#like maybe instead of competing to be the best player you fucking…. master the basic fundamentals of ensemble playing first

[chewwytwee]

I remember why I like piano so much, I don’t have to deal with petulant bitchy half-rate band mates who couldn’t wipe their ass if my band director wasn’t holding their fucking hand and telling them how to do it

#.txt #our band director gives us a reasonable critique or suggestion and it takes us 5 minutes #to even fucking figure out what we’re supposed to be doing it’s EMBARASSING #I cannot understand how they aren’t fucking mortified by their behavior and lack of musical ability #no one is on the same page because everyone is convinced THEYRE the best player in the band #and therefore should be able to dictate what everyone else is supposed to do #like maybe instead of competing to be the best player you fucking…. master the basic fundamentals of ensemble playing first #all talking during rehearsal like they’re too good to have to listen to what’s going on #then act like they’re been personally slighted when our band director starts and they’re lost #like YOU were the one who wasn’t paying attention YOURE the one who can’t count your fucking music or come in without some other instrument #like we’re struggling with high school problems and it shows #IM fucking embarrassed to have to play with them tbh

[nctsukashii-archive-blog]

Most disliked arc (chapter)? Why?

The saltiest cracker you know is me, Bepsi!10. Most disliked arc (in this case, chapter)? Why? 

I bet you saw this shit comin a mile away huh?

Chapter 2.

Now, it might surprise you, but Hoshi dying isn’t even the worst part of the chapter for me. That’s more emotionally gut punching me and my hopes and dreams that joke characters can live past chapter 3. Actually, Hoshi is without a doubt the BEST part of Chapter 2 even with his death, just because of how amazingly he’s written. 

Sadly, even Hoshi cannot save this chapter from showing just how RUSHED and UNPOLISHED it is. Because holy jeEZ THERE’S A LOT WRONG (albeit it’s personal opinion for the most part). So while you may know them, or may learn something new from my opinion, that’s all cool! Under the cut as Chapter 2 is dissected and torn into to learn why it is sadly, my least fav of V3.

- RUSHED.

Now, this is really easy to see, and I’m sure many others have noticed it as well, but it bears a lot of repeating because it’s a problem. Chapter 2 was rushed to high heavens, in the sense that it mainly serves to push the plot along and nothing more. Things happen too quickly in the story at that point, and while the rest of the game is better off for it, this is the ONLY chapter that REALLY does it so blatantly, and it feels very choking as a result of it.- Tenko’s attachment to Himiko needed to happen, absolutely, but I feel like more should have been done in Chapter 1 to show Tenko trying to talk to her more? Maybe, “OOO maybe himiko wants to be my friend??” and more interactions that show that Tenko isn’t just attaching herself to Himiko b/c she’s “the creepy gay” character. - Toujou becoming the fucking supermaid. This one is the most obvious, but mmm. Everyone relying on her suddenly feels super forced, as characters like Shinguuji and Hoshi and even Maki herself, all ask Toujou to do something for them. It feels out of character for them, and the fact that THAT interaction is the MOST she gets in Chapter 2 before the trial is fucking trash and I’ll explain why in a later point, but you can just TELL that they needed SOMETHING to give her ANY story relevance, and it hurts her character a LOT. - Kaito suddenly wanting to help Maki’s super fucking weird. Maybe if it showed Kaito like “sorry Shuichi maybe later, I wanna try talking to Maki” more in this Chapter to really see that he wants to help her, or even just him going more like “hey Shuichi wanna include Maki in our training? I feel like she could use it.” or ANYTHING that mentions Kaito reaching out to Maki more. Because as it is now, it feels like he’s suddenly placing an all or nothing bet and it makes him, p unlikable at that point b/c Shuichi just goes with it for seemingly no reason because “yeah I guess i gotta progress the plot”. - Those are the main points. Maki is done surprisingly well, actually, she’s really good here. Being sus like that and actually not letting you do FTE’s was cool, and i liked it a lot. Angie’s slow buildup was also pretty good as well, but I think they coulda put Tsumugi in w/ Himiko at some point so it’s not ‘suddenly everyone’s brainwashed!’ in chapter 3, as a slower buildup would do it good! Or at least, more buildup, I should say.

- CLUNKY.

This one is a bit harder to explain, and it goes in hand with the pacing issue, but lemme try. Some of the events and dialogue in Chapter 2 just feel, really clunky? Like, Shuichi’s an emotional guy and I totally understand that, but I don’t think he’d just spill his feelings to the guy that punched him for showing weakness not even 2 days ago? I dunno, maybe it’s just me. It feels like a lot of Chapter 2 was glued into the story as requirements rather than actually to tell a story. It comes in a lot of ways, as previously mentioned a lot of relationships are just ‘suddenly there’ rather than actually built up, IE Kaito and Maki, Tenko and Himiko, etc... and it makes the entire Chapter feel like it’s meshed together with ideas that Kodaka REALLY wanted to be in the game or knew would happen later on, but just couldn’t fit them in, so he shoved them in an early chapter and hoped for the best.

- TOUJOU’S ABILITY TO DO JACK DIDDLY SHIT IN TERMS OF STORY.

Somehow, they managed to make one of the stars of this chapter barely active in it. Can you fucking believe that? Like, no really, if you work off of fan translations I want you to open the translation you have, hit CONTROL+F and search for Toujou and see like, the 30 lines she has before the trial. It’s so MINIMAL, it’s so BASIC, and in those 30 sentences she’s treated like a PLOT DEVICE rather than a CHARACTER. I’m sure a bit of the reason as to why Toujou isn’t as popular as most of the other girls is just how hard the Chapter hits her in terms of not giving her any character development (even in the bonus interaction she’s just “i do this for my job” for fucc sake). Like, even if it was played for a laugh that she’s just so constantly work-focused, or the writing took it as a bit of a punchline for some dry humor (”hey toujou what’re ya doin?” “working.” and just have awkward eye contact and the ‘WOW this is awkward’ thought in Shuichi’s head after a few “...” between the both of them as it happens. easy comedy. see???) it at least would make her seem somewhat important compared to the cast. Honestly, it’s like the Tsumugi Effect but in 2 chapters instead of 6. By doing nothing in terms of plot, she basically puts on this huge fucking sign that says “HEY GUYS IM NOT STORY RELEVANT BECAUSE NOTHING IS HAPPENING TO ME SO I WILL PROBABLY DIE AS A KILLER OR VICTIM” Her trial behavior is really hit or miss as well, because some might find her ruthlessness to be really cool and makes her actually fucking interesting at any point in the story, while others might find it unlikable, excessively cruel, or just out of character for Toujou no matter how desperate she may be. Let alone that her US demographic prolly tanked quite a lot w/ her story focusing on POLITICS of all things (one of the three no-no’s in any conversation), making her very very hard to like, besides on an aesthetic level. Let alone her FTE’s are the worst in the game, as you still barely learn anything about her outside of “im a maid and im good at my job” or other points that the main story already tells you (besides that she once coddled a man so hard he became dependent and that her only weakness is not cutting konjac right ever). It just makes her feel like a barren and incomplete character.

- TOUJOU’S ABILITY TO DO EVERYTHING SO WELL SHE CAN EVEN FUCK HERSELF OVER AMAZINGLY.

Everyone has heard me go on and on about this, but if it doesn’t get said no one will know it so I keep repeating it until the end of time.By making her plan so complex, she basically fucks herself. By making a crime that only someone as competent as her could accomplish, it fucks her because only she can do it. XD. Literally, who do you think would have been able to do all that shit in one night? Saihara’s too weak to drown Hoshi. Don’t fight me on this, because if you seriously believe the detective in training with little self defense training (he worked on infidelity and missing pet/kid cases for fuck sake, his life isn’t really on the line all that often so he prolly wouldn’t know or have to train all that much to protect himself) can take the tennis player that killed over 200 people and has been playing tennis basically all his life (enough to go INTERNATIONAL in MIDDLE SCHOOL) in a fight, we’re gunna need to have a talk.Gonta’s too heavy to use the ropeway.Kiibo’s too heavy to use the ropeway and too weak to carry Hoshi’s body.Himiko’s too weak to drown someone and attempt to shove them in the staircase (which I will touch on real soon here on why even attempting to frame her the way Toujou tried to was dumb as shit).Angie’s... lbr here, prolly missing a few too many tools in her toolbox to really think of a ropeway to kill Hoshi with.Shinguuji’s too weak (and before I get arguments on this, if u think this underweight twig of a man can take out Hoshi when Hoshi’s prolly faster than him and could just run ur wrong)Maki who was the Child Caregiver at the time would be seen as too weak to do anything to Hoshi too (even if she lifts kids, again, Hoshi is fucking rIPPED and has killer legs)Ouma’s too weak (i mean he’s underweight and looks like a twig)Kaito’s a fucking moron when it comes to master plans and wouldn’t have been able to plain something like a ropeway murder (let alone his idol complex wouldn’t have let him kill Hoshi most likely... unless it was a Mondo situation but that’s a later talk)Tenko’s also a fucking moron when it comes to long term planning let alone she wouldn’t touch a man unless to flip him to death, which makes the ropeway seem almost pointlessTsumugi’s too weak to (i mean... rlly. u rlly think she could take him down? under the assumption she isn’t the mastermind ofc at this point in the story, but even then sneak murdering all the kills seems kinda.... eh? too hard for her to do.) Miu’s also a fucking moron that wouldn’t think of using a ropeway (actually, she prolly woulda done the smarter option and just pushed Hoshi’s body out his fucking window since a ropeway would be too much effort)By process of COMMON SENSE, only Toujou would make something so NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED in an attempt to murder a guy. 

- THE DUMBEST PLAN ON EARTH AND HOW YOU COULD PLAN A SIMILAR MURDER AND GET AWAY WITH IT EASY. 

Toujou’s plan is fucking dumb when you can think of SO many other ways to get Hoshi killed with more leeway as to who coulda done it. So I bring up the window in his lab, because literally you could just push him out of it and the fall would prolly splatter that midget cunt on the ground no problem. Hell, even handcuff him. Nearly anyone could have pushed Hoshi out of the window, meaning there’s a possibility that Maki or Kaito could have done it w/o that stupid fucking ropeway let alone anyone at night (or hell even during the DAY since time of death was obscured), and it wouldn’t LEAVE THE FUCKING GLOVE.MMMM OKAY RANT HERE REAL QUICK I MEAN IT THAT FUCKING TRASH BAG GLOVE IRRITATES ME. Like, hhh I know Kodaka wanted to make a case where something like the glove gets the killer caught, but HOLY SHIT was it poor to use in a case like this. It not only feels like it’s out of place for her not to just get it in the morning, but why the fuck would she use her gloves anyways?? Why not use Hoshi’s hat? Anyone could use Hoshi’s hat as hand protection down the moronic ropeway and since it’s a beanie it’s prolly made of more strong material than I guess whatever her shit gloves are made of, since they tore like fuckin trash when she went down the ropeway. As someone that wears cut and heat protection gloves because of my job, the gloves she uses are HORRIBLY inefficient (let alone if she’s cleaning before touching food w/ them on... like please don’t that can cause so many health problems) to try and stop ropeburn. She could have also just poisoned everyone, or killed them all in their sleep, to make her job easier on herself. Can’t have a trial if no one’s there after all right? No one would suspect Toujou working on her fuckin job to come and snap their necks during the night or w/e, or poison their food before the show. But also framing Himiko is really fucking dumb. Like, she expects me to believe that Himiko, who is only 2 more pounds than Hoshi mind you, managed to drown him and stuff him in that staircase, and pull him out during the show in under a minute. LOL no. Hoshi looks like he can break her arms like fucking toothpicks without even trying?? Let alone her laziness makes it look REALLY hard for her to have planned a fucking murder. The fact that like, the first hour of the trial wants me to believe Himiko could be the killer is asinine, just because of how basically fucking illogical it is.What Toujou could have done instead, was leave his body drowned in the sink. Yeah, it’d be harder because not everyone can drown Hoshi (ie. Himiko and Ouma and prolly a few others that are considered sticks or weak), but there are a lot of people who could, and drowning someone is a lot easier than the stupid ropeway piranha bullshit. OR PUSH HIM OUT HIS WINDOW. JUST KILL EVERYONE THAT WAY COME ON.Actually, she coulda killed two people easy. Just have someone gullible like Saihara come to meet her at night in the lab after she’s already pushed Hoshi out the window (or even just come running to his room with a bullshit excuse that she saw a shadow ‘running away’ and saw that something happened in the tennis lab) and push him out the window too. Boom, makes it look like a murder gone wrong, and the only alibi that’d be able to testify about the events is hers. Easy win, everyone else gets executed.I get it, in the end, it needs to be a solvable mystery in a mystery game, but it ends up making Toujou look like a complete moron as a result of it, which is unfortunate.

- MOTIVE VIDEOS ARE RIGGED AS SHIT.

Upon learning what hers and Hoshi’s are, it seems almost rigged that they would have to be the killer and victim respectively. Hoshi’s telling him to ‘kys’ and Toujou’s saying ‘lol go kill someone’ makes it like... even if everyone else saw theirs that they’d be like.. the only two to really act on theirs besides MAYBE Miu or POSSIBLY Angie. And then we also see Ouma’s?? And his is just actively “lol u don’t kill bitch but u should do it anyways” making it seem almost counter productive. Like, bitch it just said Ouma made a rule that no killing was a thing and u genuinely expect his ass to break that? ha. The odds were stacked against the two of them, which makes it only seem more forced in the long run. Which is great from a meta standpoint, but a story can be meta while still being fun, enjoyable, and flowing functionally and logically. Which this chapter isn’t really.

- THE SADLY NOT REDEEMING BUT STILL SUPER GOOD HOSHI FACTOR.

Now, the one thing that I can praise this chapter for really well despite all its shortcomings is Hoshi’s characterization and his story. For one chapter he really makes a hard hit at the time, and it’s easy to become engrossed in his little background story about him wanting to find a reason to live. The real cherry on top is his writing and his interactions with the few people he interacts with. with Kaito, it really shows the disposition that Kaito has against him and just how Hoshi is so understanding of others and like... nice. Even when he wants a goal that goes against everyone, he still respects them. “I won’t do something reckless to endanger everyone.”, and acknowledging that it’s an entirely selfish reason why he wants to find the videos and will still not hurt anyone to do it. He may have threatened to show Maki’s video to everyone in exchange for his own from her, but he never hits her or directly harms / threatens her w/ violence or anything extremely dirty. It’s respectable. Ohhh, and Saihara’s dynamic with him is just so sPOT ON HERE. Between the great advice and compliments in general he has for Saihara such as “the world can be bright for someone that’s looked down for so long, be careful” and “you’re confident compared to before, like a weight is lifted off your back. it’s a good look for you” and other such flattery, to Hoshi being a bit more open to Saihara about his feelings (feeling jealous about everyone else having a reason to live, wanting to find one himself, openly admitting he feels he has no purpose in his life and wants to find a reason to be happy like everyone else, etc.). But this dynamic goes both ways, as Saihara also can read Hoshi super fucking well. Like, seeing the Tennis Lab is a great example of it. When Hoshi states the past is behind him, Saihara thinks to himself ‘but then why are you looking at the court with such sad eyes Hoshi-kun?’ and it’s like, just really nice that Saihara’s not dense? Like, Hoshi expresses himself pretty poetically, with the way he talks and whatnot, acting like a wise sage type w/ endless wisdom all the time, so Saihara being able to read past all the flowery language to just hear “god i miss tennis” or “im depressed” is really REALLY refreshing, and a nice balance to see. If you do Hoshi’s FTE’s it personally makes it even better, but that’s not a requirement so moving on. Even just Saihara asking him things like “are you doing well?” or “Is this what you want?” or “or just the small but surprisingly deep talks they just seem to have with one another are tiny details that really complete the dynamic that they can both read each other and can react to one another super well. It feels balanced between the both of them, even in Chapter 1, and it’s a shame Hoshi had to die because I would have LOVED to see how far it could go and how much it could have been expanded on in the later chapters. 

Sadly however, no matter how great Hoshi is, it can’t save Chappie 2 from it’s endless faults and gripes that I have with it, that ultimately make the story less entertaining as a result.

#reciprocation :: response #negative tw #//oh yes #my essays never stop when I have such thrilling subjects to rant about #//muaahahahaha!!!! #//thank u for sending in this one too! #//i had a blast with it. #blindedhope #parchments :: inbox

[things2mustdo]

The video game industry and culture changed substantially when women started to get involved. Whenever a successful male industry is created, a biological urge to change it comes from those with two X chromosomes. Here are e three ways that women have ruined gaming culture:

1. Inclusiveness

The videogame culture of the 70’s – 00’s was about making fun games to sell to consumers. This could mean controlling Bill and Lance from “Contra” to Duke in “Duke Nukem.” You bought video games that appealed to you and didn’t support the ones you didn’t like. Women don’t understand this basic formula. They would rather screech about a game not including a strong female role model than actually make a video game with a strong female role model.

A female Youtuber named Anita Sarkeesian used this premise to rally for more feminist narratives. A normal alpha would use Kickstarter to make a high budget game that appeals to them. Anita instead spent time begging on Kickstarter and used it to raise over $150,000 dollars to make snarky videos on an iMac. Females always want to be inclusive without putting in the work themselves. One example is this fat lady named Heidi.

This is an example of a woman who wants to write a poly-amorous love triangle  in video games instead of working on a new physics engine. It’s also not surprising that she’s a fat single mother with a useless degree. If we had this chick developing games instead of Shigeru Miyamato, Mario would be a transgender Eskimo amputee and he would beat up racist men instead of saving the princess. It would also mean that video game companies would go out of business. Since the type of feminists the “social justice” games would be marketed to rarely support businesses that aren’t clothing, decadent food and media publications.  In the big scheme of things, video-game companies need talented men to produce content that would be used to subsidize feminist outreach programs made by the same companies. Every time you see a conference or panel at a convention hosted by a video-game company about getting more women into the industry, you know that these wouldn’t even be possible without Joe Nerd spending 16 hours a day, 7 days a week unknowingly subsidizing it. Women want to be involved in things but don’t want to do the actual work to do so.

2. Video Game Journalism

Women and beta males have made video game journalism an entry point for dilettantes with humanity majors. Most major publications like Kotaku, Gawker, IGN, and Gamespot rather complain about how “sexist” GTA is than write actual meaningful game content. Video game publications have turned into tabloids with female writers at the helm. Most people can’t name a female game journalist because they coast on their male colleagues who do the actual work.

You’ll never have a Louis Theroux in the video game industry because women who work in the industry would bitch about inquisitive questions. They would rather write about some dumb ass model dressed up as a video-game character than something substantive.

3. Gamer Girls

The last part of this trifecta of regression is the culture of gaming brought in by women. The beta males of video gaming culture are the thirstiest betas in existence. When a former porn star can make more money by streaming video games for donations instead taking a fat dick, you know there has to be betas behind that.

You go to any Youtube channel about gaming and it will have a useless pretty chick talking about her experiences with Pokemon as a child. These women are not actual gamers but women riding a fad. They’re called “Gamer Gurls” for the reason to mock the gurl phrase that feminists like to use. These semi-attractive chicks have learned that they can get the princess treatment by pretending to be a video game enthusiast. Also another type of chick started to pop up. These women though don’t have the facade of being attractive. Instead they use videogames to up their social status. The land whales realized that if they could fake their enthusiasm for games, some video game beta would find them attractive as well. The betas fight over these chicks and since they’re all manginas of the highest degree. This is one of the reasons that betaness and even omeganess are the norms in video game culture.

Because of these reasons, video games have declined since their great rise in the 70’s-00’s. Girl gamers and their beta male hangers-on rather buy Call of Duty than support quality products. Don’t let women in to your sub-culture unless you want it permanently disfigured. Too bad they already did it to my favorite sub-culture.

https://www.returnofkings.com/12615/5-things-i-learned-from-call-of-duty

5 THINGS I LEARNED FROM CALL OF DUTY

WESTERN CANCER

I played a lot of video games growing up; not as much as those weird neck-bearded kids who play WoW, but enough to learn just how much time one can waste playing them. After I got home from school I’d grab a snack and sit my ass on the couch and start playing until dinner. I’d go to friends houses on weekends and play games and when a new game came out I’d play it tirelessly until I beat it. Fifteen hours a week isn’t all that much when you’re a teenager; school is easy and you have no reason to be doing anything else, but the older I get the more I realize how much of a time-sink it was. However, there are a few important lessons I learned from playing all those hours.

1. There are complainers…

Most guys who play CoD either talk shit about how they fucked your mother or they just keep silent. The rest are those who bitch and moan about every little detail. They’re the guys who complain you’re ‘hacking,’ playing unfairly, or using a loadout that gives you an advantage. They’re the sore losers and you encounter them in the real world all the time. In the real world those same guys whine about following the rules because they are scared of stepping out of line, they are the people who believe everyone needs to be brought to the same level lest one be left out. The best way I’ve found to deal with them is just ignore them. Ignore those who complain about perceived problems the same way you would ignore some 13 year old kid whining how using RPGs aren’t fair.

2. …and then there are those who find patterns.

On the more extreme end of things there are those who learn patterns and exploit them. They’re the guys who learn spawning patterns, optimized loadouts, good sniping positions and so on. They put in serious time to get good at the game, they also know they have to do more than learn the game to get good at the game. In the time it takes them to master the theoretical or detail oriented parts of the game their motor skills have increased as well. These guys are like us. We improve our social skills, appearance, and confidence as well as exploiting the current system in order to get better at the game of life.

3. The importance of competition

Competition is at the core of our masculinity, without it we are just participating in existence. Call of Duty is the most immediate form of competition I have come across and I never realized its importance until the first powerlifting meet I competed in. At the meet adrenaline coursed through my veins between attempts and although I cheered others on I felt a burning desire to lift as much as I damn could to prove myself better than the rest. While you may only be competing against half-literate, drugged out teenagers playing Call of Duty, you still get that same rush when trying to annihilate the other team. Even while relaxing with friends, having a few beers and playing CoD you want to beat their score. You want to be the best.

4. The average man sucks

The last CoD game I played regularly was the first Black Ops game. There was an option to look at another player’s scorecard. This scorecard showed their kill/death ratio, win/loss ratio, and every other imaginable metric of success. In this data was hours played. Between matches I’d always look at the opposition’s scorecard and 9 times out of 10 the dude had fucking terrible stats. I would regularly see players who played hundreds of hours yet still died more than they killed. Even though most guys play CoD to relax they’re still fucking terrible and aren’t any better than when they started. Same goes in the real world. Most men you meet will be extremely average, and as we all know average never got anyone anywhere. You reconnect with a friend 5 years down the line and his accomplishments include: having a mortgage, being in debt, becoming overweight, and maybe driving a new car.

5. People will do anything if given the right rewards

Video game developers are crafty sons of bitches, like social media mavens they sell instant gratification. When you think about it a game like Call of Duty is extremely boring and repetitive. Each game is 10-15 minutes long and you do the exact same thing each time, something has to keep you coming back. While much of the draw can be attributed to the thrill of competition and success there is another factor: the instant gratification of rewards. The first few hours you play Call of Duty you’re assaulted with various medals, ribbons, unlocks and upgrades. You get a medal for 5 kills, then 50, then 500. You get sucked in from the start and desire the hardest to get rewards. As in the real world people will perform the same mindless action day in, day out given enough monetary or emotional compensation.

I still play from time to time. Its nice to do nothing but move your thumbs for an hour, but no man should spend the majority of his precious free time doing something so unproductive as playing video games. One of my biggest regrets from being a teenager was spending much of my time alone playing games when I could have been out doing something interesting, or in the very least reading books. However I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned. I know now to ignore those who complain and instead of complaining myself I seek out ways to overcome obstacles and get better. I know now how easily average people can be manipulated into doing mindless things if they are sufficiently compensated. Most importantly I know the importance of competition in masculine development.

[racingtoaredlight]

Profiles in IMDb Greatness: Matt Ross

I love the Internet Movie Database. If I’m looking to Instagram stalk the pretty Italian lady from the second season of Master of None it’s a great outlet to find her real name. As such I enjoy looking over random performer pages and arbitrarily judging the scope and quality of their careers to determine if they merit entry into my vaguely defined IMDb Hall of Fame. Today’s enshrinee: Matt Ross

Fate and the Home Box Office television network conspired to serve up a perfect actor for inclusion in this hallowed Hall when as the fourth season of Silicon Valley was up and running while it seemed like American Psycho was on twice a day (and then like a month passed without my actually doing the post but it’s here now so leave me alone). Anyone who can both legitimately unnerve Patrick Bateman and make hostile corporate takeovers hilarious is working with a full deck as a performer.

First Listed Role: I already know this profile is going to be a winner since I’ve seen his first credited role, 1994′s PCU.

It’s been a great long while since I’ve seen PCU (so long ago that even with the picture I can’t remember what exactly Matt Ross did) but I recall it being entertaining enough while still thinking my buddies oversold the hell out of it. It’s a fun movie to look back on as a reminder that even with all the crybabies today annoyed they can no longer use racial slurs decrying political correctness is not a new phenomenon.

Also George Clinton rocks pretty hard in it if memory serves.

Most Recent Finished Work: The great Silicon Valley. That show sneaked up on me during the second season when I had a realization that I looked forward to it just about as much as any other show on TV and would regularly have your faithful writer laughing loudly like an idiot multiple times an episode.

On the show Ross has helped create one of the great villains of television Gavin Belson. Think a more insecure, outwardly evil Bill Gates whose tech giant company Hooli is a constant cloud over the doings of the show’s, for lack of a better word, heroes. A common trait with Ross’ best roles is being able to possess a certain oily sleaziness. Gavin Belson as CEO of a major corporation is more polished than the Alby Grants he’s portrayed but the running bit with animal props as board meetings is a perfect showcase for a hilarious lack of basic morality.

CSI/Law & Order/NCIS Guest Spots: In furthering being the perfect IMDb HOF entrant Matt Ross has a double dip of CSIs (no Law & Order surprisingly, but he does do more film work than a lot of the others so less available time I’d imagine).

From CSI: Miami we have Silencer.

Horatio and his team investigate a double murder at a concert, but unraveling the mystery becomes difficult when leads take them in two directions: the Mala Noche gang, and a pharmaceutical company.

Difficult to say where Ross’ character Paul Burton falls into this mess but if I had to guess I’d wager he’s aligned with the pill pushers than the Mala Noche gang. Being a shady pharmacy lab tech feels just right for him. I just hope it was George Clinton concert that claimed those two souls as a bit of an Easter egg to Matt Ross’ early work.

And then there’s CSI: Original Recipe with Meat Jekyll. As first I got excited thinking Ross was playing a character named Meat Jekyll before realizing it was just the title of the episode. An even bigger disappointment is not using Ross’ aforementioned ability to play sinister to be the Hannical Lector of the episode.

The crime lab reluctantly brings in imprisoned serial killer Nate Haskell after he claims to know the identity of "Dr. Jeckyll." Meanwhile, clues revealing his next and perhaps final victim are mailed to Dr. Langston.

Instead they gave that *sunglasses* MEATY role *yeah* to That Guy who was in Eight Men Out as one of the few players who didn’t get kicked out of baseball. Can’t trust a man who won’t take a gambler’s money in this reporter’s opinion.

Hall of Fame Ballot Submissions: Twelve Monkeys (maybe my favorite treatment of time travel as a concept and how you wouldn’t be able to change anything since it’s already happened in the future), Face/Off (I only watched about 20 minutes of this and shut it off but it’s such a famous goodbad movie that I included it, just couldn’t buy in to Nic Cage’s skin fitting around Travolta’s giant head), Oz (this post’s winner of the biggest “Oh shit, really?” work, he was one of the guards killed in the riot), American Psycho, The Aviator, Good Night and Good Luck, Big Love, Silicon Valley.

Big Love was a bit of a stretch here since by the last couple seasons I was outwardly hating it but Ross’ Alby Grant is probaby still the role I most associate him with when he pops up elsewhere due to how devastatingly creepy he was. Also I included Big Love for Bill Paxton so in the name of consistency it’s here again, plus this adds to Ross being the king of HBO.

The Aviator was another flick that HBO brought back into the rotation in the last few months that I hadn’t seen in forever and I’d forgotten he was in it. In a weird turn his character Odie is simply a competent airplane mechanic without any degenerate character tendencies, I’m sure it was his hardest role to pull off.

And what’s left to say about his turn in American Psycho, he’d know better than anyone that too much praise can be grating.

Miscellaneous Credits: New rule, if you play Johnny Cash in something, it gets mentioned here like with Lifetime’s Ring of Fire.

Suppose you’d have to ask someone else why this was made when Walk The Line had come out eight years earlier but hey, if they can keep rebooting Spider-Man this century than certainly the Man in Black should be celebrated as often as possible.

Highest Rated IMDb Entry: Goddamn right, the Silicon Valley episode Optimal Tip-To-Tip Efficiency that pulled the whole first season together and hinted at the heights it could reach. 9.4 stars, this episode fucks. I love this one sentence from the episode description:

The guys break out into a ridiculous argument

Yes they did, IMDb plot recapper, yes they did.

Lowest Rated IMDb Entry: I’m not about to go through every other post in this series to check but 5.4 for the worst (according to IMDb users) production one’s been in might be the new high water mark. Take a bow, A Deadly Vision. I’ll be keeping my eyes open to see if the Lifetime Movie Channel re-airs this.

A waitress who has psychic visions of murders before they happen is asked by a police detective to help find a serial killer.

Making this all the better? Matt Ross is indeed the killer and is billed simply as The Killer, just like with The Joker a menace can be more terrifying without any sort of tether to humanity. I’m now wondering to myself just how good Matt Ross could be as The Joker in something. Him and Ben Affleck are pretty much the same age so why not make him the Clown Prince of Evil for any standalone Batfleck film instead of Jared Leto’s ass. Just something to think about, Hollywood bigshots.

IMDb Fun Fact: Matt Ross is  6' 0½" tall.

I feel like I was pitching a perfect IMDb HOF post and then the Trivia section stepped to the plate and laid down a bunt that hugged the third base line of uninteresting tidbits of a great actor’s career. Shame.

IMDb HOF Members: Even though the ad wizards have decreed that only video is worthy of internet bandwidth it sure would be swell if the dear readers clicked back on any old posts they haven’t read yet and tell me how these used to be better before I became cynical and jaded beyond recognition.

Bob Balaban

Jim Beaver

Clancy Brown

W. Earl Brown

Reg E. Cathey

Gary Cole

Keith David

Cary Elwes

Noah Emmerich

Jami Gertz

John Hawkes

John Michael Higgins

Toby Huss

Allison Janney

John Carroll Lynch

Margo Martindale

David Morse

Joe Morton

Robert Patrick

Bill Paxton

Jon Polito

Alan Rickman

Stephen Root

Matt Ross

Alan Ruck

Peter Stormare

Daniel von Bargen

Next Time: Should I just do an actual Jami Gertz one? She’s been in there so long I can hardly remember what inspired the running gag in the first place.

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#imdb hof #matt ross #silicon valley #american psycho #big love #johnny cash #oz #csi #i want you patrick