Best Of MetaFilter

Join today's livewatch and discussion in Fanfare for the World Cup Final!

Come share your excitement for the World Cup! There's also a bracket thread, and we'll sidebar Fanfare threads for livewatching as they go up.

Art redeems us all - come on over to Fanfare for Eurovision 2018!

Curling by BC Living (cc by)

Join us in Fanfare for the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, and for ongoing discussion of all the events of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics !

Unhappy owl by krishna.naudin (cc by-sa)

It's Superbowl time! Come join in the Superbowl post on Fanfare -- for NFL football, and all the associated intra-Superbowl tv hoopla (ads, halftime, etc)

Semifinal 1 EUROVISION 2008 by proteusbcn (cc by)

It's Eurovision time! Jump in today with Tuesday's Eurovision semifinal, and find future installments at Fanfare's Eurovision Club.

RIO by Isaias Fernandes (cc by)

Come join us on FanFare to discuss the Olympics! Tonight the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. All athletic events will be in the Olympic all-sports thread, and specific sports will be listed on the Olympics page as the games go on.

There's a MetaTalk thread for giving feedback on this experiment.

Fan by ricky.montalvo (cc by-nd)

Members are testing how Fanfare can handle sports events, and the Eurovision song contest! Come check out the new clubs:

NBA basketball club! (Fanfare Talk announcement here)

Football club, for Euro 2016! (FanFare Talk announcement here)

Cycling club! (Fanfare talk announcement here)

Eurovision club! (Fanfare Talk announcement here) (Also recent: How to watch Eurovision from the USA)

Other folks are welcome to try out coordinating discussions for other sports, as well. Drop by the Metatalk thread if you want to hash out an idea.

And for a summer's worth of film series and book discussion and more, check out all the other FanFare Clubs.

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #1747 by Ape Lad (cc by-nc-nd)

lately in MetaTalk:

Why, the site is a glorious peacock!: Announcing More Color for the Classic Theme

Mefi Podcast 114 is out: "I Say It's Spinach, And To Hell With It"

Discussing Books in Fanfare: Let's talk about books, baby

How YOU doin'?: What's new, MeFites? Have a life update you'd like to share?

Almost Time by MikeSpeaks (cc by)

Need to talk about the new Star Wars? Fanfare's got you covered, including Mefi's own adrianhon checking in from a panel discussion with the cast.

If you've been brushing up on the original films to prepare, you might enjoy the Fanfare rewatches of all the previous Star Wars movies.

For more, check out the posts tagged 'StarWars' including fun odds and ends like Star Wars, the pencil game and real fencers doing light saber battle.

Star Wars art? Scenes made of Lego, and some paintings in classical Japanese style

Nerdy analytic overthinking? The economics of the Death Star and the legal case of Han vs. Greedo. Ask those hard questions like are the Jedi overrated? and of course is Jar Jar the big boss?

Hannibal Rising

For those suffering Hannibal withdrawal, here's a reminder that the fannibals are still dissecting the last episode in FanFare, with over 1,000 comments (wherein Kitteh executes a real-life Mads and Gillian Fanfare.Metafilter photo op!), plus the brand new Cannibal Club has cooked up some ideas for those hungry for more, including a club talk post to discuss the book "Hannibal Rising" in anticipation of a movie re-watch. Dig in, my fiends.

Sunset Boulevard by www.brevestoriadelcinema.org (cc by-nc)

Many classic movies are famous and important without being very entertaining to contemporary viewers. But others feel surprisingly fresh, in the sense that they still hold up as entertainment ... Which oldies successfully make you laugh/scream/cry/think on their own terms, without you having to put yourself in the shoes of bygone audiences?

In AskMe, Beardman asks about Oldies that don't feel like homework viewing, while in FanFare, Old Timey Film Club is announced, and Sunset Boulevard is posted as the group's debut thread (So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!).

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

In Ask Me, phunniemee asks Give me your recommendations for creeping, meandering, dream-like movies! Meanwhile, back at FanFare something's brewing with naju ... and Strange Club ("strange & sublime, bizarre & beautiful, arthouse-leaning, unclassifiable") lurches to ecstatic life, with a first viewing set for Aug 12 and first post Aug 17.

Raymond James Stuart illustration 'Chaw Beef'

Weirdly, I accidentally discovered a lot more about one of the central mysteries today: What the heck sort of prank is knotting a shirt?

In FanFare, maxsparber delves into a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, inside a Mystery Show podcast and unknots the origins of what turns out to be the "Chaw Beef" prank.

Hipsters by idealisms (cc by)

In case anyone's missed it, here's a reminder that FanFare's newish "Watercooler" page offers a quick look at what discussions have been most active recently (and you can see recently added TV and films on the FF front page sidebar), and FanFare Clubs has some fun things going on, including:

The Criterion on Hulu Club has added a second film per week, voted on from Criterion's selection of films available for free to non-Hulu subscribers

The Bond Club has been having a good time love/hate/grudge-watching smoove ol' 007, and is about halfway through the oeuvre; not too late to join in and possibly be shaken, if not stirred.

The Mefi Horror Club has been busily skulking and scurrying around the dark places, and just posted Killer Klowns from Outer Space. brrrr.

(also, psst, you can start your own club, and discuss it first in FanFare Talk, if you'd like)