men!

We talk the book, the movie, and the 80s screenplay (what we know of it)

Plus we determine who Chigurh would have voted for*

*between Adams and Jefferson

open.spotify.com/episode/4GMD...