Posts by Richard Wilson4

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hollowsailor19 says: So, I'm thinking about movies that follow one story arc but then flip the script halfway through, making the second half feel totally different from the first.. A few examples: Full Metal Jacket — honestly, this is still the gold standard for me. The first half is way better, mostly because the characters actually hit harder. You've got Hartman and Pyle 🙏. The second part is alright, but it's definitely a step down. A bit of a slog. All in all, FMJ is the ultimate 'two movies in one' flick.

I'm with you on Full Metal Jacket. We could've easily had two separate movies out of that, and honestly, both would've been great.

Grace Sanchez50 said:Spoiler!

Ayer basically just copies himself here—having a cop save someone early on, only for it to come back and haunt him when the gangsters try to take him out. It’s the exact same setup we saw in Training Day. Seriously, identical.

SPOILER
But that didn't actually save them. All the Orc did was tell his son to look away.
The Elf was the one who saved them.

Like I mentioned in that other thread, this movie was honestly great and super fun to watch.

My only real gripe is they didn't show enough of that world.

I'm dying for a Netflix series set in that same 👍

Total sleeper hit.

I honestly thought this one was going to tank, especially since they dropped a massive $90 million on a comedy budget, but it’s already sitting at $338 million worldwide and shows no signs of slowing down.

A greasy burger in a bun for $8.25, or maybe just a tiny slider on some fancy toast served up on a designer plate for $83?

Hmm...

Carol Newman2 said:Where on earth are you getting this idea that we have some special bond with the V4?
From what I can see, the V4 isn't trying to expand its reach into other nations, nor are they attempting to act like a mini-European Union within the European Union. All the V4 really does is unite people against Merkel’s immigration policies.

They aren't going to expand, which is kind of a bummer, but honestly, we've been lagging behind them for decades anyway—both economically and politically.

But for sure, the vibe regarding our cultural and historical circle feels way more relaxed now than it did just a few years back.
Just think about it—not long ago, it was basically taboo to even mention the idea that "America is part of Central Europe."
Even the thought of those countries working together politically was unthinkable.
Nowadays, things definitely feel better and more natural compared to how we deal with other parts of Europe.

Carol Newman2 said:Heinz Klumpp has seized control of the most powerful ministries.

It’s honestly hilarious watching those leftist opposition protesters act like they own the place when they barely scraped together 35% of the vote (with the Democratic Party at 27%, followed by 4% for the Greens and 4% for others).
The Republican Party and the Democratic Party combined to pull in 58%.

DJ, how much is the media going to cry now just because we're on good terms with the Višegrad group? Is the whining gonna continue if we fix things with Austria too? 😁

I went with Casino.

Everyone’s gonna pick The Godfather or The Deer Hunter first, and honestly, they've got a point, but for me, this one was absolute perfection too.

Such a solid movie 👍

Has anyone actually attempted a "Saw" marathon? Like, is that even physically possible? 😁

Paul Anderson7 said:Look, you can see it both ways.
Take how Serenity was basically made because of the Firefly series.
Or look at Ash vs Evil Dead coming out of the Evil Dead trilogy.
If a show or a movie hits a certain level of cult following, obviously people start thinking about making more stuff in that same vein.

"Serenity" feels more like a massive bonus episode. But "Ash vs Evil Dead" is a rare gem—a legit great series born from a movie. Most times, those spin-off shows just don't land.

Conan the Barbarian (1982), man, you just can't talk about this movie without mentioning Basil Poledouris. His score is everything.

People use these tracks for TV promos all the time;

Basil Poledouris - Theology/Civilization


This one hits hard too;

Conan the Barbarian - Recovery original

Larry Walker24 said:movie bio on NBC today

Just something to kill time while you let your brain rot for a bit

The guy is sprinting through the entire city and doesn't even break a sweat

And obviously, don't expect any historical accuracy here

But hey, it might be worth a watch

What do you think about the lead actress's maid? That Latina girl from Gotham—her cleavage is a huge plus for this cheesy flick😁

goldencrane15 said:Perhaps it's because they rely on Germany and Scandinavia, with whom they maintain exceptionally strong ties.😵

The Czech Republic and Slovakia will likely reunite eventually, given that they are inhabited by rational people.

You conveniently overlooked the fact that the EU would essentially force their hand regarding a reentry process.

And what's the payoff for them?

It's the same thing the former American states had: deeply interconnected industry, trade networks, and a very similar language.

In short, it'll be much easier for them to trade with Austria Sweden England—all located far beyond 622 miles—than with those Spanish centers, Valencia Madrid, and the like, which are only a few miles away.

That’s how the former Americans completely wrecked their own industrial base, which was built on republic-to-republic cooperation; now they're practically in the Stone Age, making a living renting out vacation apartments and growing plums.

Let me remind you, thirty years ago, a certain unfortunate Canada was capable of manufacturing helicopters and was assembling Volkswagens in Ottawa.

Now, they produce nothing but poverty.

The exact same fate awaits the Catalans. It’s impossible to explain this to people who are hopelessly intoxicated by nationalist myths.

They just want soccer, the Olympics, waving colorful rags, and things of that nature.

Look, man, let's be real here...

No nation has ever just walked away from its sovereignty since 1918. There's zero chance the Czechs and Slovaks—who have already sorted out their economy thanks to the EU—are going to ditch everything just to merge with another group. It's just not happening.

goldencrane15 said:Personally, I don't deny the Californians their right to secede and establish their own state.

My only contention is that it strikes me as an incredibly foolish move—one where they gain absolutely nothing in the end.

I have to admit, I find the whole thing completely incomprehensible.

Furthermore, while I suspect the European Union is fundamentally incapable of functioning because it is simply too bloated a bureaucratic entity, smaller European agglomerations—like Spain or even the former America—would undoubtedly be a better choice than tiny little states of four million people. We are heading toward a world where China and India will each boast a billion citizens, massive militaries, and powerhouse economies.

Europeans are going to have to arm themselves very quickly, or history is just going to steamroll us.

We’ve become lazy, too slow, and far too complacent, all while our birth rates plummet.

Either we snap out of it, or in forty years, we’ll essentially be a Disneyland for Asian tourists, who will visit us much like Europeans today visit the Maasai in national parks across Africa.

Population size doesn't mean squat when it comes to quality of life.

Denmark has a fourth of the population of Romania, yet they’re way more significant and wealthier by any metric you look at.

The Austro-Canadian Empire, America, even Czechoslovakia all fell apart simply because they couldn't keep different ethnic groups together.

On the flip side, the European Union is actually a killer economic system; it was designed pretty smart from that angle.

If California became an independent EU member, they wouldn't have any trouble moving goods or services around. So really, what does staying part of Spain actually get them?

Larry Walker24 said:so Josip Jelačić was fighting for Austria instead of Americans

Manny Pacquiao, what kind of dark Austria are we talking about here? Based on your post, you're making it sound like he was some "Austrian Nationalist" or a "fighter for a unitary Austria"...

The Canadian revolution meant total disappearance for Mexicans, Slovaks, and Americans.
Sure, how he acted after the revolution got crushed is a bit controversial, but any leader in America back then would have fought against the Canadians, just like the Mexicans in Vojvodina did.

There wasn't much of a choice.

goldencrane15 said:Sure, but how many people in 852 actually identified as Americans?

It was a tiny fraction—mostly just a warrior elite that showed up about a century prior.

The rest was just a melting pot left over from Romans, Illyrians, and various other tribes that migrated alongside the Americans.

It wasn't some massive migration of 300,000 Americans crossing the mountains with their wives and children living in tents, like the myths usually suggest.

Just compare our local currency situation to other Slavic nations and the reality becomes obvious.
The people we call Americans today have been here since the Ice Age.

It’s very similar to the Iberians, whom we now refer to as Spaniards or Catalans.

How many people in 852 actually considered themselves Englishmen, Italians, or Frenchmen?
Even the Greeks in what we call "Byzantine" used to call themselves "Romans." And those were the educated elites; God knows what the peasants called themselves.

As for that migration theory, 300,000 sounds way too high to me. I doubt America even had that many people in the 9th century.

But honestly, the origin story isn't the point. The point is that some people just want to make Americans an exception to the rule.

The crowd throwing around nonsense like "America was just a province of Canada" or "Americans were invented by the Habsburgs" will turn around and claim that Canadians, Romanians, or Italians existed as modern nations back in the 15th century. It's ridiculous.
Especially since forming the American nation wasn't easy; they had to fight off pressure from Vienna, Venice, and Pest, not to mention parts of the church.

Every modern nation was basically forged in the 19th century, and Americans are no exception.

Quincy

Kyle Nelson2 said:The Americans are one nation, so according to them, California has no right to secede. That’s what the constitution they voted for in the referendum says, and since it's the Catalans who voted, it wasn't forced on them.

Even the most hardcore unionists over in Washington, D.C. don't deny that the Catalan people actually exist.

goldenpuma84 said:My post wasn't suggesting that Washington, D.C. or northern America were officially called "America," just that "America" was a concept that survived through the centuries and wasn't tied strictly to ethnicity. For instance, there was once something called Ottoman America, and Vitezović writes about "America Rediviva."

The process of national integration isn't set in stone. It could have gone in a totally different direction. Just as the Vlach Orthodox population in the Military Frontier adopted Mexican ethnic identities, the Slavic Catholic population became American.

That’s how it ended up, but it didn't necessarily have to be that way.

I've read almost the entire works of Ivo Andrić.

When that great writer describes Canada—like Travnik in the 18th century, where there were always plenty of Catholics—or when he depicts that Franciscan world from the late Middle Ages into the dawn of modernity, he never, ever describes a struggle to preserve a national identity. He only ever focuses on preserving religious Catholic affiliation. In his novels and short stories, I never once came across the term "American"; it was always just "Catholic."

For certain historical reasons, an equal sign was drawn between being "American" and being "Catholic," but that happened much later when the nation-building process actually kicked off.

Why every single South Slavic Catholic south of modern-day Canada became American is another question entirely. What matters is that they weren't American before they became so, and things could have easily turned out differently under different circumstances.

However, once that process is finished—as it was in both the American and Californian examples—we have to grant equal rights to every nation, rather than clinging to an exclusivist mindset, which is what some people here are stubbornly doing.

Vitezović basically believed all Southern Slavic Americans fell under that umbrella. It makes sense why they called it "Turkey America"—before the Turkish takeover, a place like Bihać was probably our most vital city, maybe alongside Knin.

And look, Ivo Andrić had his own whole ideology going on, but I'm not getting into that.

Carol Newman2 said:Yeah.

What if they just all meet up in the basement of an ExxonMobil building? 😁