u/harry_powell

It sure beats playing with puppies or eating spicy food.

I thought about this re-watching The Place Beyond The Pines the other day. To me, it’s a masterpiece. And I’ve been following Cianfrance ever since hoping that he would reach those heights again. He’s solid, I enjoyed the recent Roofman. But it doesn’t come close to Pines, unfortunately.

What other directors do you feel are like him?

P.D.: Let’s skip the ones who just went off the rails like Neil Blomkampt or Richard Kelly. Those are more in the “lost cause” category.

I mean someone like Tracy Letts, who constantly does mini-reviews of old movies that aren’t necessarily classics. You discover a ton stuff thanks of patrons like him.

A lot of directors have been in the “one for me / one for them” scenario. A famous case is Cameron Crowe doing Vanilla Sky (which was a remake of a Spanish thriller) in exchange for being able to do Almost Famous (clearly a personal project).

Other times filmmakers have to take a studio gig in order to get out of director’s jail and demonstrate they can play ball and deliver something comercial under budget. There’s also cases in where they do it for the money, in order to survive. Or even to pay debts. Coppola’s “Jack” would be another one.

One that’s recent is “Flight Risk” by Mel Gibson, basically a direct-to-dvd Mark Wahlberg vehicle.

Is it just cause it’s bad?

I’m not talking about Director’s Cuts in general or movies that were stolen by the studio/producers. So let’s exclude all the Kingdom of Heaven/Brazil examples. I’m focusing only on that aughts phenomenon that had every popular comedy get an unrated/extended cut on the dvd.

There’s Something About Mary, Tropic Thunder, The Hangover, Dumb and Dumber… the list is endless. And it also happened retroactively with old titles like Stripes, The Blues Brothere… All had a longer cut that inevitably was way worse, making the story drag, with unfunny deleted scenes tacked on with no reason all so they could sell something new for the home video market. And we’re still suffering the consequencies as most times that extended cut is the only version available on streaming.

My question is, has there ever been an outlier? A comedy where the new cut is the better one?

I’d never use an AI picture of me for a dating app, as that feels wrong, but I’m not sure about LinkedIn.

The one I have currently it’s with a very different hairstyle and general look, I almost seem like a different person now. I don’t have the time to get a proper studio shot, so I’m considering using one of those AI services in where you feed it a few selfies and it generates some professional looking headshots.

But I wonder if there’s an stigma around those. What’s your take?

Some examples:

- The 45min mockumentary “Curse Of The Blair Witch” that was shown on tv around the release of “The Blair Witch Project”. It really helped prepping the viewer for all the lore. I think that if someone justs puts on the movie without that, it’s just not the same experience.

- Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited” had a short called “Hotel Chevalier” that was shown on theaters right before the movie. Now it feels lost as if it was a random dvd extra.

- Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” has both the animated “Tales Of The Black Freighter” and a mockumentary called “Under The Hood” that are good additions to the experience.

- “Tropic Thunder” has its own “Heart Of Darkness” parody as “Rain Of Madness” following Steve Coogan’s character.

What else I’m missing?

I’ve heard about the show and the premise sounds very intriguing, but the fact that it’s gonna be 5 full seasons when it ends gives me pause. It kinda feels like the story would be suited for a miniseries, not 50 hours of plot.

Am I wrong or is the show full of dead ends, navel gazing and padding?

Don’t do spoilers when making your argument either way, please.

When talking about good music biopics people tend to favour the ones that are a bit experimental (Better Man, Love and Mercy, I’m Not There), are mostly fictional (Amadeus) or focus in just a tiny part of the subject’s life (Sid and Nancy).

More traditional biopics showing the early childhood, rise to fame, drug and relationship issues, final redemption… tend to be ridiculed and the subject of parody (Walk Hard, famously). And it’s true, when badly done, they suck (see the recent Michael Jackson or Queen ones). But what about the ones who unashamedly follow every convention in the book and in spite of that are very good or even great?

Which one would you pick?

I know Vyvanse is a vasoconstrictor and that can affect negatively one’s erection. But in my case the effect is brutal, if I take just 30mg at 7am, then my dick is totally useless until at least 8pm. And even then, it’s not 100%.

I’ve tried taking Cialis and helps a tiny bit but not enough.

Meanwhile, if I’m off Vyvanse just for a couple of days, my erections are back to 100% and better than ever.

Is the fact that I’m so sensitive to Vyvanse something to worry about? Is anyone like me? How do you manage?