Non-Pol Hot Takes

Damn. Suzzer hates a lot of stuff.

I have gotten pretty grumpy about anything scripted in my old age. I generally want to watch documentaries, or reality-based stuff like Mythbusters, Bourdain or River Monsters.

Same with reading. I have no interest in fiction whatsoever. It might have come from my time doing standup. Iā€™m usually inside the writerā€™s head, rather than lost in the story.

That said I can still get into a good movie - especially sci-fi. Those are just damn hard to come by these day. All the talent and production money seems to be in cranking out a new superhero movie every month.

I hate how World War I is called the ā€œFirst World Warā€ when it so totally wasnā€™t

Plus Copolla (including One From The Heart) and Altman.

But otherwise agree that everyone else is patchy.

All zoos should be done away with

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Scorceseā€™s lone Oscar to date was for what was easily his worst film. (Not even lukewarm)

Kubrick may be my all time favorite. But he was notoriously difficult to work with/for.

Back on 22 when werewolf was still a thing on POG i designed a mishmash based on Kubrickā€™s films but I never got to run it. Iā€™ll link the google docs tonight if I can find them. It was better than anything I ever did in college at least.

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That was pretty much a de facto Lifetime Achievement Award though. Looks like it beat out The Queen, Little Miss Sunshine, Letters from Iwo Jima and Babel, so Iā€™m not too bent out of shape like it stole a BP Oscar from an all-time classic or anything.

And anyway (as I should have said) many of Scorseseā€™s films are far from classic, by intention: he made commercial films to finance his own films, often alternately.

Correct. It was revenge for Billy Batts. Andā€¦a lot of other things.

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I guess I could give it a rewatch (I probably wonā€™t), but I think Last Temptation of Christ is Scorseseā€™s worst film that Iā€™ve seen.

I go back and forth on this. Most zoos nowadays, at least in the US - are rescued animals that couldnā€™t be released into the wild, or bred in captivity as potential stock to keep species from going extinct. From an animalā€™s POV I doubt a well-run US zoo is much different than an animal sanctuary - and possibly better because itā€™s less boring and they can at least bond with their trainers.

Although if a species like an elephant or tiger goes extinct in the wild, Iā€™m not sure how you could ever re-introduce it - as they need to learn how to be an elephant/tiger in the wild from their mothers.

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Thatā€™s hot.

I love the show The Zoo on Animal Planet right now - a behind the scenes look at life at the Bronx Zoo. I usually ask myself - if I were a tiger and had the wherewithal to know what I was getting into - would I choose a zoo over the wild?

You never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, you donā€™t have to worry about getting killed by another tiger, and if you get sick or injured you get immediate top-notch care better than most humans in the world get.

But on the other hand youā€™re most exciting event of the day is a big red ball to play with, and you get to roam around in an area you can cover in about 15 seconds of dead run. Is that really being a tiger?

And then of course I ask myself - have I chosen the zoo lifestyle? Am I coasting along with a good job in a nice place to live - with the human equivalent a big red ball or cardboard box to enrich my life every now and then? Is this what it means to be human? Am I really living or just sleepwalking through life?

Then I take it to the other extreme - would I rather be storming the beach at Normandy right now? You probably never feel more alive than jumping off a Higgins boat with bullets whizzing by. But I think Iā€™ll pass on that.

Pro tip: If you havenā€™t been paying attention at all in the meeting, but want to look like youā€™re contributing, just wait for a dead spot near the end of the meeting to say: ā€œAt the end of the day, itā€™s all about finding that balance.ā€ It applies to everything.

I gotta quit smoking weed at work.

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lmao. I think their next ā€œseasonā€ or whatever is going to be about San Diego (the zoo and the safari park), so iā€™ll definitely be tuning in for that.

my personal hot take: the NBA sucks. itā€™s fixed and it drags on too long.(inspired by a post in the sports thread)

:( Whoā€™s your team?

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donā€™t have one. I grew up in a city that didnā€™t have one, so never got attached. MLB and NFL for me.

I follow players, so I have lots of teams I like. When one of the players I like goes somewhere, I like that team. Thatā€™s basically my main rooting interest. Iā€™ve never been a ā€˜home teamā€™ type person. By the time the playoffs roll around, I definitely have rooting interest in each series for a team, but sometimes itā€™s tough.

I grew up in Fort Worth and liked the Roided Rangers (lol), the Mavericks (lol), and haaaated the Cowboys (still do). I once got to see Nolan Ryan pitch live, and he cussed after every pitch.

Itā€™s hard not to be romantic about baseball when you grow up in the city that started it all.

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