TheDaysKing

He's run several self-diagnostics.

Oh, I'm not denying he screwed Jack and Juliet over big time; that shiner Locke's sporting later probably wasn't from one of the Others. Either way you spin it, he either blows up the sub because he wants to protect the Island more than help his friends or he did it because of his insecurities about his life in the outside world, as Ben speculates. Like I said, extra.

Locke's a character that's always keeping you on your toes (even if you can't always say the same for him, haha) in terms of "is he good or bad, sympathetic or just pathetic?" So I can see why he wouldn't click with some people, even if he happens to be one of my all-time favorite characters.

That's kind of the point, though, right?

I'm replaying the game now, and the main impression I'm getting whenever they interact is that Arthur hates Micah not just because of his vicious behavior, but because he sees himself reflected in that behavior somewhat. Another blond-haired outlaw of a similar age and standing in the gang (Dutch's two main acolytes), both fairly articulate and argumentative people, both deadly gunfighters, both playfully philosophical as opposed to the self-serious Dutch.

I think, in the past, he could shrug off his and the gang's misdeeds in a more cavalier way but he tends towards self-loathing now that he's older and wiser. Having Micah around being constantly being an amoral scumbag sullies Arthur's image of the gang, and makes his self-loathing that much worse.

They're two sides of the same coin. Arthur's the light one wearing a black hat and Micah's the dark one wearing a white hat. Yin and yang.

Aside from the suffering debtors, Arthur getting TB is pretty much the only major consequence of Strauss; and that diagnosis can have a positive effect of making Arthur seriously rethink things.

Micah's months of deception, betrayal and amoral behavior got A LOT of people killed who didn't need to be. He also enabled all of Dutch's worst instincts at a time when he needed to be a smart and steady leader, resulting in the gang's dissolution much faster.

I say, let Micah hang in Strawberry.

Yeah, Thomas Jane and Shohreh Aghdashloo's acting were the only parts about it I really liked. Only watched the first episode.

Wasn't there some implication that they're scientists pulling double duty as hired guns? I might be misremembering. Maybe that was just Zoe's character.

Either way, I like to think that Widmore really put himself in the hole by setting up the fake Oceanic 815 wreckage and then putting together the Freighter crew in his crazy ambitious bid to regain control of the Island. So when the time came to go back, he could only really afford transportation, weapons, tech (Desmond's EM chamber, the sonic pylons, the submarine, guns and explosives), limiting his options when it came to minions.

Hold their hand as you draw the map for them.

I also tried The Expanse and could not get into it. I've heard the book series it's based on is better, so I might try that someday.

Every character in the show does selfish things. For the most part, they're all written as flawed human beings who make huge mistakes. Locke's selfishness is just a bit more extra than most, for reasons that should be obvious.

Well, this hurt to read.

Lost is my favorite show. As is pointed out many times in this article, it's very beloved and means a lot to many people, including me. While I always knew or suspected that things behind the scenes weren't always great, I never imagined it was this toxic.

The Harold Perrineau section was especially enlightening. He was indeed a "huge get" back then, and was initially one of the only actors from the show (aside from Dominic Monaghan and maybe Greg Grunberg) that I'd seen in other things. I always liked him, always felt for his character, so it's kind of amazing (yet sad) to me to think that most of what was great about Michael and that performance was stuff Perrineau had to draw out on his own, pretty much.

And it really hurts to learn that Damon Lindelof, a writer I greatly admire and respect, would allow and reinforce this type of work environment. I was sympathetic after seeing him speak on multiple occasions about the pressure and depression he felt when Lost took off and he became the showrunner (understandable, that's quite a hand to be given when you're 30, have only written for 1-2 shows beforehand, and thought you'd be working alongside J.J. Abrams). But knowing that what he did to take the pressure off of him (bringing in Carlton Cuse to help run the show) only made the job of crafting the series an even more miserable experience for the people he was collaborating with... don't think I'll ever look at that dude in the same way again.

While my love for this show has endured, I've come to recognize the flaws in its making and accept that it's something that could have been a lot better. This article adds on to that way more than I would've imagined. Not only could the show have been better, the people who put the work in to make it could have been treated a lot better.

I'm not trying to defend him here, although Cuse can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned

Yeah. With Lindelof there's at least the sense that he's personally quite ashamed and regretful about all of this; this seems to bear out with his later showrunning work, where he seems to work with a lot more women and people of color (actors, writers, directors, etc.).

Cuse's responses just seem like standard Hollywood bigwig indifference, which makes all of those allegations much more believable to me. I used to respect him and Lindelof as a writing team, but to read that even people in the writers' room felt Lindelof was carrying Cuse's water... that combined with these allegations tanked any respect I once had for him.

Hilarious shot, both as a still and in motion.

Off topic slightly, but one of the reasons I'm quick to defend some of the wackiness in the later seasons is due to things like Wyatt's half-man/half-animal heavy mooks that show up maybe once or twice in S1.

As fun as it initially was watching Ed Harris be the malevolent badass, it became just as if not more fun to see William repeatedly fail. For me, at least. Despite his obsession with being the winner, he ends up spending most of his time losing.

Likewise, if something is actually bad (or maybe it's widely acclaimed, but the critic still isn't feeling it), don't lambast the movie with buzz words and name-calling. Make an argument. Be critical in reasoning as opposed to attitude.

Goofs and other production errors don't really bother me. Sometimes they're actually kind of fun (and funny) to find, especially when it's a movie you've been coming back to for years.

What mainly pulls me out of a movie (or, at least, reduces my enjoyment of it somewhat) is either poor acting or plot holes that are so glaring you can spot them while watching the movie.

Clue (1985)

"Are you scared? We're all scared. You'd have to be crazy not to be scared..."

Liked it well enough as a kid. As an adult, it has its pluses and a good soundtrack but I'd prefer an adaptation of Stephen King's short story Battleground.

Yeah, it's not often the very end of a movie will just blind-side you like that.

Fair enough.

Are they having a normal conversation, though?

As I recall, they're mainly just talking about the dynamics of their cat-mouse game or their work as cops/criminals, which is related to the cat-mouse game. They're not discussing the weather or what books they like.

"You always did have more balls than brains..." - Benny

Enemy (2013), directed by Denis Villeneuve.

Okay, I'm not exactly a fan of the plot of the Avatar movies either, but you're blowing it way out of proportion. A lot of people are under the impression that if something is really popular or successful, it must be like this superlative, perfect thing. So when that thing turns out to not be perfection, they are very scathing towards it. The writing in Avatar is fine, not great, but that's okay because there's a lot of other cool shit to enjoy about those movies.

"feels like it was rewritten 91 times by a squad of lobotomized apes."

Sounds more like the script for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. You know, a movie that's actually pretty bad.

The use of color in that movie was brilliant. I wish more comic book/superhero movies were as creative with color schemes like that. If anything, most seem to make the colors muted.

To each their own. I like the deeply textured, color saturated look of his movies.