[BREAKING] News Thread

[ShiraNoMai]

Agree with everyone's sentiments here. Such a shame. I also didn't realize he was 67 already, sheesh. As y'all have mentioned, dementia is a cruel, cruel disease that effects more than just the afflicted. He's got two young-ish kids, too. Rough all around for everyone involved

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah, around 67 was the age my Aunt got diagnosed, or a bit before then and had minor/mild symptoms before then too which none of us picked up on at the time so it can be that early. I also just found out he was in TWELVE films released last year, all direct to video and seven in '21 as well, so flippin' heck he was working hard pumping out that much, quite possibly some of them during the more open times during covid lockdowns. Haven't seen him in anything since Red 2 personally, but wondering how well his acting is in those recent ones.

Few of my favourites with him are Sin City, Die Hard, Fifth Element, The Sixth Sense, Red and Over the Hedge.

[Moonface]

Yeah, around 67 was the age my Aunt got diagnosed, or a bit before then and had minor/mild symptoms before then too which none of us picked up on at the time so it can be that early. I also just found out he was in TWELVE films released last year, all direct to video and seven in '21 as well, so flippin' heck he was working hard pumping out that much, quite possibly some of them during the more open times during covid lockdowns. Haven't seen him in anything since Red 2 personally, but wondering how well his acting is in those recent ones.

Few of my favourites with him are Sin City, Die Hard, Fifth Element, The Sixth Sense, Red and Over the Hedge.

To my understanding those movies he did in bulk aren't anything amazing, but he did them because he was aware dementia could end up being the diagnosis and those sorts of movies don't require a lot of time and effort to shoot for, which 1) let's him take on more jobs compared to a big budget movie 2) those movies will finish shooting way faster than any big budget movie so he won't get worse mid-production and 3) he was already struggling with remembering things and his speech so smaller, quicker roles was also better for him to manage with his condition anyway.

On the bright side, even if all of those movies are utter shit, no one is going to really remember those as part of Willis' legacy. It'll be the classics like the ones you mentioned at the end of your post. Not that it should be a mark on his career anyway because they were the best way for him to get roles and money before he ended up how he is now, so it isn't like he ended up in those movies because of some fall from grace or anything.


Also in other news about people having the clock counting down against them, former US President Jimmy Carter went into hospice care over the weekend at his own request. I suspect he'll have passed away by the end of the week. Don't really feel much about it myself since I really only know him by name, plus the guy is in his late 90's so it isn't like he's going out too soon like most people who get mentioned in the Notable Deaths thread.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah, I suppose it was good for him to get all them quick movies in and the quick money as opposed to a big movie. If the big one took too long and he was already at the state he was in not remembering stuff, the movie could've taken even longer or if he suddenly had to drop out. I won't watch them either so yeah shouldn't affect his legacy.

Dang, didn't realise Jimmy Carter is that old, well still alive even so may he go peacefully then.

[Moonface]

@Mr EliteL: Yeah, from 2015 onwards Willis was part of more than 40 movies and on average was only in them for about 15 minutes. There's no way a big movie would pay him anything close to what he made from all of those just for appearing for 15 minutes.

On the subject of movies and movie stars, but in a far more positive light, last night Brendan Frasier won Best Actor at the Oscar's for his performance in The Whale. I don't care at all about the Oscar's, but I was so happy to hear that man get such recognition after all the bullshit he got put through by the corruption of Hollywood. That man deserves anything and everything good that comes his way.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah, seeing Fraser get such a response from that movie is incredible, seen a few videos about him recently of the recognitions and such. Plus something else also happened during the Oscars this year (which I also don't really care about in the whole), is the reunion of Ke Huy Quan and Harrison Ford (Indy 2) as the latter presented Best Picture and Ke's film won.

[Moonface]

I think Quan and Ford had reunited at some point prior to the Oscar's, but I think the Oscar's is the first public showing we've had of it and even then, I'm sure Ford was super proud to see Quan having so much success beyond being a child actor in Temple of Doom.

[Moonface]

I don't have cable to watch it myself and only just got home from work to check it yet, but apparently multiple artists including Elton John, Adele and Ed Sheeran refused to perform for the King's Coronation today. I did see an image on social media just now of people protesting which doesn't surprise me since I know not everyone wants the monarchy and Charles himself isn't exactly popular either. Police were also confiscating signs which I don't agree with but apparently the UK quietly passed some new law that leaves protesting a little too open to personal interpretation of the government so they can just claim to legally shut a protest down if they decide to interpret it as breaking this apparently too-open-ended law over it now.

Personally I don't care about the Coronation at all nor the monarchy. They can just sit in their palace and draw in money for the UK from tourists so long as they don't do any harmful shit outside of their own family since they don't have any power over the country anyway. Not that they'd probably be able to balls it up any worse than the government has for the last decade.

[Mr EliteL]

Didn't even know there was meant to be known acts performing during the ceremony, wouldn't have cared to see any anyway. I did catch a glimpse of the ceremony during my hour break today, most of it had already taken place, saw a crown given to the Queen Consort then after that I didn't pay much attention other than Charles having to put on a ridiculous garb that would've dragged along the floor if not for people behind him holding it. It looked like a really slow event and all I could do when I did pay attention was imagine Charles was thinking stuff like "Hurry it up" "Why is this taking so long" "Wish I didn't have to wear this stupid thing" . The rest of my break I just listened to music, eat and play a spot of Genshin on my phone. Had a free cupcake that was provided though.

[Moonface]

So I just looked up whether the story about artists not performing was true or not, and turns out it is (I was told this by a customer at work and I don't tend to want to blindly trust things in the news strangers tell me anymore due to how much bullshit I've been told over the last few years). Unfortunately none of them commented why they wouldn't perform except Elton John, who said it was a scheduling conflict. Going by the article's speculations I can see it being a matter of people not wanting to associate with the Royal Family given the news about them in recent times, and I think even then these big artists don't need the platform when we have social media and other stuff that reaches way more people at basically no expense. I look at it as if the Royal Family is the ESA and the artists are the game companies who don't see a need to attend E3 anymore and the issues the ESA has had that rubbed people the wrong way was just even more reason to not do it and prevent the risk of getting caught up in another data leak.

Charles is super old anyway so I expect within a decade we'll see another Coronation for someone who's hopefully younger, unless the whole idea of the monarchy goes down the toilet by then because William and Harry don't want to keep it going in the way it has been. But it'll be interesting if one does happen to see whether or not the reception will be different because William isn't (to my knowledge) viewed anywhere close to as negatively as Charles is so maybe people will be more accepting of him; more so if he shares any plans for changing the monarchy for the better in some way.

[Moonface]

Somehow I managed to not see a single post on any social media about the wildfires going on in Canada and only found out about it when @ShiraNoMai mentioned it to me last night. I've still not seen any actual posts about the state of things where the actual wildfires are, but I have seen a few things on my feeds showing how bad the air quality has gotten in New York due to the smoke drifting down, and while it definitely sucks for those living there I can't deny it's made for some incredibly cool footage:

• NYC's George Washington Bridge shrouded in Canadian Wildfire Smoke 2pm EST 6/7/23
  
• This was New York City earlier today, which was temporarily ranked #1 for the worst air quality in the world due to the wildfires in Canada
  
• Diablo IV Marketing Being a Little Too Literal
  

I'm surprised that for the fires being bad enough to turn the air quality into the worst in the world that I've still not seen a single thing of the actual fires.

[ShiraNoMai]

This video gives you an idea and picture as to what's happening and why it's even happening specifically to begin with:

https://weather.com/news/climate/video/e...-in-canada

tl;dw: High pressure systems + high heat = super dry conditions ripe for fires.

[Moonface]

tl;dw: High pressure systems + high heat = super dry conditions ripe for fires.

Isn't that basically the reason for any naturally occurring wildfires though?

Also if anyone clicks those Reddit links and gets a message telling them the community is private, it's because the Reddit CEO is a dipshit who has managed to cause a mass exodus of users and communities from the site.

[ShiraNoMai]

Of course it's the basic recipe for wildfires but when it's on mass scale like that, it's harder to control and maintain, unlike most normal naturally occurring wildfires. Because so much of it is in those conditions, and without any favorable weather to relieve it, it spreads very quickly. The high pressure system carries the smoke across the mass of air circulation it utilizes and thus, smoke everywhere.

[Moonface]

Is there even any strategy in place to deal with a wildfire when it's one of those really big ones like what California can often get? I've heard a little about preventative measures that can be done up front but whenever one starts it always seems to be that the only option is to just cut it off from spreading and then wait for what is on fire to burn itself out because it tends to be too big to reasonably try putting it out.