#special interest

[allnatsfavoritesongs]

Today one of my friends said "I have to be honest with you, I'm not a fan of Weezer."

I reassured him that not even Weezer fans like Weezer all of the time. That's kind of like the band's whole thing. That's the magic of Weezer!

[allnatsfavoritesongs]

Gonna bless my local Weezer listening event this Sunday

Magnets and laminated bookmarks!

[aviewtodeath]

sometimes i like something so much that i just wanna explode

[bnuuybunnybnnuyyyyys]

I’ve been immersed in and thinking about rabbits for so long I have a brief moment of panic whenever I see an animal on its back. Regardless of whether or not it is actually bed for that specific animal to be on its back.

For instance, I was with my brother recently and he picked up his cat and held it like a baby. I had a moment of thinking my brother had betrayed me and was secretly an animal abuser this whole time. I was panicking in my head. How could he? I’ve discussed holding rabbits on their backs with him before! Then I remembered that cats are not bunnies.

[creative-creatures-hub]

My Thoughts On: The End of Oak Street

Taking a bit of a break from Doctor Who to talk about dinosaurs.

So, The End of Oak Street just came out today and I decided to swing into the cinema after work to check it out. I'd been looking forward to this one for a while, intrigued by the premise and satisfied with the variety of creatures being shown in the trailers.

The short version is that I really liked it, arguably the best dinosaur movie of the 2020's, and reminded me a hell of a lot of Primeval. A bit slow to get going, but once things kick off it's a fun ride til the end. I'd give it either an 8 or a 9 out of 10, and would happily go watch it again.

Before I get into spoilery thoughts, The End of Oak Street does unfortunately have an elephant in the room that needs addressing; the AI slop that they decided would be a good idea to promote the movie with pretty much right at the last hurdle before release.

Gen AI really has no place anywhere, and seeing WB seemingly trying to sabotage this movie's reputation right when it was due to come out was nothing short of baffling. It's unfortunate, since the movie itself (to my knowledge) hasn't used AI in any capacity, instead using a blend of CGI with some practical effects (if interviews are anything to go by), and frankly it's extremely unfair to the cast and crew to have the movie be associated with the slop in its marketing.

Overall, The End of Oak Street is a fun time and worth the watch, and hopefully the right lessons will be learned from the backlash to the promotional material so that something like this never happens again.

Now for spoiler thoughts!

The movie was quite intense, moreso than I really thought it would have been. A lot of people wind up killed by dinosaurs throughout the movie, and I think it does an excellent job at showing that the Platt family aren't the only ones that are experiencing the movie's events. It was always fun to watch the background throughout the movie, to catch other people from the neighbourhood being chased down and eaten by carnivores. The death of a main character, Greg, was unexpected and surprisingly brutal for the film's 12A rating. It was great to see a dino movie where nobody was truly safe, even the main characters.

Creature variety was also strong, and was one of the things that had me hooked early on. A couple big name dinosaurs like Allosaurus and Spinosaurus do appear and are awesome, but (arguably) lesser known species like Coelophysis get to make strong impressions where other movies would have likely thrown a raptor into the scene. Non-dinosaur creatures like pterosaurs, crocodilians, tortoises and even a really cool Titanoboa add to the variety, and the premise of the movie leads to some exciting possibilities that future entries in this universe could perhaps explore.

The premise itself reminded me a little bit of Primeval, and that was made more apparent while watching the full thing. The time portals in the movie are functionally Anomalies, almost right down to how they work and look (okay, they don't really look like Anomalies but its similar enough). Since Primeval itself is more or less a dead license, this is the closest I feel we'll ever get to a Primeval movie.

That extends to the ending, where the surviving Platt family manage to travel back to their own time, with mere minutes to spare before their town is taken by the time portal. They create an alternate timeline where they save Greg by getting him out of the neighbourhood before its taken, and get to live on happily as a family. A sequel could maybe do something with the alternate Platt family, who now have had Greg taken from them, going through the same scenario but now under different circumstances and perhaps with different creatures.

It's exciting stuff I think. reminds me a lot of Primeval and how some seasons ended with alternate timelines being created, and we get to explore some of the effects that has throughout.

I probably won't say much more, just cuz I really do think this movie deserves a fair shake. If not on the big screen, then maybe when it hits digital and DVD. The End of Oak Street is a fun time, and I look forward to seeing what's next in this world (if anything is to come).

[bugtoucher420]

A few of my favorite finds from today’s bug bioblitz 🦋🪲🌸

IDs: Saddleback caterpillar, rustic borer, ringed assassin bug, Reduviid eggs (unsure of species atm but my guess is orange assassin bug), gold-marked thread-waisted wasps, spined stilt bugs, silver-dashed Anacampsis, Charlie Brown flea beetle, spined Micrathena

[wszechmistrz]

So I run a wiki (and a Facebook page) about my special interest, and the official Polish distributor noticed my project and reached out to me + offered a PR package

That's kinda neat

[allnatsfavoritesongs]

Omg this is the first I've seen of the fabled Weezer SNL performance. I didn't know there was a clip out there of them performing.

I suppose I should have found this sooner, seeing as it's on fandom dot com, but I never knew the date of the SNL show!

Source: https://snl.fandom.com/wiki/May_19,_2001?file=Weezer_Island_in_the_Sun_on_Saturday_Night_Live_2001