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austingirl

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Posts posted by austingirl

  1. 57 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    "Tough love" or loving from a distance is the approved way to deal with active addict family members.  Anything else risks enablement of the addict, not to mention safety and property of the family.

    Still, it's incredibly hard to watch a close family member self-destruct.  Many times, that leads in fairly short order to a rock bottom for the addict and the necessary realization that they need help and acceptance of it and recovery.  Other times, it's going to lead to long term homelessness, jail, prison, and mental institutions.

    I had seen an article in connection with the film About Charlie where the Reiners had used this approach for many years, but Nick remained incorrigible and they gave up and began enabling him again.

    Fucking brutal.

    I've spent a lot of time talking to and listening to the stories of addicts and the worst things I have ever heard inevitably concern their addict children.

    My brother is an addict. Started smoking anything he could light on fire in middle school, then started selling it out of his bedroom window. After I moved away to college, he got into harder stuff and stole money from my parents' money market account to buy drugs. They kicked him out and he eventually made his way to Austin. He got a DUI in Travis County in 2007. We weren't speaking much then, so when I got a call from jail at 7 am I was more than surprised. After we hung up I made some calls and got him released without bail since he was a first-time offender. I guess there's still a lot of paperwork that has to happen, and one has to be given time to sober up, because at noon the same day he called back from jail. Started telling me the same exact story I'd heard 5 hours earlier. I cut him off, told him he was a fucking asshole, and that I was not going to pick him up. I called his roommate who went and got him.

    He did alcohol counseling and stopped drinking. Still smokes weed like a chimney but as far as I know, it's the only thing he smokes. We got a lot closer after that, mainly due to his outreach to me (we have no other siblings). He still makes shit financial choices but has had a steady job for a long time and an apartment near us. He takes care of our dog when we're out of town and he would murder anyone who messed with that dog. He'd also murder anyone who messed with me, or my family. When I had to have emergency surgery last year, he was the first to call about visiting me at the hospital.

    Lately things have been shakier than usual. His electricity almost got cut off and he almost got evicted until my parents intervened. He doesn't ask me for money or for a place to stay because he knows I'd say no, but if his dog needs food or if he needs to borrow a carpet cleaner or whatever, I'm ok with that. A few months ago he mentioned that he started drinking again. Not much, he says. But I know how it goes. We come from a family of alcoholics.

    I guess all this is to say, I can see how someone can try and fail to help an addict they love. Not to be cliche, but even addicts contain multitudes. The Reiners, I'm sure, held out hope until the last minute. When it's your kid, I imagine it's another order of magnitude of difficulty. What a tragedy.

  2. 7 hours ago, Duane Moore said:

    Not that I can remember. Certainly not the storyline about a character being a scapegoat for child murders. The police chief who framed him is Clint Bowers, who is Henry Bower’s dad from the book. 

    Clint is Henry's grandpa. Henry's dad was Butch.

    Yes, the cycle is mentioned in the book. 

    Hank Grogan isn't in the book, but there's an offhand reference to Bev having a friend named Ronnie Grogan. I think TV show Ronnie is just an Easter egg for fans of the book.

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  3. 16 hours ago, ztejas said:

    I feel like a lot of you think that LOTR follows the books much more closely than it does.

    It's probably the greatest adaptation of all time but there are pretty major differences between the book and the movies. 

    LOTR is one of the few movies where I liked the movies better than the books (and I generally liked the books). Tolkien needed a stronger editor. A lot of the prose in that series could've been cut to make the flow better, without sacrificing story.

  4. 46 minutes ago, UT_OB1 said:

    I mean I guess if you like rape…

    I feel like it will become a plot point at some time since Seehorns character talks about opinions and freeing the infected - I don’t trust the aliens supposed good intentions towards the infected, because I assume that most of the enslaved would consider themselves being harmed if asked honestly, and the hot tub scene is the most poignant example in that if you asked any of those infected when they had free will, they would say they have been raped. 
     

    Also, that rat was clearly mind controlled and it bit the shit out of the lab tech. Do no harm my ass. 
     

    Ate they not allowed to mow the grass even?…

    On the infection itself, if it was truly just a radio blast in all directions from the source, they would have no way of knowing the exact biology of the planet it was received on. And it clearly infected the rat. So does that mean that every single animal is also hive mind?  Every plant even?  And do they have knowledge of previous infected civilizations?  We haven’t seen anything high tech yet.

    Sorry for the Loboian list of random thoughts. 

    What I've been wondering lately is, who's the queen? Every hive has one, so who (or what) is directing all of their actions? What greater end does their acquiescence serve?

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  5. 6 hours ago, Duane Moore said:

    I first read IT in an original hard copy when it came out in the 80’s, have read it cover to cover three times, loved the Tim Curry TV version, the 2017 movie, and even enjoyed the second chapter which wasn’t as good. I even read 1963 because I heard there was a Derry scene in it with a couple of the kids from the Loser’s Club. On vacation in Maine I made sure we hit Bangor and went to the Standpipe, Paul Bunyan, the Public Library, all the landmarks from the book. 
     

    I say all that to say that to establish my bona fides when I say that this show sucks.


     

      Hide contents

    The first episode broke canon with IT being a car full of people driving on the highway and it seems like this is taking place during the Kennedy Administration, which would be several years after the book’s cycle from the late 50’s took place. Then we have the revolting pickle man scene in the grocery store, and the girl with her eyes bugging out staggering all over the school like a scene from Evil Dead 2 that veers into comedy.  
     

    The Army looking to make IT a weapon is a tired trope and the “Aliens” ripoff episode where they send a squad into the house on Niebolt Street was ridiculous.  The Native American characters and storylines seem like they are stereotypes taken from a Billy Jack movie in the 1970’s.  I’m waiting for Chief Dan George or Iron Eyes Cody to show up.  The kids in this show are terrible actors with none of the likeability of the kids from previous screen representations. I keep telling myself I’m done with it, but I may keep watching just to see how bad it can get  

     

     

    Totally agree, with one note - I think they are using a timeline based on the later It movies, not the book. I was confused by this, too, and that's the only thing that makes sense. In the recent movies, they're kids are in the 1980s, not the 50s, so the series taking place in the 60s lines up.

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  6. I'll finish out the season because I'm a glutton for punishment, and I want to see how the fire at the nightclub goes down, but this show is so dumb. Spoilers below for this show and for the original novel.

    Spoiler

    OF FUCKING COURSE Matty was a projection of It, and of course Phil was dead.

    Looks like I was wrong about Madeleine Stowe being a figure of Lilly's imagination - I guess now they're making her a younger version of the Mrs. Kersh that Bev visits as an adult, who turns out to be a projection of It. So I guess It was basing her on an actual person.

    The whole military storyline and the Native backstory both don't make sense. If you could bury some items around a perimeter and create a "cage" of sorts to contain It, why would you make the boundary so huge? Maybe you don't want to risk getting close to It, but over the hundreds of years since the boundary was created, you couldn't creep them in closer and closer? Especially since It apparently can't get within a few feet of the shards? And anyway, how exactly does the military think they can use It as a weapon, even if it can get to all the shards?


    Y'all know I love horror and I can suspend a lot of disbelief, but this show isn't working for me. 

  7. On 11/7/2025 at 4:46 AM, UpperWestside said:

    For those wondering, yes Jennifer Lawrence is naked several times in the movie. This is a heavy movie emotionally and it deals with mental illness. I just went to see it tonight and it is complex in how it portrays Lawrence's character and her illness. Watching somebody you love slowly detach from reality is hard.

    Is it worth it to see it in theaters? I'd like to, but there are limited showtimes here so I may wait for streaming.

  8. Really darkly satirical, fun movie that shows off the two leads - I hope Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch do more things together. The screenplay is razor sharp. I'd like to see it get an Oscar nomination. It's the writer who did the screenplay for both The Favourite and Poor Things.

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  9. I hope they move the plot forward more this week, at least around the motivations of the hive and what their end goals and real power are. They say they won't kill anything, and she can kill 11 million in one pop just by getting mad? And they'll give her anything she wants at any time? If that's me and all my family and friends are gone, just move me to my own island, keep the fridge and pantry stocked, let me order all the books and movies I want and I'm set. They can do all the world domination they want and I wouldn't get in the way. I'm just confused as to what the end game could be.

  10. On 8/2/2022 at 8:34 AM, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

    A tweet I think about regularly from I believe Drew Magary the day he died. “Is there a way to put flags at one and a half mast?”

     

    On 10/15/2025 at 1:28 PM, futureman said:

    should I know who Lee Pace is?

     

    On 10/15/2025 at 3:11 PM, utee94 said:

    Thranduil the Elven King in The Hobbit movies

    Ronan The Accuser in Marvel's Avengers movies

    Joe MacMillan, an OG 80s Tech Bro, on AMC's Halt and Catch Fire

    Brother Day of Empire, in Apple's adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation

    The Hobbit: Let's talk about Lee Pace's Battle-Moose – Metro US

     

    On 10/16/2025 at 4:20 PM, Captain Ron said:

    Should you? yes.

    Do you? Probably not because he likes to fly under the radar

     

    Everything @utee94 said, plus I was thinking Pushing Daisies and The Fall.

     

    I knew him from Pushing Daisies, which was one of the most underrated tv shows ever, as well as Bodies Bodies Bodies, which was a great indie horror movie.

    Saw this today and it was fine; it's just hard for me to see Glenn Powell as "the angriest man ever". Plus,

    Spoiler

    the ending was nuts and a big deviation from the book, for better or worse.

    I will watch Colman Domingo in anything, though, and Edgar Wright makes a great action movie, even if the content isn't perfect. I'd recommend it for streaming if you're on the fence about seeing in it the theater.

  11. 4 hours ago, futureman said:

    you’ll wanna read the book first.  it’s basically a short story though so you can knock that out quick.  then I’d do the tv miniseries, then the movies, then the current show. 

     

    4 hours ago, Cousin Strawberry said:

    Isn't it like 1500 pages?

    Lol it's his second-longest book at around 1200 pages. And it's only second to the uncut version of The Stand, not the original version. 

    On 10/31/2025 at 9:25 PM, Cousin Strawberry said:

    I am not a devoted King book fan but the calumet baking powder was an obvious nod to The Shining.  Are IT and the darkness that controlled the Overlook Hotel related in some way? I know that King has a universe and it's all related but is there confirmable relation?  Both forces seem to be able to alter reality to their advantage; Pennywise to create fear in his victims and Overlook to drive them mad and murderous.

    IIRC, Dick is mentioned briefly in the book when they discuss the Black Spot (the nightclub that burns down).

    I'm still not a huge fan of this show but I'll give it another episode or so.

    Spoiler

    The military storyline is getting dumber and dumber. Are they actually leading up to the military thinking they can trap IT and harness it? And also, they think Hanlon is immune to fear, and they decide to test for that by seeing if he can beat up three guys they send in to attack him? And why the fuck would Masters confess to it if he didn't do it? The whole thing is so weird.

     

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  12. On 10/25/2025 at 2:37 PM, wutang75 said:


    This is a favorite after multiple viewings through the years.

    Always a fun family discussion around the witches broom as a phallic symbol and it representing Thomasin’s sexual liberation at the end of the movie.

    Also - Black Phillip is creepy af.

    Black Philip is indeed creepy af. But honestly, all goats are creepy af with their rectangular pupils.

    On 10/26/2025 at 1:56 PM, BurgleBro said:

    Watched Clown In a Cornfield on TLDI Friday night.  Was pretty good. 

     

    My 13-yo and I saw this in the theater and liked it a lot. A horror masterpiece it is not, but it's fun for what it is. Sometimes you just want dumb fun movies. We both couldn't stop laughing at the scene with the rotary phone.

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