At this point? No. They passed that point of no return when they failed to capture Kyiv.

There is a lot we still don't know behind the fog of war. The talks of Russian build-up in the north is worrying, but the fact Russia is so slow to update strategy makes me think if they make another push, they'll again be bogged down. The only way to properly invade is to first establish air supremacy over a long campaign of bombing and shelling, and Russia failed that point from the get-go.

But, I still think Russia would be doing better if they changed their strategy. They could change their "victory" conditions to suit their capabilities, and thus achieve some kind of "victory", but even those token objectives they keep laying forth turn out to be pipe dreams. They've taken months to barely capture Soledar, a town with a pre-war population of 10,000. I've been in small towns of about that much, and it's kinda sad the Russians expend so many lives over such a small and strategically worthless target.

IDK, I'm mostly just synthesizing information from the many military bloggers I've started following since Feb 22. The key takeaway I get from them is the situation is fluid, evolving, and there is much we don't know about either sides' operations. But from a general political POV, Russia most certainly fucked up from the get-go, and have doubled down on those fucked strategies.

>Officials, in the West and in Ukraine, had begun to wonder if Russia's "energy war" might be coming to an end, due to a possible shortage of suitable missiles and the evident fact the strategy has yet to break Ukraine's spirit.

If there is one thing Russia has shown us, it is a stubborn willingness to commit to bad strategy at the expense of victory.

Honestly, even his voice work. Vigo the Carpathian was just some hammy one-off villain for the Ghostbusters, but there's still so much in Von Sidow's vocal performance. He captures that epic vibe of some D&D baddie that has chased immortality and paid a heavy price, but is still willing to double down on his pursuit.

I think he was a bit underutilized in his later years. Appearances in things like Star Wars and Game of Thrones could have been so much more impactful. As you said, a mortality and search for meaning, that's precisely what those two respective characters brought. They were just left under-cooked by the screenplay.

Absolutely.

But the tentacle stuff...and the mermaid.....

The Lighthouse (2019) is one of the best movies I watched recently. I'm never watching it again though. It's a great film, but it's also extremely unsettling. It was entertaining and quite well done, but I don't think I want to sit through that again.

I've seen this movie soooo many times.

A few things I've noticed:

1. the Warden is constantly talking about righteousness and piety, while being a vulgar and cruel man. A friend of mine didn't like the "fart in the wind" line, but I explained it shows how he's a crude and vulgar man, not the pious and pristine man he present shimself as.

2. Andy was baptized in shitwater. I just think this is beautiful and hilarious, from an atheist pov. That to clean himself of the stink of the corruption of Shawshank, he had to literally crawl through five-hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness.

3. "Geology is the study of pressure and time". Underrated line. While pressure may not have been overwhelming, the function of time and pressure gave Andy the means of escape. His pressure was such that he found himself useful to the protectionary staff and off-limits to harmful actors, but he was also an innocent man and deserved freedom. And in time he weathered a wall into a hole, busted through a chemically corroded pipe, and wriggled his way through five-hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness I can't even imagine (oh, and financially set himself up). Or maybe I don't want to.