14 Comments

who wins in a fight: M3GAN or S1M0NE?

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S1M0NE is bigger, but M3GAN is smarter and willing to fight dirty. I think M3GAN here.

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Thank you for reminding me of S1M0NE, which I now need to revisit. I have a feeling history has caught up to that one in a creepy way.

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My general feeling about Andrew Niccol is that his ideas are always stronger than his execution, and that was where I landed on S1M0NE. But I do love watching films about technology from the past. They're incredible time capsules.

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Sometimes it's unnerving, and sometimes you get Johnny Mnemonic smuggling 300 GB of RAM through war-torn Hoboken. No one can do it but Johnny! The RAM, it's too hot!

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I don't remember for sure but S1M0NE also ends on the weird concept they explain her death by saying she was pregnant and Pacino has to pretend they have a baby, which is another sentient program, before she runs for governor? Regardless I do have to give this bout to M3GAN.

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Seems like the real matchup should be between M3GAN and V.I.C.I. from Small Wonder.

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I'm not the biggest fan of DeLillo -- brilliant writer, no doubt, but he tended (back when I was reading him) to explicate his themes rather than trust the reader to suss them out. But what I disliked about White Noise the novel -- it was about too much -- I actually liked about the movie. It was kind of a mess, but a zany, enjoyable mess.

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founding
Jan 5, 2023Liked by Scott Tobias

I guess it being mainly a comedy helps explain the crazy idea to make a companion doll that inherently looks possessed

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It's as prototype! (That they release like that anyway.)

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I always appreciate Scott's insight on a film, but I didn't share his appreciation of M3GAN. Everything I expected to happen, did happen and then the credits rolled. I was hoping for something a little more outside the box than what wound up on screen.

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How in God's name did White Noise cost $100M to make?

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Jan 10, 2023Liked by Scott Tobias

WHITE NOISE combined enough Altman, Baumbach and Gilliam vibes to work on me. I could easily forgive it's shortcomings because of all the good in there: Driver's performance, every scene with the professors, the dual lecture, the way that cloud eclipses the Shell sign at the gas station and the end credits scene.

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Yeah, that movie is hanging around in my brain a little. Starting to feel like I underrated it a little.

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