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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2574 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 1, 2026

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So, what is everyone watching (films, shows, even YouTube if you think it counts)?

I've seen two movies recently:

  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017): This is the second Lanthimos film I've seen after Bugonia and Dogtooth, the former of which I loved and the latter of which was meh. KSD felt like it was awkwardly edgy and vague, but I very well may have missed the point. The actors did an excellent job of making me feel uncomfortable throughout. 4.2/10 enjoyment, give me those hours of my life back.

  • Train Dreams (2025): I've always enjoyed movies about everyday, simple lives (I don't have any others off the top of my head, but I know they exist). This one resonated with me because of a forest in my life, one that I half-seriously say I grew up in through mountain biking, trail running, airsoft battles, exploring, fort-building, and general elementary and teenage debauchery. 8.1/10 enjoyment, give me those years of my life back. I was a bit surprised everyone else's ratings were so high, though.

For plain 'turn your brain off and enjoy the nonsense', Chinese TV adaptation of a web novel. Series is called Whispers of Fate and is on Youtube and has the usual tropes of gorgeous scenery and sets, pretty boy martial artists, some light romance (which works for one pairing but not so much for another) and lots of implausible but highly entertaining CGI feats of mixed wuxia/xianxia, and of course the ever-popular Tragic Backstory of Doomed Brotherhood Ending in Betrayal and Death.

It's not the best example I've seen, and the story deviates quite a lot from the original web novel (still unfinished), some of the CGI isn't that well-done (guys, if a very important part of the plot is 'magical musical cultivation' then at least try and make it look like the combatants are playing their instruments?), the plot drags a little (not the show's fault, the book plot gets very convoluted too) and the acting is variable, to put it most kindly, but on the whole it's fun. The comic relief characters are good, and sometimes it breaks my heart because the main protagonist/antagonist pairing of the Tragic Etc. were all so happy in their Little Sect of Found Family before it all went to heck and tarnation (equally infuriating because antagonist is so easily manipulated into his Roaring Rampage of Revenge by others), but I have to say my favourite character so far is the wily sect leader who is on the good (more or less) guy side and is a consummate politician and schemer under a façade of benign avuncular harmlessness. Most capable person so far plus he's intentionally funny.

I'm also very impressed by how the protagonist can do the requisite Spitting Up Blood without ever spilling a drop on his white clothing!

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