Would you care to make a case for Lady in the Water? I don’t recall a huge amount of that movie, but what’s there is not positive. Admittedly, his gall in writing a character who is destined to save the world through his art, and then casting himself in said role, left a pretty sour taste in my mouth, but I shouldn’t let that affect the other aspects of the film.

According to the definition posted above, the cultural expressions of biological sex are only one dimension of gender, and you’re ignoring the other aspects. I’ll accept fish don’t have culture, though I bet someone more knowledgeable than I could argue that point. However, let’s look at social behavior via a vis courtship rituals. Like birds, some fish develop pretty incredible displays for getting it on. If a fish which has changed its biological sex then changes it’s behavior during courtship, that would seem, to me, to indicate a different expression of biological sex independent of genetics (i.e. gender). Unless there is a genealogical basis for courtship displays, which I don’t believe to be the case.

Man, even being mildly familiar with Miike, I was not prepared for the final scene of the movie. Talk about a bananas choice for a movie that, for all of its excesses, felt at least somewhat grounded.

Give the man his Blade movie. Dudes been trying to get this off the ground for years.

Well, now I can only think of being Sherlock Holmes battling bioweapons, and I fear you’ve set me up for disappointment!

Caveat: this list isn’t really for OP, as my tastes for video game content seems pretty removed from theirs (based on their list of pet peeves), but I always like to recommend compelling video essayists when I find them.

Grim Beard - Resident head of Goth Gamer Nation. Specializes in movie length retrospectives of primarily 90s-2000s action and adventure games of a certain trenchcoat wearing persuasion. Typically breaks things down into production history, story breakdown (with a spoiler break to allow folks to skip any big reveals), mechanics review, and bitter recompense (in which he dredges up contemporary reviews and responds to them, good or bad). Interstitial skits break up the sections.

TehSnakerer - another video essayist, he has less of a defined style than Grim Beard (unless English is a style). He’s been doing breakdowns of the Yakuza series for years now, and he has a fair amount of content about Sonic, eastern European FPS jank, Watch Dogs jank, and a smattering of other types of games as well, mostly occupying the AA market space. Again, VERY thorough breakdowns is the name of the game.

Avalanche Reviews: From what I gather, a weeb who lives or lived in Japan and focuses on the survival horror genre. Typically goes into more detail than most surrounding A/V details and port comparisons, if that’s of interest.

Research Indicates: Not so much a channel recommendation, as I believe it’s been mostly dark for like a decade now, but his “Let’s Play” (back when that was still a phenomenon mostly constrained to the Something Awful forums) of Jurassic Park: Trespasser set a standard for the format which no one else has touched as far as I’m concerned. Intercutting clips from the movies, passages from the novels, production history, and so on, it feels like a docudrama at times.

Sphere Hunter: occupies the same sort of space as Avalanche Reviews (i.e. Japanese survival horror), but with a very different presenter style.

Accursed Farms / Ross’ Game Dungeon: You may know him from the Freeman’s Mind series of machinima videos, or, more recently, from spearheading the Stop Killing Games initiative, but he’s been cranking out videos looking at retro oddities for years now.

SsethTzeentach - schizophrenia simulator masquerading as a review channel, but, for all of the editing gags and left field references, he still manages to assemble decent recommendations and rationales for why you might check out the game being profiled.

Mandalore Gaming - Sseth, but he’s on his meds. Any of his Warhammer game videos are a good intro to his style, but I’ve got a special place in my heart for when he’s taking on batty 90s adventure games, so I’ll recommend his Limbo of the Lost video.

Hope someone finds something of interest.

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me by Elton John and George Michael. Favorite might be overstating it, but it’s what jumped into my head immediately, so maybe not.

Not wholly accurate to say I don’t know the lyrics, as I’ve since gone through and found a translation, but it’s not at the fore of my mind while listening. Lo Vi by Amanda Miguel (particularly this live performance) is a stunner of a song.

FATAL, now roll an anal circumference saving throw.

Dis u?

I’m not comfortable with companies using any kind of marketing tactics.

Now, I felt like I was fairly gentle in pointing out the absurd nature of that statement. I even readily acknowledged what I assumed to be your intent, i.e. there are absolutely marketing tactics which go beyond the pale. But, as I, and others, have pointed out, you’re the one operating on your own personal definition of marketing here, which is in contradiction to what that concept actually is. Any intro to business class will tell you that marketing is, essentially, ANYTHING an entity does to inform people of its services. It’s an enormous umbrella, which includes tactics both odious and innocuous. It is as readily applicable to the gal who posts on Facebook that she’ll do your hair for $20 as it is Facebook selling that information to a third party so she can be served targeted salon equipment advertisements.

All I’m saying is, if you say “all marketing is bad”, you need to be prepared for people to call you out on the hyperbole of that statement. Therefore, you might consider arguing the point you actually intend to make (which is good and I agree with you about!), instead of leading with a statement which you don’t actually believe.

Calling you Chicken Little was facetious, but meant to be a gentle dig at the hyperbole. Still, I shouldn’t have said it, and I apologize.

Take it easy there, Chicken Little. “I’m uncomfortable with any kind of marketing” is so hyperbolic, it’s almost parody. Putting the name of your business above the door? Thats marketing. Creating a website where customers can find and engage your services? That’s marketing. A minority-owned business proudly owning that status? That’s marketing. A friend telling you about the great meal they had the other day from a local restaurant? Believe it or not, that’s marketing.

Marketing is not evil in and of itself. Unless humanity returns to a tribal social structure where you can count the number of non-related acquaintances you know on your fingers, it is a necessary component of operating a business. Of course, you’re 100% right that there have been dubious applications of the principle, but again, you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water, and it hampers the salient point that you’re trying to make.

I can see where they’d get the idea, though they really ought to realize that rat tails do not necessarily mean rodent. Trans folks are obviously marsupials.

I figured, but I’m incapable of letting an opportunity to make a bad pun pass me by.

Tangentially related book recommendation for folks wandering through the thread who are disappointed that AOC isn’t announcing she’s taking over the role of Storm for the X-Men: The Power by Naomi Alderman. They turned it into a TV series, though I don’t know anything about the adaptation. The premise is that women across the world all of a sudden develop the ability to generate electric fields (like an electric eel) powerful enough to stun or kill. The book then details, through a variety of narrators, the social and political ramifications of this across a variety of cultures. I thought it was a fun yarn, at any rate.

A picture really is worth a thousand words. Nailed my exact impression haha

I feel like I just leveled up my descriptive abilities for RPG DMing purposes.

Did AOC get bit by a radioactive electrician recently?

Zack Snyder, not JJ Abrams.

What happens after dawn?

If you told me that these guys were the aforementioned high school punk band, I would believe you lol