#Swing to the Moon Short Film Review

[afabstract]

Swing to the Moon - Short Film Review

A tiny little spider dreams big in the charming short animated film "Swing to the Moon".

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram) This is six minutes of cuteness, mixed with the tiniest sprinkle of dread, and a whole lot of wonder! Only six minutes long, the animated short movie “Swing to the Moon” Marie Bordessoule, Adriana Bouissie, Nadine De Boer and Elise Drique is about a tenacious little spider trying to reach the moon. The computer-generated imagery…

[agentnico]

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) Review

It really does warm my heart seeing Brendan Fraser’s adorable face back on our movie screens again. From The Whale last year to his short cameo in Killers of the Flower Moon, the Brenaissance has come full circle. Like the guy has literally landed a gig with Martin Scorsese! George of the Jungle has made it into a fricking Scorsese picture! Watch out for that tree, Hollywood!!

Plot: Based on journalist David Grann's 2017 best-selling book of the same name, Killers of the Flower Moon recounts the true story of how a white businessman and self-proclaimed "true friend" of the Osage Nation orchestrated the brutal murders of numerous members of the tribe in early 1920s Oklahoma.

Martin Scorsese is back in full swing with another epic, and ‘epic’ is the word to use here as this movie is over 3 and a half hours long! And don’t count on many toilet breaks either, as this film justifies it’s runtime by making every minute count, so it really is not worth leaving your screening for a cheeky wee and missing a solid 5 minutes of masterful filmmaking. All I’m saying is if you have a weak bladder, maybe wait for this one to be released on the Apple streaming service in the next few months. Right, enough loo talk, let’s discuss the actual film. It is fantastic. I mean, what do you expect, it’s directed by Martin Scorsese, who’s one of the primary filmmaking auteurs of our day and age, and he rarely misses the mark. In fact since 2013 he has been on an unbreakable streak of amazing directing efforts, and with this one he may have told his bleakest and most emotionally distressing story yet. With the subject matter at hand of the series of real-life killings committed by greedy white folk against indigenous people, this was never going to be an easy going walk through the park, but it is the execution here that counts. Right off the bat I must applaud the music score of Robbie Robertson as it consistently built up tension in every scene, and always amplified the continuous feeling of dread, with the sounds of the music almost signalling an upcoming murder moments before it happens. From a technical standpoint as a whole this movie is a marvel, and you can tell the crew made complete use of their high over $200 million budget. It’s masterfully edited, beautifully shot (by the cinematographer of Barbie apparently??), with lead cast performances that are all awards worthy and a story that is truly fascinating as it is horrifying.

Yet it isn’t till the movie’s final moments where it truly becomes sublime, and Martin Scorsese’s underlining message and purpose for this film comes to fruition. With most biopics at the end you would usually get a text crawl on-screen providing facts about what happened to all the real-life people after the events of the film. Scorsese naturally doesn’t play by the same rules and does something slightly different, but in that also hides a deeper meaning. With this film Scorsese is both giving an apology from himself and aiming an accusation on the audience. The Osage murders have not been talked about much until now, and even back then in the 1930s it took a while for the FBI to investigate it, and afterward dumped the story on a radio show to showcase to the listeners back then how great the FBI were. Yet again taking away from the victims and putting the attention on the white men. And now in the context of Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese is fully aware that most audiences will go see this film purely because it was directed by him and has the star power of Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. Look, I’m as guilty as anyone else, that’s exactly why I went to see it. The complexity of making a movie, a work of entertainment, about a tragedy that’s still very much living in the memories of the Burkhart family and the Osage more broadly is complex. Having to balance the Osage perspective with the white characters. The movie’s ending makes note how the story of the murders and of Mollie’s family was largely ignored and is a tacit acknowledgment that Scorsese knows this isn’t a perfectly constructed story, either. Here he is, a man whose success comes at least in small part from proximity to the kind of men who murdered, asking for forbearance. For forgiveness, in a sense. And also challenging the audience to be more aware and develop an understanding on these serious parts of history. As such as much as Leonardo DiCaprio is engaging as the morally conflicted Ernest and De Niro has never been better, chewing the scenery as the conniving spider-web tangling William Hale, I am glad that the real heart and soul of the movie lies with Lily Gladstone as the Osage-born Mollie Bukhart. For again, the star power is there to sell the movie, but the A-listers are given characters that are morally detestable, and then Lily Gladstone emerges as the one we as an audience root for, and through her emotional performance we also connect emotionally with the loss of the Osage people.

Another interesting aspect that Scorsese seems to be untangling here is the idea of perspective. The events of the movie are told from the viewpoints of characters we cannot fully trust, so each event can be questioned as to if it really happened or if it’s fictionalised. And with this Scorsese really is tackling the genre of biopics, and how directors and writers are able to take creative liberties in telling the true stories, by either exaggerating or adding elements to make the story more entertaining for the masses. Even with the recent Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan admitted in an interview about making changes to certain events to create that bigger cinematic scope. For example let’s take the moment when young Oppenheimer tries to poison his lecturer with the cyanide-induced apple as revenge for embarrassing him. In reality there was a poisoned apple, but it wasn’t cyanide but in fact just a substance to make one be sick. And secondly, unlike in the movie where the apple is attempted to be consumed by Kenneth Branagh Danish physicist Bohr whom Oppenheimer idolised, he wasn’t at all involved in this event in real life. In Killers of the Flower Moon, the majority of the story is told through the eyes of DiCaprio’s Ernest, who opposing to his name is less than earnest and the more sleaziest of the personas presented in the movie. Guess in a nutshell Scorsese is simply reminding the casual viewer to take any information they get about anything with a pinch of salt.

In terms of negatives, there honestly aren’t many. Again, the movie is loooong, but I can’t say it had any unnecessary filler or needless weight. Maybe the film would have benefitted from being a limited series, and with this soon having a home on Apple TV+ one may question why an episodic format wasn’t considered. Also, DiCaprio as great as he is in this, I did question as to why throughout the whole film he contorted his face like a bulldog and stuck his lower lip out as if he were bitten by a bee. It seemed more so like a physical gimmick that didn’t add much to his character. Unless they simple wanted to make him look as sleazy and untrustworthy as possible, but then one would think why Mollie would have wanted to marry a man like that in the first place. Then there are also minor cameos from Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow closer to the end of the film, and I must say as much as I love them both, when they appeared I did lose the sense of escapism a little as they were a tad over-the-top in their performances, which didn’t exactly fit the tone set out by the rest of the film.

Overall Killers of the Flower Moon is a major saga of greed, murder, corruption and despair, told through the eyes of a filmmaker who somehow is still managing to mature more as a director even though he’s already over 80 years of age. The story of the Osage murders is disheartening yet really interesting to watch, the production design and camera work are top-notch, the costumes are fitting and authentic to the time and culture, and the performances are great. Oh, almost forgot to mention my boy Jesse Plemons is also in this as the FBI detective, and look, Plemons always delivers. But yep, this is a great first step for Apple into the cinematic theatre experience, so I now have high hopes for the upcoming Napoleon movie. Here’s hoping that one is an epic too, though maybe a shorter one as there’s only so much my bladder can take.

Overall score: 8/10

[artificialqueens]

we might be hollow (but we're brave) [jan x jackie] - pinkgrapefruit

A/N - hey! incase you hadn’t noticed i’m in love with this ship and I had these lyrics and timestamps in my google docs for months with branjie but it just wasn’t fully fitting. thanks to Alex for betaing and i hope you enjoy it! let me know what you think <3

*

we might be hollow (but we’re brave)

We’re never done with killing time

Can I kill it with you?

‘Til the veins run red and blue

1 7 0 7 - 0 3 - 1 5 - 2 0 0 9

The car hums, low and hoarse as Jackie waits in the school lot. She’d offhandedly promised to pick up her english partner and all of a sudden she’s regretting it, twenty minutes late and low on fuel. She switches it off, flicking the key, and then back on again, hoping not to burn out the fragile engine.

She runs out of the school sweaty and flustered, gym bag slung haphazardly over her shoulder and for a second Jackie is fixated on the way Jan’s baby hairs have plastered themselves across her forehead. The smaller girl slings her bag through the open back window, watching with a smirk as Jackie cringes - sending a warm smile in gratitude.

They play the music loud and keep the air con on low, just cool enough to dry Jan’s hair without the native New Jerseyan complaining about how it’s warmer in the arctic. Jackie’s from Canada, she doesn’t really care.

Jan gives vague directions to her home as and when she sees fit, often directing Jackie to take turns she didn’t even know existed when they’re already almost past them. It drives the brunette mad as she abuses the car’s delicate steering, all to navigate the New Jersey suburbs.

What she does notice is they end up barely two streets over from her own house. A standard three bed, two bath, decent garden house that looks just as identical as every other one in the neighbourhood.

It’s painted blue. Jackie thinks it fits.

They spend the early evening reading excerpts of Romeo and Juliet to each other on Jan’s porch. The blonde reads on the porch chair as it swings aimlessly in the warm early spring breeze. She’s still in her cheer uniform and Jackie doesn’t have a chance to ask how she manages both cheer and soccer. Jackie barely manages hockey.

They eat homemade ice cream sundaes and watch the sunset over the eerie glow of the street lamps until Jan complains she can’t see the pages anymore and Jackie has long since stopped making notes on prose and characters.

They don’t talk about school tomorrow because they won’t see each other. Jan asks if she will pick her up. Jackie says yes.

We come around here all the time

Got a lot to not do, let me kill it with you

0 7 3 2 - 0 4 - 0 2 - 2 0 0 9

Jackie gets a text at half past seven telling her quite emphatically that Jan is running late. There is no question posed that Jackie can discern on the Nokia n95 screen - the glare from the early morning screen compromising her vision anyway - but she grabs her rucksack and the keys to the car and swings round the corner anyway.

She rationalises it by telling herself that it’s on the way to school anyway. It is.

She pulls up and Jan is sat on the porch steps in a pastel pink denim miniskirt and a glittery letterman jacket. She skips to the car and slides onto the front seat with a telltale squeak of bare legs on leather, throwing her bag onto the backseat in a way that still makes Jackie cringe even after two weeks. She smells of lemongrass and vanilla.

The blonde giggles and Jackie catches her mouth curving up in the reverse mirror, so she lets Jan pick the music and just focuses on the gear stick and anything else in her control.

She watches as the blonde sways to Fifteen by Taylor Swift, belting out the lyrics like she can feel them in her soul. They’re sophomores but they were freshmen last year and to be honest, from what she knows of Jan, she wouldn’t be surprised if that was her life.

They pull into the school parking lot to the sounds of Fearless and even Jackie cracks a smile at the way Jan is beaming. They have five minutes before they need to be in school and Jackie averts her eyes as Jan twists awkwardly to grab her bag from where it ended up on the floor, skirt riding up so the brunette can see the plum lace of her panties. She gulps and pulls out her well worn copy of Little Women instead. Not watching as Jan quickly reviews her AP Biology textbook.

“Thanks Jackie! You’re the best,” Jan calls as she slams the rickety car door on the third attempt.

“Anytime Jan.” And Jackie finds she means it.

You pick me up and take me home again

Head out the window again

We’re hollow like the bottles that we drain

0 1 2 5 - 0 7 - 1 7 - 2 0 0 9

Jackie’s phone vibrates under her pillow at one in the morning on a friday. They’ve been on summer break for a month and Jackie hasn’t really done much but she’ll admit she’s missed Jan. Until she woke her up that is.

She answers it with a defeated sign, tugging on her oversized Van Halen t-shirt until it feels decent even though no one is going to look into her tiny bedroom. The light filters through the window in a way that makes it feel like she’s in a weird horror film and she remembers why this is called the witching hour.

“Come over Jack, I’m bored,” comes the whine from down the phone and Jackie has to stifle a laugh even though she knows how much trouble she could get in for this. She sighs. She can’t really argue -  doesn’t want to. She’s always been called boring. She doesn’t want to be anymore.

“I’m coming Jan, gimme five.”

She tugs on an oversized jacket and pulls a pair of gym shorts under her shirt, grabbing the running trainers from the bottom of her closet and spritzing a couple of squirts of sandalwood and shea from her almost empty perfume bottle. When she’s pretty sure she looks okay, she pushes up her window and thanks the gods she’s over the porch. It’s well structured and surprisingly easy to climb both up and down (her brother proved it to her last week) and she slides the window shut behind her as she shimmies down stained wood into the crisp summer night.

It’s not cold and the summer moon means it’s not dark either so she manages the walk quite calmly, feeling a freedom she sometimes forgets she has.

Jan’s sat on her porch steps in a pair of grey joggers and a black sports bra, draped in a tartan blanket and with what is unmistakably a bottle of wine gripped between her thighs.

They don’t actually talk for a while, just pass the bottle between themselves taking swigs of it like it’s water until Jan is giggling at a sparrow - the moon making her blonde hair glow in a way Jackie deems completely unfair. She’s ethereal, godlike in this light and Jan wants to tuck some of the escaped strands back behind her ear so she can watch the shadow in the curve of her upper lip.

She wants them to talk about boys, or talk about girls - to delve into who they are because surely that’s how you should spend wine time at two a.m but the wine is all gone and Jan’s cheek is soft on Jackie’s padded shoulder and somehow their fingers intertwine.  

She starts humming something under her breath, something old - a song her dad used to sing her to help her sleep and Jan tugs at her hand to make her sing it louder until Jackie is serenading the sleepy neighbourhood with Mama Cass.

She shakes Jan awake just after four as the sun rises down the wide street. Their knees are stiff but Jan stands up, tugging Jackie by the hands into a hug. She’s not sure what it’s for but it’s welcomed and when Jackie clambers back through her window she can smell vanilla.

You drape your wrists over the steering wheel

Pulses can drive from here

We might be hollow, but we’re brave

0 5 0 2 - 0 1 - 0 1 -2 0 1 0

She’s clad in a hoodie and leggings when she pulls up to the big house. The party she was at finished hours ago but she’s told Jan to text her if she needed her and apparently she needs her so she’d put the heating on full blast and grabbed a blanket out of the trunk to wrap the smaller girl in when she came out.

She watches as she walks carefully out of the house, feet bare and stiletto heels in her hands. Jan slides into the front seat quietly. She carefully drops the heels into the foot-well and puts an awful lot of effort into fastening her seat-belt just right until she looks up at Jackie and something snaps.

Her eyes are red and raw and her lipstick is smudged across her chin and she looks so tired Jackie wants to bundle her up, hold her close and never let her go. But she doesn’t.

She places one hand in her lap and drives calmly to an empty house down the road, pulling into the drive and turning the engine off.

Jan is gripping her hand like a lifeline, clammy fingers twisted around soft flesh. In the light of the streetlamp, there are scratched on Jan’s bare thighs and Jackie gulps on reflex - choking back something that could have been a retch if what she’s thinking is true.

She takes a second to compose herself, brushing through Jan’s hair with her free hand. “You okay baby?” She asks quiet and still - trying to keep the situation as tranquil as she can.

Jan takes a huge snotty inhale, broken by sobs, and shakes her head. She tries to speak but she isn’t breathing enough to form words and all that’s coming out is a choked whimper.

“Hey, Jan honey, you’re safe,” she murmurs, “look at me babe.” She repeats it until the blonde will look her in the eyes, her cerulean orbs pooling. “Can I touch you?” Jackie asks, her tone soothing, and Jan nods slowly.

Jackie places a cool hand on her shoulder and feels the sticky sweat against her dry skin. The smell of cheap vodka, beer and mens cologne is filling the car and it makes her feel sick. She’s not a partier or a massive drinker but by the smell alone she doesn’t understand the appeal. She moves quickly, whipping her head around as she remembers the water bottle she keeps in the door. She places it in Jan’s lap and gently coaxes her to take a sip.

After a little while longer Jan rolls her shoulders back and squeezes Jackie’s hand appreciatively. She nods to herself while trying to find her words and Jackie rubs slow circles on her back.

“It, it was twelve and everyone was cheering,“ she starts, slowly, methodically. "And he- he wanted a kiss, which was fine because everyone was kissing and I’d joked last week that I’d kiss him so it was okay,” She pauses, justifying things that don’t need justifying, setting off alarm bells in Jackie’s head to the point where she’s mentally screaming and the story hasn’t even begun.

“But then,” she continues after a sip of water, “at like three, he pulled me aside while Jaida and Gigi were dancing and asked me for a kiss and I said yes because it seemed like the right thing to do.” She’s got silent tears running down her face again and Jackie wants to tell her she doesn’t have to keep going but she’s frozen in place. “But then it, it took a while and he took my hand and he put it down his trousers and he started kissing down my neck.” The words aren’t given tone anymore. They’re cold hard statements of fact that are rattling through Jackie’s ribs, making her fight every urge she has to vomit because Jan’s become her best friend.

“And I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t like him like that and I just wanted a fun kiss. But he made me touch him and I didn’t want that at all.” Jan starts to shake so Jackie pulls the blanket back over her, Keeping one steadying hand on her knee - steadying for the both of them. “So I pulled away and he called me a whore and then I trapped myself in a bedroom and then I texted you and it was awful Jackie. It was terrible and the worst part was I just wanted you.” She sobs openly but the tears run clear now - the mascara washed off her face and she seems lighter and that’s all Jackie could ask for.

“You are so brave Jan,” Jackie says with as much confidence as she can muster. “You are so brave and that man is a coward and a dick if he thinks he can do that to a woman and you are the strongest person I know, don’t you forget that.” She leans her forehead on the side of the blonde’s head and sighs.

“I’m so sorry baby."

“Me too,” Jan murmurs. “Me too.”

I love these roads where the houses don’t change (and I like you)

2 2 5 6 - 0 5 - 2 2 - 2 0 1 0

“Oh God, Oh God, Oh God,” mutters Jackie, knees bouncing, clammy palms on the leather seats.

They’re racing down the empty street, lamps flickering as they pass. If it was any lighter, neighbourhood watch would have caught them out by now because this is almost certainly not within legal speed limits for the suburbs. Jan passes house after house as they try frantically to make it for Jackie’s eleven pm curfew, the wind low and whistling as it cuts the car. They know the stakes.

Jackie’s face has turned a pale shade of white in fear of the reaction she will face, scraping in just under the time agreed. How her mother will react to Jan driving the family car back home, kissing her gently on the cheek and walking two streets to her own home.

They pull up at ten fifty-nine and Jan almost bursts into tears.

“See you tomorrow?” She asks softly, wistfully.

“Yeah,” Jackie exhales, tomorrow.

Where we can talk like there’s something to say (and I like you)

2 3 5 8 - 1 2 - 3 1 - 2 0 1 0

Jan makes Jackie pull over when she notices the time. They’re both too drunk to be driving and too sober to be alone and they’ve got the windows down as the sea breeze tunnels through the car. It smells of sunsets and saltwater and ice cream sundaes and Jackie’s hair and Jan is hooked.

The old car clock ticks quietly above the hum of the engine and the barely-there sound of the waves and Jackie finds pleasure in watching Jan’s eyes fixate on the hand. It swings around, red against the clock face.

Jan catches her staring and her eyes burn blue into Jackie’s deep brown. It’s a cold night but they’ve both pulled the blankets from the back seat and suddenly the blonde is aware of how small the vehicle is because there is not enough room between their faces and-

Their lips touch. Spark. Flicker. Ignite.

And then she’s warm and intoxicated and just a little bit in love but she thinks the dopey smile suits her - heads lolled back on the headrests, hands intertwined.

I’m glad that we stopped kissing the tar on the highway (and I like you)

1 6 2 4 - 0 2 - 1 4 - 2 0 1 1

Jackie drives them to the beach at sunset. They sit in the boot of the car on a picnic blanket in a parking spot that overlooks the crashing waves and it’s an illusion of stillness Jackie struggles to find anywhere else.

They hold hands because no one can see them - drink a bottle of champagne stolen from Jan’s Mom’s wine fridge. The blonde is bundled up in Jackie’s chunky knit cardigan and she looks warm and cosy and just a little bit like home.

“Hold me,” Jan asks, with eyes like saucers and a tone rolling in sugar. Jackie blinks slowly - capturing the image of her girlfriend in this moment before reaching to pull her into her arms. They don’t have much room but Jan somehow manages to straddle her - a hand on each cheek as Jackie grips her hips. The brunette bites her own lip softly and suddenly their mouths are pressed together and she’s not sure if it’s the sea air, the girl or a little bit of both but it tastes like magic and she doesn’t ever want to let it go.

“I love you,” she exhales into her hair - just above her ear.

“I love you more,” Jan whispers onto her collarbone.

“Sure Jan,” Jackie giggles, pulling Jan closer, burying her face into her hair. “Happy Valentine’s day baby.”

We move in the tree streets

0 8 3 5 - 0 8 - 2 8 - 2 0 1 1

“We’re only gonna be four hours away,” Jan mumbles, fingers finding Jackie’s with ease. “Why does that feel like the whole universe?”

They’re sat on Jan’s front steps - she has to leave in an hour if she’s going to make it to NYU for move-in but she’s not quite sure how to put one foot in front of another. Her life is packed up in boxes behind her but her world is holding her hand.

“Four hours baby. That’s all,” Jackie coaxes, “we can do it.” She says it with so much confidence but her bottom lip is trembling frantically. She got a place at Penn State and she’s happy. It’s what she wants -  to be away from her family - to grow. Unfortunately that means being away from Jan too.

“Will we make it?” Jan asks - and it’s so earnest it breaks Jackie’s heart.  

“Yes.” Jackie says. And this time her lip is still.

I’d like it if you stayed.

[myfriendpokey]

the 2019 my friend pokey year in review!!

released a game i was happy about. started work on a new game i'm not sure about yet! went through a few months of false starts, switching game engines and ideas and approaches.

at one point i decided i wanted to spend about 2 years making nothing but "clown games", games where you played as a little mr. do figure navigating these abstract tile mazes a la chip's challenge. these games would all have titles like clown thing, clown city, moon clown, clown deluxe. i put this idea on hold when it was pointed out to me that all of my games were clown games.

at a different point i decided to try making an rpg maker horror game. i spent a month reading as many ghost stories as i could but then when i actually started the work i realised i'd immediately lose interest when the game was meant to become scary as opposed to just being a strange space full of funny text descriptions. but, one day i hope i can return to this game.

i made physical cd rom boxes for 10 beautiful postcards and took them to a zine fair. i think i forget the extent to which cds are a legacy format, now... people seemed interested but noncommital. i need to remember the last time i tried doing this was in 2014!! still interested in the idea of more "local" ways of releasing these things but will need to reconsider my approach.

also for the fair i made a short zine of romantic comedy reviews from my big romantic comedy review thread. i think i started that last year... over time i've become more jaded... i think i want to put that aside for a while so that i don't become the romcom equivalent of a joyless youtube guy. i don't know if it comes across in anything i've written about them but i do get a certain charge from the studio romantic comedy format. these things were on TV all the time when i was a kid. they fit sort of the same role as horror films and action movies to me, in that the real appeal wasn't so much the nominal genre as the weird vague visions of "everyday life" that the genre had to clothe itself in. the idea that these could be examined for clues to that life... and of course romcoms offer up a different version of that terrain than other genre movies, one that's almost studiedly bland in such a stylised and artificial way that it becomes seductive. when i was a kid i dreamed about being one of the night watchmen patrolling the warehouse in the opening minutes of a horror movie; now i have at least some kind of fascination with the eerily benign and conflictless parallel universe of spunky yet hapless romcom heroines running around accidentally dumping coffee on people.

i wrote another few big blog things. my favourite is probably the one on easy games - as prolix as ever but basically light and drifting in scope. my attempt to get at what i find exciting about the specific category of "videogame writing" in Monster Party... i dunno, we always kill the thing we love etc. writing on modernism and vgames i found interesting though it's possibly unintelligible to anyone who doesn't have my particular haphazard reference points for what modernism even refers to (more biased to writing than painting etc). i enjoyed trying to figure out what morality means in this weird context.

I also wrote dictionary to the known world for emilie reed’s lost histories jam. this was an attempt to get across the sort of strange insular reference systems which existed in hobbyist game spaces at a point immediately before they were all grouped under “indie”. 

i spent the last two years kind of obsessively returning to the idea of videogames as speculation, videogames as financialisation, videogames and the market. videogames thru the lens of the crash in 2008. i don't completely know why i got so fixated for so long, but feel like i was finally able to burn myself out on the subject in the course of this long piece. i dunno, maybe in future i can swing more into the other direction - the non-economic, mystical, etc. this year i bought a little clear glass pyramid with a star embedded into it for £1.50, and if you look through it and turn it around you get these vivid translucent fields of colour... it's interesting and it's pleasant to look at. clear glass pyramid is the game of the year.

oh, I also did the ball with feet fanpage this year. come with me and appreciate one of the format’s most powerful critters.

books: i can never remember what i read, but here are the ones i most remember out of 2019.

val wilmer - as serious as your life: a beautiful book about free jazz, or "the new music", worthwhile less for the descriptions of same than for the careful contemporary reportage of how it came about: the people involved, the influences and ideas that moved and changed from place to place, disagreements and developments, across rehearsals and performances and such clubs as would book it at all: what sun ra refers to here as the "unmanufactured avant garde", the kind that emerges when people in a commercially disregarded form quietly find space to explore their own interests. and to respond to one another's work - possibly the most surprising aspect of this book in 2019 is the way seemingly none of the musicians felt the now inescapable obligation to respond to the commercial culture of the day, to describe their work in the preferred language of that culture rather than on their own terms. instead we get reportage of black avant-garde musicians attempting to unionise in hopes of extracting concessions  from a white pop media establishment - think about reconciling THAT with the recieved ideas of culture 2019, in which anything that's not a disney movie is presented as elitist. solid paperback reissue means it's suitable for throwing at the heads of passers by.

other books i remember:

jane bowles - collected works. these are very mysterious and funny - i don't know how to describe them other than as sort of having the tone of a screwball katherine hepburn comedy in which she gets the job of becoming a beckett protagonist. max haiven - art after money, money after art. a feast on every page... extremely sharp and restless thinking about art, financialisation, the shifting and ongoing interdependence of the two. roberto calasso - the marriage of cadmus and harmony. content warning for greek myths and all that this implies. got this one on a whim not caring anything about the subject but was immediately drawn in by the terrifying strangeness of the symbolic universe that he explores. jean debuffet - cultural asphyxiation. collection of miscellaneous debuffet writings. vengeful attacks upon official culture. ford madox ford - memories & impressions. an extremely unreliable but entertaining memoir about growing up in the circle of the pre-raphaelites. there's a good bit where he describes the terror of walking around london as a child when you've been made to dress like a cross between little lord fauntleroy and oscar wilde. b.s. johnson - christy malry's double entry. the title character applies the basic principle of double entry bookkeeping - for every debit, a credit - to work and life, killing thousands in the process. funny and  strangely melancholy in the manner of at swim-two-birds.

other 2019 things: first time visiting sligo, saw some megaliths, got some nice books. first time casting a vote for a political program i was sincerely enthusiastic about! they got crushed!! tomorrow is another year.

[aion-rsa]

Upcoming Movies in October 2020: Theaters, Streaming and VOD

https://ift.tt/3lducG3

October looks a lot different than it did only a few weeks ago. As the month many movie theater owners were hanging their hats on with the hope of a weekly deluge of new movies , October has recently been vacated by high profile features that include Wonder Woman 1984, Death on the Nile, and Candyman.

Yet if you’re  a cinephile or movie lover who is desperate for new stories and visions, it is not all doom and gloom. Between the streaming market of Netflix, VOD, and other platforms, as well as some smaller films willing to roll the dice on a limited theatrical release, there are still more than a few things to see in October 2020…

2067

October 2 (U.S. Only)

A high-concept science fiction setup if we’ve ever heard one, 2067 is the story of Ethan Whyte (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a young man born in a dystopian future where he learns that he might be the savior of humanity… at least that’s what people from an even more distant future are saying. In a plot twist that sounds, at least on paper, akin to a reversal of The Terminator, messengers from the future say Ethan is the key to saving the world and wish to transport him via time machine to an unknowable destiny. Chaos ensues. It’s a big idea, but we’re always game for someone swinging big in this genre.

Death of Me

October 2 (November 23 in the UK)

Darren Lynn Boseman, director of Saw II through Saw IV, returns to the horror genre again alongside Nikita’s Maggie Q and Westworld’s Luke Hemsworth. In this VOD release, the pair play a vacationing couple who wake up on an island with a horrible hangover. Yet a video on their phones seems to suggest the night before was even worse: Neil (Hemsworth) spent the evening brutally murdering his wife, as per the screen in their pockets. Nevertheless, here they are now, left with a lot of questions of what happened yesterday… and what can happen today.

Black Box

October 6

The first of Amazon Prime and Blumhouse Productions’ “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour’s Black Box has a tantalizing premise. Nolan (Mamoudou Athie) survived a car accident that took his wife, but it also took large swaths of his memory of her. So in order to regain his memory, and regain a sense of stability for his young daughter, Nolan undergoes an experimental treatment where his psychologist uses hypnosis to thrust him into his subconscious where he’ll be able remember his past and face his personal demons. Literally. 

Like something out of Christopher Nolan’s Inception, this horror movie shows how scary being trapped in dreams really is if all that’s in them is the stuff of nightmares…

The Lie

October 6

The second Amazon/Blumhouse feature is more of a psychological thriller than a straightforward horror movie. Originally premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018, The Lie follows a father (Peter Sarsgaard) who discovers his daughter Kayla (Joey King) accidentally killed her friend… until she admits she may have actually murdered her.

How far will he go to cover-up his daughter’s sins? Well, that’s the logline, and it seems to be a gripping one, albeit reviews from TIFF were less than kind two years ago.

Hubie Halloween

October 7

Last year Adam Sandler warned the Academy that if he doesn’t win an Oscar for Uncut Gems he’d make a film so bad that it’d make “you all pay.” Well, he wasn’t even nominated and eight months after the ceremony, here we are with Netflix’s Hubie Halloween. It remains to be seen whether this is actually the bad one—for starters it filmed before Oscar nominations went out—but it is still very much a Happy Madison production, complete with major supporting roles for Kevin James and Rob Schneider.

Read more

Movies

Uncut Gems: The Real Noir in Adam Sandler’s Classic

By David Crow

Movies

Horror Movies on HBO Max: Hammer Films, It Chapter 2, Us, to Arrive in October

By Don Kaye

In the movie, Sandler plays Hubie Dubois, the town loser of Salem, Massachusetts. A lonely fry cook obsessed with Halloween, Hubie spends all year looking forward to decking out his home and town the same way Clark Griswold anticipates Christmas. But on this particular Halloween, the town appears besieged by actual supernatural forces, and finally Hubie will have his time to shine. Eh, it looks more amusing than The Do-Over and The Ridiculous 6?

Books of Blood

October 7 (U.S. Only)

Who doesn’t love anthological horror? Hulu certainly does, as they’re releasing Books of Blood, the latest adaptation of Clive Barker’s multi-volume series of short stories by the same name. Previous tales from Books of Blood have been adapted into movies as beloved as Candyman and as decidedly not as Rawhide Rex. In this film version, three stories are created for the screen by co-writer and director Brannon Braga. Here’s hoping it lands closer to the former?

Saint Maud

October 9 (UK Only)

The UK will be the first to get A24’s only horror movie this year. Lucky. The feature directorial debut of Rose Glass, Saint Maud follows an unhealthily repressed and zealous young woman: Maud (Morfydd Clark). Maud is technically a caretaker by trade, looking after people in hospice. But she also imagines herself to be something of an apostle, sent to save godless folks from their sins, particularly Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), the woman she’s living with as the in-home nurse.

Read more

Movies

Best Modern Horror Movies

By Don Kaye

Movies

Best Horror Movies on Netflix: Scariest Films to Stream

By David Crow and 2 others

It’s already a tense situation, even before Maud starts hearing voices and having images of ecstasy and Heaven, and demons and Hell. Rich with atmosphere and grueling anticipation of something horrible happening, Saint Maud is a great debut for Glass and a potential star-maker for Clark, who is skin-crawlingly pious as Maud, the young woman who’s wound up tighter than a jack-in-the-box.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow

October 9 (U.S. Only)

Debuting in theaters and on VOD, The Wolf of Snow Hollow is Jim Cummings’ follow-up to Thunder Road. That earlier, underrated movie was a delightful mix of comedy and drama that won the SXSW Grand Jury Prize. So the sophomore effort being a werewolf comedy-horror movie is intriguing. Indeed, Wolf of Snow Hollow is the rare lycanthrope yarn that’s told from the point-of-view of the would-be wolf hunter, Sheriff John Marshall (Cummings).

Following a series of grisly murders every full moon, the residents of Snow Hollow become convinced they have a wolfman on their hands, even if the frustrated sheriff refuses to accept the obvious. The film also marks the final performance of Robert Forster as John’s crusty mentor.

The War with Grandpa

October 9 in the U.S. (October 16 in the UK)

For most people, having Robert De Niro as a grandfather can be an imposing experience. But kids these days! That’s at least one amusing takeaway from The War with Grandpa, the delayed family movie that sees De Niro’s grandfatherly Ed enter into a prank war with his grandson Peter (Oakes Fegley) after upsetting the youth by moving into his old bedroom—Peter’s mom and Ed’s daughter Sally (Uma Thurman) forced them into the arrangement.

Read more

Movies

The King of Comedy: What’s the Real Punchline of the Martin Scorsese Classic?

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Al Capone: 9 Actors Who Played the Original Scarface

By Tony Sokol

Soon shaving cream reveals itself to be foam sealant stuck to De Niro’s face, and Peter’s oral report announces he is a louse. Oh, and there’s a dodgeball battle in which De Niro is aided by a squad of screen legends like Christopher Walken, Cheech Marin, and Jane Seymour, to squash the pups. Now things are getting serious…

Nocturne

October 13

The first of Amazon and Blumhouse’s next batch of original movies, Nocturne is the tale of a hellish rivalry between sisters. Genuinely. The feature debut from director Zu Quirke stars Sydney Sweeney as Juliet, the younger sister of fellow musician Vivian (Madison Iseman). While both young women are gifted pianists, Vivian is a prodigy and the center of Juliet’s envy. That is until Juliet finds the diary of another child prodigy at their prestigious conservatory who killed herself. The book includes all the late pianist’s hidden compositions… and symbols and incantations.

Ever heard the story of Faust? It seems like Juliet is about to get an up-close modern example.

Evil Eye

October 13

As the final Blumhouse effort to be released on Amazon Prime in 2020, Evil Eye hails from directors Elan and Rajeev Dassani and presents itself as both a psychological thriller and supernatural chiller. The truth of which it really is depends on how much you believe the eye of Usha (Sarita Choudhury).

Read more

Movies

How Jason Blum Changed Horror Movies

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

Jason Blum: No Plans To Restart Universal Monsters Universe

By Don Kaye

For this mother of Pallavi (GLOW’s Sunita Mani) is convinced her daughter is necking with a new boyfriend (Omar Maskati) who’s the spirit of an evil abusive ex Usha escaped in her youth. Is he the vestiges of a half-remembered curse or the potential victim of a mommy dearest prone to snap judgements? Tune in to find out for yourself…

The Trial of the Chicago 7

October 16

“The whole world is watching.” That’s the chanted refrain of protestors in Aaron Sorkin’s second movie as director, but it might also apply to the level of anticipation regarding this major Netflix release and potential awards season darling. The movie itself is an old-fashioned legal thriller like Sorkin cut his teeth on with scripts like A Few Good Men, but Chicago 7 feels urgently (and depressingly) vital.

Following on the heels of the Chicago riots during the Democratic National Convention of 1968—riots later deemed to have been started by the police—eight men categorized as “the far left” are rounded up for a show trial by Nixon’s Justice Department where they’re charged with conspiracy.

Read more

Movies

Aaron Sorkin: Donald Trump Made The Trial of the Chicago 7 Movie Possible

By David Crow

Movies

Quentin Tarantino Calls The Social Network the Best Movie of the 2010s

By David Crow

The film features the same blistering abundance of dialogue Sorkin has become famous for, as well as his penchant for breezy fast-paced editing. But the political heft of the subject matter and the movie’s deep bench of an acting ensemble that includes Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eddie Redmayne, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Rylance, and Frank Langella is what makes this one of the most thrilling movies of the year.

Honest Thief

October 16 (U.S. Only)

Liam Neeson plays a thief who wants a second chance. A bank robber willing to turn himself and $9 million in to be with the new love of his life. But then crooked FBI agents (Jai Courtney and Anthony Ramos) steal his money and frame him for murder instead. So he’s left with one thing to do: menacingly hiss over the phone, “I’m coming for you.” We imagine that trailer-ready threat was what Honest Thief was sold on during its elevator pitch.

Rebecca

October 21

Remaking Alfred Hitchcock remains a tricky proposition that has thwarted many filmmakers in the past. Readapting the only one of his movies to win the Oscar for Best Picture, Rebecca, appears all the harder. Yet everything we’ve seen from Ben Wheatley and Netflix’s luscious adaptation of the Daphne Du Maurier novel is highly encouraging.

With a winning cast that includes Lily James as the new Mrs. de Winter, Armie Hammer as her husband Maxim, and Kristin Scott Thomas as his menacing housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, the film opens with the young bride trying to step into the shoes of Maxim’s dead first wife, Rebecca. An apparent light of his mansion that has been long snuffed, Rebecca’s flame burns still if only because of Mrs. Danvers’ admiration for her late mistress… and maybe the ghost who prowls the house. This is archetypal Gothic horror, and with screenwriter Jane Goldman apparently keeping the novel’s original ending, we already feel seduced by the imagery.

On the Rocks

October 2 in the UK (October 23 in the U.S.)

Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray work together again. For the first time since their luminous Lost in Translation (if you ignore the ill-considered A Very Murray Christmas), the director and star are collaborating on this visibly intimate tale. It’s about an adult daughter (Rashida Jones) and her famous father (Murray) spending a weekend in New York City on an adventure after years of estrangement.

Read more

Movies

10 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies

By Michael Leader

Movies

8 Essential Gothic Horror Movies

By David Crow and 1 other

The film, which also stars Marlon Wayans, premiered to a largely warm reception at the New York Film Festival and is already being written about as a spiritual successor to their original collaboration. Once more a woman in the midst of an existential crisis is aided by Murray between glasses of scotch. Who doesn’t want to pull up a seat and order another round?

Over the Moon

October 23

You probably don’t know Glen Keane’s name but you should. The longtime Walt Disney Animation Studios animator oversaw the design and animation of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Beast in Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin in Aladdin, and Rapunzel in Tangled. With Over the Moon, he steps away from the Mouse and toward Netflix as a first-time co-director, alongside John Kahrs (an animator on Tangled and Frozen).

The trailer for the film is like a Georges Méliès fever dream from  as a little girl named Fei Fei (Cathy Ang) builds a rocket ship to take her to the moon. But once there, Fei Fei and friends meet a mythical moon goddess (Hamilton’s Phillipa Soo) who takes them on a candy-colored odyssey through the cosmos.

Synchronic

October 23 (U.S. only)

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are two of the most intriguing new voices in science fiction. If you don’t recognize their names, go watch The Endless right now. One of the strangest and cleverest sci-fi yarns of the last decade, that film is now being followed up by Synchronic, another original tale that stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan. The specifics of the film remain vague other than it is about two New Orleans paramedics who investigate a series of murders caused by a new, bizarre designer drug. But we already know we can’t wait to watch what horrible side effects come from these poor bastards taking it.

The Craft: Legacy

It cannot be Halloween without at least one more horror movie coming out the week of. Thus enters The Craft: Legacy, Sony Pictures and Blumhouse Productions’ legacy sequel to the original 1996 The Craft. Like its predecessor, this follows an outsider who is the new girl in school (Cailee Spaeny). She may be ostracized by the popular kids, but she befriends fellow students who have alternative tastes… like witchcraft.

The original is a touchstone for millennials and Gen-Xers of a certain age, and this reboot looks to push the story into a more complex understanding of friendship. And if it doesn’t, it’s still a Blumhouse effort so it should have plenty of spooky jumps!

Relic

October 30 (US Only)

Dementia is at the heart of this very eerie chiller where three generations of women convene in an old family home which seems to be rotting from the inside. Robyn Nevin, Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote star in a slow build drama which delves into the horror of losing your sense of self, as Nevin’s matriarch goes missing for days and can’t remember what happened while her house is filled with odd notes, black mould and snippets of a life slipping away from her grasp. This is the feature debut of Australian-Japanese director Natalie Erika James and it’s a stylish, chilling and confident first feature with a final act that veers into full blown horror. Out already in the States on VOD it has a UK theatrical release in the UK.

The post Upcoming Movies in October 2020: Theaters, Streaming and VOD appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3lcbpuO

[richsretroreviews]

Star Wars Knights of The Old Repbulic II Review

Release Date: NA; 6th December 2004 (Xbox) 8th February  2005 (PC) EU; 11th February 2005 (Xbox & PC)

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Publisher: LucasArts

I had gotten my Xbox Christmas of 2004. It was the crystal one too and I had been wanting one all year. I kinda spoilt the surprise for myself though because in a poorly chosen hiding spot by my parents I found the crystal box poking out of a bag. It was torture to occasionally look at it and do nothing with it but gawk and wait until Christmas and almost feign a reaction to it. Sorry mum and dad…

But Knights of the Old Republic II was the third game I got myself? I think? First two I can remember were Ninja Gaiden and Soul Calibur 2… let’s just say Kotor 2 was the third game I got for myself.

So I went down to Game, saw the cover with that haunting image of Darth Nihilus on the front, nabbed it, got home, played it for the weekend and got bored of it… Shamefully. There were parts that I liked but it played so differently to other action games I was already accustomed to at the time it threw me off. Little did I know how much of an RPG it was and the action was so different to what I was used to.

The initial problem I had with this game was it didn’t meet my expectations of what I wanted out of a Star Wars game, especially one where I knew you could create your own character and make them Sith or Jedi. Perfectly what I wanted. But after playing it for 12 hours and still on Telos and still without a lightsaber, I lost patience with it and gave up. How foolish my 13 year old self was. I then traded it in and got something else instead. If I remember right they even had Kotor there as well…

But so ignorantly did I miss out on one of the greatest games and greatest Star Wars games of my budding teenage years that it wasn’t until 5 years later I gave it another try and since then it might be one of my most played games without even realising it.

I got it again on the Xbox, played through it with a video walkthrough and I completed it. Although this first run through felt a little disconnected because I was almost playing it alongside the video and didn’t fully experience it all myself with my own choices and completely understanding what choices I was making. But the fact was I completed it regardless, I got my damn lightsaber—lightsabers even! Goddamn plural!—and loved the characters and every moment of it. The story was completely different to any other Star Wars story I was accustomed to which delved into themes I didn’t fully understand yet, but I loved it all the same.

I loved the planets, the characters, the combat I grew to love, the music, the voice acting, the twists, the scope it all conveyed and perspective it gave on the force and the Sith and what it is to be Jedi. All of it influenced me even and inspired my own Star Wars stories I want to write.

Since then I have played and completed it 3 more times. Once more on the Xbox, a save on the 360 I completed and a Sith run I started, and recently on PC. I’ve only ever completed it as a Jedi and the Sith run I still haven’t completed after�� 6 years now I think? Maybe? Probably longer than that. But the best thing about all the times I’ve completed it is that as much as I have tried to stay close to what I will always do in the games I have always gotten a different outcome in the end. I’ve had an ending where no one survived, where some survived, and where everyone survived, and another where all survived but Atton died. And I know next time I play through it again I’m going to get another ending completely different. That’s the best thing about this I think, that each ending isn’t guaranteed to be the same even if you play close to the same as before.

So, how this game plays. It’s space D&D. The game uses a d20 system so it was akin to playing Star Wars D&D.  You can even see these roll stats in the game in the journal, message log and combat filter. Kotor also used this system. And you know what? The system works. Not only for its combat mechanics but for its character creation. You can have more freedom to play about how you want to build your character and class as you level up.

Want to be a Jedi Knight? Consular? Sentinel? Just be a Scoundrel or Scout and be allergic to lightsabers? (Weirdo, how would you not want a lightsaber?) A Techie? Sith Lord? Jedi Master? Sith Assassin? All these classes and builds gives such freedom and variety it begs for multiple playthroughs with its open ended opportunities for how you want to make this story go and develop your character. You can go on with a single lightsaber or sling dual lightsabers, optionally with a short lightsaber in your off hand (it works better that way), or go all Maul and swing about a double edged lightsaber, mow down rebel and Mandalorian scum with a mini minigun. You can rely solely on force powers and go all Palpy or completely ignore using the force and stick to your guns. (Seriously, why not use the force or lightsabers? Goddamn weirdo you are.)

You get a multitude of gear to equip that can help out your stats further, naturally. And you can modify your own lightsaber! When you’re on Dantooine, the home of the Jedi Academy that has long since been abandoned, you can delve into the Jedi caves that house the crystals that all blossoming Jedi in training go to when it comes time to build your own lightsaber. And in this crystal cavern you can find your own special character specific crystal. Of course you can find other crystals in this cave to help power up your lightsaber and other colours (I’ve always gone dual orange and yellow), but this crystal holds a special connection for your character both narratively and gameplay wise. As a gameplay mechanic; when you level up or change alignment from light to dark, or just get lighter and become Keanu Reeves or more darker and go goth, you can take the crystal out of your lightsaber, take it to Kreia and she will enhance it to better reflect your character’s growth. So if you’re majoratively light you can gain more damage to dark side, or if you’re dark you gain more damage to light, more attack power, more damage etc.

As a narrative device, it works for the Exile’s lost connection from the force.

Which, now I think it’s time to get to the main appeal of this game.

Knights of the Old Republic II is possibly the best Star Wars story ever told next to Knights of the Old Republic and the films themselves.

You play as The Exile, a Jedi exiled by the Jedi council because you chose to defy them and go to war with Revan and Malak against the Mandalorians before they slaughtered everyone. The bastards. Who’s the bastards? The Jedi council or the Mandalorians? Maybe both? You be the judge.

Seriously, you get to decide who the bastards are. Disagree with the council? Agree with them? Resentfully chose to fight the Mandalorians? Or gleefully sided with them and fell to the dark side because everyone are bastards and you wanna watch the galaxy burn?

Hell, maybe you’re the bastard…

Anyway!

That’s all you’re given. You get to weave your own story throughout this. If you’ve played the first Kotor then you know the deal with Revan and Malak. If you’ve read the Revan book as well then you will know too that this Exile is canonically Meetra Surik. You can make and choose whoever you want easily. Want to be Revan again even? Go for it. But she’s the main character of this story and it finishes on the light side.

As Meetra, you wake up on a Peragus mining facility in your undies with amnesia. You run into a cranky old woman called Kreia and an imprisoned dodgy scoundrel named Atton. You eventually come across this game’s resident R2, T3-M4, returning from Kotor. You escape the doomed planet with the repaired Ebon Hawk-- also back from Kotor-- as the Sith arrive, who is led by the walking zombie Darth Sion. You arrive on Telos, get your barings, either help some environmental Ithorians or corporate Czerka, solve a few security cases before you’re off and on your way to the big wide galaxy ahead and the story opens up.

Now, you’re being chased by Darth Sion because he and Darth Nihilus believe you to be the last of the Jedi (ha.) But you are not! Your task is to find the remaining hidden Jedi masters and, depending on your alignment, gather them together at the ruins of the Jedi Academy on Dantooine or kill them.

Along the way you’re going to meet new party members and Kreia will train you in the ways of the force.

Then, you get four planets to choose from to find these masters; Dantooine, Onderon, Korriban, and Nar Shadaa. And you can go to any of these planets in any order you like. Though, my order has always been Dantooine, Nar Shadaa, Onderon, Korriban.

I’m not going to go through each planet and explain what happens and spell it all out, but you find more party members to help you along the way, find the masters and then shit unfolds in a greatly unexpected way…

Mandalore, another returning character from Kotor, at one point on the Onderon moon of Dxun has a confrontation with Kreia and tells a fellow Mandalorian “Forget the Jedi. Keep an eye on her…” Which, seriously. Keep a very close eye on Kreia, pay attention to what she says, what she does and how she can influence others. She’s the most curious of all your party members…

Which, speaking of, as Kreia teaches your character and you grow and you attract more followers, you eventually get the chance to train your party members into becoming Sith or Jedi. Those who are force sensitive are the Handmaiden, Mira, Bao-Dur, Atton and the Disciple. Although, the Handmaiden is a character who you can only recruit when you play as the male. Taking Handmaiden’s place when you play female is the Disciple, someone you meet in the Jedi ruins on Dantooine.

And then comes the romance options! Because what RPG game wouldn’t have one. As the male character you get Mira, Visas and Handmaiden, and as the female you get Atton and the Disciple.

I’ve always gone the way of the male and choosing the Handmaiden. Helps she’s voice by Grey Delisle…

Anyway.

Time to get into the story more.

So, you’re trying to find these Jedi masters while running halfway across the galaxy from a zombie Sith and a gluttonous Sith.

Sion is a man who should long ago have since died, but is using the force to keep himself held together. His body is decayed and falling apart, he’s got one working eye, his voice is dried and husky. That is a man whose sheer force of rage and anger and willpower to control the force as such to keep himself together and alive is incredible. I’ve never seen something like that nor someone use the force so creatively.

And then there’s Nihilus. A man no longer who feeds on the force. A wound in the force who feeds on all life throughout the galaxy. He sees not the form of flesh and sinew in front of him, but the living force around him and all is his for the taking, to consume and draw on until there is nothing left. He is a vampiric, poisonous leech the likes of which no Sith has ever matched before. Again, something I have never seen before in how a character, or even how the game’s developers, has ever used the force, to bend it to his will and develop the force more into something greater and more mysterious and powerful than the films have ever elaborated on.

And that leads me into my next point; the force and Kreia. Which, spoilers for the twist and ending. (I know I said earlier I won’t spoil but this needs talking about! At least I’m leaving some mystery.)

Kreia is a Sith… Or is she?

Well, she is truly Darth Treya. If Sion is the Sith of pain, and Nihilus is the Sith of hunger and annihilation, then Treya is the Sith of betrayal. And therein lies the twist.

Kreia is seemingly a Jedi at first, perhaps even a grey Jedi the more you talk to her. I mean, her alignment on the character screen is permanently neutral, no matter which side you sway to the heaviest or how much you influence her. Until eventually you come to learn she was once Darth Treya, a powerful Sith Lord who once had the galaxy firmly in her grasp accompanied by her pupils Sion and Nihilus. Until those two overthrew her and imposed her into her own exile. Now, where else have we heard of that…?

So naturally, with Kreia wise to the force and of the Exile’s being, she works to control Surik and do her bidding no matter which side she may fall on. She manipulates all that occurs right up until the game’s final stage; Malachor V, the final battleground and graveyard of the Mandalorian wars, where so many Jedi died and where Meetra Surik became a wound in the force herself.

Once you have defeated Nihilus and convinced Sion to finally die and let go of the force, you face Kreia. Or, Treya, rather. And it is here you learn more about the force, its sides, its control, Treya’s motivations and the why of everything.

Treya, hates the force. The reason why she does what she does is because she hates it. She wishes to see it dead and destroyed because of the hold it has on all those in life. And, as much as she betrayed Meetra Surik, she holds a special kind of love for her. She doesn’t wish her dead or any kind of harm or anything like that to have happen to her. But for her to understand more on the force.

This is where the best part of this whole game and story culminates, the reflection on the force and what the force is.

The force is a powerhouse. The force is a living beast. A galactic behemoth that is almost a deity or living entity that is all that lives. It is not these midichlorians, this kind of blood bacteria. It is not this mysterious magic. The force is an all-consuming, all controlling, all illuminating and suffocating creature that presides in everyone and everything. It controls the motion and flow of everything. It is reactive to emotion and try as they all might, the Sith and the Jedi may never really fully understand what the force is other than be a slave to it or try to control it to their will.

There was once this one interesting theory I read about what the force is and related it to a swimming pool. The Jedi only swim in the shallow to middle part of the pool. They can see how far the pool stretches and understand its breadth but dare not delve deeper into it else they get lost or drown within it, and so stay safe and respect the shallow part of the pool. While the Sith dive deep into the pool and swim far and wide into the deepest parts and soon find that it is really an ocean and discover all these other monstrous beings deep below. And that makes total sense honestly.

I love more the concept of the force being this uncontrollable being, this literal special force that is everything and there are a special number who are sensitive to it and can control and use it. And not just for magic tricks like lifting things and confusing chumps, but to use the force to manipulate, influence and shape things as sizeable as an entire galaxy. To control something on that scope with that kind of a power is intangible yet fascinating.

And so, regarding that, Treya hates that people in the galaxy might not have full control over themselves and she wishes to see the force die. And that is an immense ambition. How could you kill the force? Could you? Darth Nihilus fed on it and wiped out star systems, Meetra Surik was a wound and brought death and suffering to those around her and amassed a loyal following that fought when she fought (a very, very clever piece of writing to implement a simple game mechanic such as levelling up into the story as for each enemy you defeat or kill the stronger you become), and Sion relied on the force to live until he gave it up. There are those who rely on it who perhaps shouldn’t be around and those who are a poison with the force.

And, perhaps, even all of Treya’s ambitions aren’t really her conscious choices either? Maybe in that, the force controlled her choices because that is what the force wills and dictates…

Maybe the force wills to die too but learned it cannot…

Who knows!

It’s this writing and Sara Kestelman’s acting as the conflicted Sith Kreia which helped this game win awards and cement Kreia as one of the most recognisable and compelling video game characters ever.

And that’s another one of this game’s strengths; the voice acting. Everyone does stupendously and there’s not a wrong word put out or spoken.

Either way, Knights of the Old Republic 2 is an incredible Star Wars game and an incredible Star Wars story that is critical and self-reflective on itself, superbly creative, immersive, poignant, and did more to develop the Star Wars lore than it is recognised for.

Do yourself a favour and play it and play it again.

If you’re playing it on PC, get the Restored Content mod that fixed everything Obsidian didn’t have time to fix and which includes all cut content. Go fulfil your Sith or Jedi dreams and get lost.

I have spoken.

Where to Purchase:

7/02/10

Steam: £7.19, $9.99

Amazon: £2.33 - £15, $17 - $70

Ebay: £1.25- £59, $7.67 - $325

GoG: £7.69, $9.99

[dweemeister]

2019 Movie Odyssey

Welcome to the new decade, to the new year 2020.

This is usually posted on New Year’s Eve, but I was watching the final movie of the 2019 Movie Odyssey last night. For those of you who do not know, the “Movie Odyssey” refers to all films that I have seen for the first time in their entirety - no rewatches. We’re going to go in a different order this week, so some for-fun awards will be posted later this week and the 2019 Movie Odyssey Awards will be on Sunday, January 5. As I go through things like The Irishman, Little Women, 1917, and Parasite, I will be posting some very tardy “Best of 2010s”-related posts. Hey, I may be from the Greater Los Angeles Area, but those Hollywood theaters that show all those prestige movies are far from where I live. I don’t always get to see those movies in a timely fashion. I digress...

The number of short films I saw this year increased dramatically (from 2018′s number of 107 to 2019′s 166) because I was on the 2019 Viet Film Fest’s curatorial committee, in addition to the fact that Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is continuing to show a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) short and a Popeye short every Saturday morning except in Februaries, Augusts, and select holiday weekends. Developments in my professional life - and probably exacerbated by the fact I was on the Viet Film Fest’s curatorial committee and had to see many shorts and the presence of vacation and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup - saw a nosedive in the number of feature-length films and serials watched (108 feature-length films and serials this year compared to 156 last year). The total number of films actually increased, probably because of that uptick in shorts.

In addition to having the privilege of having seen many films made by and/or starring Vietnamese and Vietnamese from around the world and learning more about my heritage, I saw many more documentaries - in short and feature-length form - this year compared to others. But yet again this year (and we’re going to chalk this up to the clashes of professional developments at Viet Film Fest), there is a distinct lack of African and Latin American films for the 2019 Movie Odyssey. Knowing a handful of titles I have in the DVR, the former should be represented this year, but I have to make a better effort on searching for and finding films from Latin America.

Like every year, I thank all of you for being supporters of myself and for this old blog. I didn’t write too many Movie Odyssey reviews last year; if ever a Movie Odyssey review engages one person, that is a wonderful thing. So whether you have read, liked, reblogged, commented on, or shared a review, my thanks. And for those who have talked to me about movies we have both seen, are anticipating, or asking questions about something that appears on this blog, my thanks to you too. This blog, slower though it may be these days, would not be possible without you.

The 2019 Movie Odyssey has closed. With that, the 2020 Movie Odyssey has begun. The movies that comprised 2019′s are listed below. We began with an iconic American gangster film and ended with something different from the Czechoslovak New Wave.

As many of you know, all ratings are based on my imdb rating and half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here. A 6/10 is considered the borderline between “passing” and “failing”. Feature-length narrative films, serials, documentaries, and short films are rated within their respective spectrums. Without further ado:

JANUARY

Little Caesar (1931) – 9/10

Ventriloquist Cat (1950 short) – 6/10

Let’s Get Movin’ (1936 short) – 6/10

Mary Poppins Returns (2018) – 7/10

Modest Heroes (2018, Japan) – 6.5/10

Tit for Tat (1935 short) – 8/10

The Ascent (1977, Soviet Union) – 10/10

The Lost Chick (1935 short) – 7/10

Little Swee’pea (1936 short) – 6/10

Smokey and the Bandit (1977) – 7.5/10

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) – 6/10

The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973) – 4/10

The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark (1980) – 4/10

Barney Bear’s ‘Polar Pest’ (1944 short) – 5.5/10

Hold the Wire (1936 short) – 7/10

Green Book (2018) – 6/10

Hell to Eternity (1960) – 6/10

The Curse of Quon Gwon: When the Far East Mingles with the West (1916 short) – scored withheld; film is partially lost

How to Play Football (1944 short) – 7/10

Gus (1976) – 4/10

BlacKkKlansman (2018) – 9/10

The Great McGinty (1940) – 8/10

FEBRUARY (2019’s 31 Days of Oscar)                                                

Vice (2018) – 3/10

The Informer (1935) – 9.5/10

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – 7.5/10

Late Afternoon (2017 short) – 8/10

Animal Behaviour (2018 short) – 7/10

Weekends (2017 short) – 8.5/10

One Small Step (2018 short) – 7.5/10

Wishing Box (2017 short) – 6/10

Tweet Tweet (2018 short, Russia) – 6/10

Lost & Found (2018 short) – 7/10

Street Angel (1928) – 7.5/10

Thousands Cheer (1943) – 6/10

Fantastic Voyage (1966) – 6/10

Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018) – 8/10

Madre (2017 short, Spain) – 7.5/10

Fauve (2018 short, Canada) – 7/10

Marguerite (2017 short, Canada) – 8.5/10

Detainment (2018 short) – 5/10

Skin (2018 short) – 7/10

Henry V (1944) – 8.5/10

Minding the Gap (2018) – 8/10

Black Sheep (2018 short) – 7/10

End Game (2018 short) – 7.5/10

A Night at the Garden (2018 short) – 7/10

Lifeboat (2018 short) – 7/10

Period. End of Sentence. (2018 short) – 8/10

MARCH

What Price Hollywood? (1932) – 7/10

Anastasia (1956) – 7.5/10 (31 Days of Oscar ends)

King of Jazz (1930) – 7/10

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) – 7.5/10

Captain Marvel (2019) – 6/10

The Chinese Nightingale (1935 short) – 6/10

The Spinach Roadster (1936 short) – 6.5/10

Ginger and Fred (1986, Italy) – 6/10

Wee Willie Wildcat (1953 short) – 6/10

I’m in the Army Now (1936 short) – 5/10

Officer Pooch (1941 short) – 6/10

The Paneless Window Washer (1937 short) – 7/10

Us (2019) – 8.5/10

APRIL

Rock-a-Bye Bear (1952 short) – 8.5/10

Organ Grinder’s Swing (1937 short) – 7/10

The Great White Hope (1970) – 6/10

The African Lion (1955) – 8/10

Yellowstone Cubs (1963) – 7/10

Shazam! (2019) – 7/10

The Flying Bear (1941 short) – 6/10

My Artistical Temperature (1937 short) – 7/10

Ocean’s Eight (2018) – 7/10

The Hick Chick (1946 short) – 6/10

Hospitaliky (1937 short) – 8/10

One Foot in Heaven (1941) – 8/10

MAY

Sons of the Desert (1933) – 10/10

Lonesome Lenny (1946 short) – 7.5/10

The Twisker Pitcher (1937 short) – 7/10

The Country Cousin (1936 short) – 7/10

Barnyard Babies (1935 short) – 6/10

Morning, Noon and Night Club (1937 short) – 6/10

Avengers: Endgame (2019) – 7/10

The Calico Dragon (1935 short) – 7.5/10

Lost and Foundry (1937 short) – 7/10

Detective Pikachu (2019) – 6/10

The Wild Country (1970) – 6/10

I Never Changes My Altitude (1937 short) – 7/10

Murder, She Said (1961) – 7.5/10

Farewell to Dream (1956, Japan) – 7/10

The Human Comedy (1943) – 7/10

A Better Life (2011) – 8/10

Booksmart (2019) – 7.5/10

The Goose Goes South (1941 short) – 6.5/10

I Likes Babies and Infinks (1937 short) – 6/10

The Hound and the Rabbit (1937 short) – 6/10

The Football Toucher Downer (1937 short) – 7/10

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) – 6/10

JUNE

A Rainy Day with the Bear Family (1940 short) – 6/10

Protek the Weakerist (1937 short) – 7/10

Rocketman (2019) – 7/10

The Rookie Bear (1941 short) – 6/10

Fowl Play (1937 short) – 6/10

Let’s Celebrake (1938 short) – 7/10

Hoài (Ongoing, Memory) (2018 short) – 7.5/10*

Pelvicachromis (2018 short, Germany) – 6.5/10*

Screen Time (2019 short) – 5/10*

The Bridge Between Vietnam Traditional Music and the World (2018 short, Vietnam) – 6/10*

Journey of Wanderers (2019 short, Vietnam) – 7/10*

Toy Story 4 (2019) – 8/10

The Homeless Flea (1940 short) – 6/10

Learn Polikeness (1938 short) – 6/10

Abandoned Ones (2017, United Kingdom) – 8/10*

Jasmine Lane (2019 short, France) – 7/10*

Cosmic Beauty (2019 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

Blue Noise (2018 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

The Undeniable Force of Khó Khăn (2018 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

Push (2018 short) – 7/10*

Sorge 87 (2017 short, Germany) – experimental film; score withheld*

Embarko (2019 short) – 5/10*

Tiger Child (2019 short) – 5.5/10*

The Wedding Dress (Áo Dài) (2019 short) – 5/10*

Thanksgiving (2018 short) – 7.5/10*

Little Father (Petit Père) (2017 short, France) – 6/10*

While I Breathe, I Hope (2018) – 7/10*

The House Builder-Upper (1938 short) – 7/10

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) – 7.5/10

Creed II (2018) – 7/10

JULY

The Garden of Mr. Vong (2017 short, Germany) – 7.5/10*

Made in Vietnam (2017) – 7/10*

The Mechanical Butcher (1895 short, France) – 6/10

Lively Pillow Fight by Children (1898 short, France) – 7/10

Win My Baby Back (2019, Vietnam) – 5/10*

In Full Bloom (2019 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

Flagged (2017 short) – 6.5/10*

An American Family (2018 short) – 6/10*

Two Paper Nightingales (2019 short) – 6/10*

The Kite Under the Rain (2018 short, Thailand) – 6/10*

Table Stakes (2019 short) – 6/10*

Alexa and May (2018 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

Tôi là thằng khốn (Miserasshole) (2018 short, Vietnam) – 4/10*

Influencer (2018 short) – 5/10*

Pure, Like Flower (2019 short) – 2/10*

Searching for the None (2018 short) – 7/10*

Hiệu (2018 short) – 8/10*

The Man with the Wooden Face (2017 short, Vietnam) – 4/10*

Finding the Virgo (2018) – 6.5/10*

Thạch Thảo (2018, Vietnam) – 6/10*

Tundra (2018 short, Canada) – 7/10*

The Colors You Can’t See (2019 short) – 6/10*

Touching the Moon: The Ngo Thanh Van Story (2019 short, Vietnam) – 5/10*

Cold Fish (Cá Đông) (2018 short, Vietnam)* - experimental film; score withheld

Gold (2018 short) – 5.5/10*

The Immortal (2018, Vietnam) – 6/10*

Le Van Khoa: A Lifetime of Arts (2018) – 6/10*

No More Than This (2019 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

Little Sunny (2018 short, Vietnam) – 7/10*

Song Lang (2018, Vietnam) – 8/10*

Roommate (2018 short, Vietnam) – experimental film; score withheld*

The Bloody Hand (Bàn Tay Máu) (2019) – 6/10*

Ephemeral (2018 short) – experimental film; score withheld*

New Year’s Dream (2019, Vietnam) – 5/10*

Sister 13 (2019, Vietnam) – 6/10*

The Moment (2018 short) – 5/10*

Ramadan (2018 short) – 7/10*

American Girl (2018 short) – 5/10*

Red Thread (2019 short, Canada) – 6/10*

Like an Old House (2017, Vietnam) – 6.5/10*

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) – 8/10

Walk Run Cha-Cha (2019 short) – 8/10*

Picking Things Up (Nối Lại Tình Xưa) (2019 short, Canada) – 6/10*

Seadrift (2019) – 7/10*

Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh (1938 short) – 4/10

I Yam Love Sick (1938 short) – 6/10

It’s Always There (2019 short, Vietnam) – 7/10*

Scandal Sheet (1952) – 7/10

Poultry Pirates (1938 short) – 5/10

Plumbing Is a ‘Pipe’ (1938 short) – 6/10

Tom Turkey and His Harmonica Humdingers (1940 short) – 6/10

The Jeep (1938 short) – 8/10

AUGUST

Pavarotti (2019) – 7/10

Overlord (1975) – 8/10

The Perils of Pauline (1947) – 6/10

The Moon-Spinners (1964) – 7/10

Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922, Germany) – 7.5/10

The Littlest Horse Thieves (1976) – 7/10

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) – 8/10

Design for Living (1933) – 7/10

Barnali (1963, India) – 7.5/10

The Whales of August (1987) – 7.5/10

SEPTEMBER

The Farewell (2018) – 8.5/10

Fun and Fancy Free (1947) – 5/10

Donald’s Tire Trouble (1943 short) – 7/10

The Uninvited Pest (1943 short) – 6/10

Bulldozing the Bull (1938 short) – 6/10

The Love Bug (1968) – 6/10

The Old Pioneer (1934 short) – 5/10

Mutiny Ain’t Nice (1938 short) – 7/10

La Pointe Courte (1955, France) – 7.5/10

The Happiest Millionaire (1967) – 6/10

The Art of Skiing (1941 short) – 7/10

Ad Astra (2019) – 8.5/10

Goonland (1938 short) – 8/10

The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) – 6/10

Toyland Broadcast (1934 short) – 5/10

A Date to Skate (1938 short) – 7/10

OCTOBER

Joker (2019) – 8/10

Two Little Pups (1936 short) – 7/10

Cops Is Always Right (1938 short) – 7/10

Growing Home (2019 short) – student film; score withheld*

Come Again (2019 short) – student film; score withheld*

Hard (2019 short) – student film; score withheld*

Love Your People (Thường dân) (2019 short) – student film; score withheld*

Returning (2019 short) – student film; score withheld*

The Tree Surgeon (1944 short) – 6/10

Customers Wanted (1939 short) – 6/10

House of Usher (1960) – 7.5/10

The Wayward Pups (1937 short) – 6/10

Leave Well Enough (1939 short) – 6/10

Horror Hotel (1960) – 7/10

The School for Postmen (1947 short) – 7/10

The Hockey Champ (1939 short) – 7/10

Kuroneko (1968) – 8.5/10

The Pups’ Picnic (1936 short) – 6/10

Wotta Nitemare (1939 short) – 7/10

The War of the Worlds (1953) – 8/10

NOVEMBER

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964, Japan) – 6.5/10

Woodstock (1970) – 10/10

Happy-Go-Nutty (1944 short) – 7/10

Ghosks Is the Bunk (1939 short) – 7/10

Victor/Victoria (1982) – 9/10

Pain & Glory (2019, Spain) – 7.5/10

Honeyland (1935 short) – 6/10

Hello How Am I (1939 short) – 7/10

The Lighthouse (2019) – 8/10

Jour de Fête (1949, France) – 7.5/10

Ford v Ferrari (2019) – 8/10

Jitterbug Follies (1939 short) – 6/10

It’s the Natural Thing to Do (1939 short) – 7/10

Frozen II (2019) – 6/10

Little Cheeser (1936 short) – 6/10

Never Sock a Baby (1939 short) – 6.5/10

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) – 8/10

The Red Badge of Courage (1951) – 7.5/10

The Westerner (1940) – 8.5/10

Sitting Pretty (1948) – 7/10

DECEMBER

An Autumn Afternoon (1962, Japan) – 9/10

Little Buck Cheeser (1937 short) – 6/10

Shakespearian Spinach (1940 short) – 6/10

Bobby Bumps and His Pointer Pup (1916 short) – 7.5/10

Bobby Bumps’ Fly Swatter (1916 short) – 6/10

Bobby Bumps Gets a Substitute (1916 short) – 5/10

Bobby Bumps Helps a Book Agent (1916 short) – 5.5/10

Bobby Bumps Adopts a Turtle (1917 short) – 6/10

Bobby Bumps at Fido’s Birthday Party (1917 short) – 6/10

Bobby Bumps Starts for School (1917 short) – 7/10

Bobby Bumps, Chef (1917 short) – 7/10

Bobby Bumps. Surf Rider (1917 short) – 6.5/10

Bobby Bumps at the Dentist (1918 short) – 6.5/10

Bobby Bumps Caught in the Jamb (1918 short) – 6/10

Bobby Bumps’ Last Smoke (1919 short) – 8/10

Bobby Bumps in Hunting and Fishing (1921 short) – 5/10

Bobby Bumps in Their Master’s Voice (1921 short) – 7.5/10

Mama’s New Hat (1939 short) – 7.5/10

Females Is Fickle (1940 short) – 5/10

Knives Out (2019) – 8/10

Niagara (1953) – 7/10

Pitfall (1962, Japan) – 7.5/10

The Screwy Truant (1945 short) – 7/10

Stealin’ Ain’t Honest (1940 short) – 6/10

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) – 5/10

The Holly and the Ivy (1952) – 8/10

The Racket (1928) – 7/10

Knute Rockne, All American (1940) – 7/10

Jewel Robbery (1932) – 7.5/10

The Vikings (1958) – 6/10

Something Different (1962, Czechoslovakia) – 7.5/10

[gaming-rabbot]

Salmon Run and Presentation

A (not so) brief dissertation on narrative framing in video games, featuring Splatoon 2

With the holidays in full swing, I took advantage of a deal one day when I went into town, and finally got my hands on Splatoon 2. Having loved the prior game as much as I did, waiting this long to get the sequel felt almost wrong. But like many another fellow meandering corpus of conscious flesh, I am made neither of time nor money.

Finally diving in, I figured I might take this excuse to remember that I write game reviews, sometimes. You know, when the tide is high, the moon blue, and the writer slightly less depressed. I ended up scrapping my first couple drafts, however. You see, a funny thing was happening; I kept veering back into talking about Salmon Run, the new optional game mode the sequel introduces.

Also I might look at the Octo Expansion later, on its own. After I get around to it…

Look, the base game already has a lot of content to explore, and as previously stated, I am sadly corporeal, and not strung together with the metaphysical concept of time itself.

My overall thoughts, however, proved brief, so I’ll try to keep this short.

(Mild spoilers coming along.)

Gameplay wise, I think the story mode is much improved upon by handing you different weapons for certain levels which were specifically built with them in mind. Whereas the prior game left you stuck with a variant of the starter splattershot all the way through. This keeps things interesting, pushes me outside of my comfort zone, and it’s a good way to make sure players will come from a well-informed place when deciding what weapon they want for multiplayer; which, let’s face it, is the real meat of these games and where most players are going to log the most time.

I also love the way bosses are introduced with the heavy drums and rhythmic chants and the dramatic light show. It endows the moment with a fantastic sense of gravitas, and manages to hype me up every time. Then the boss will have an aspect of their design which feels a bit silly or some how rather off, keeping the overall tone heavily grounded in the toony aesthetics the series already established for itself.

Narratively, I felt rather okay about the story aspect of Story Mode. The collectible pages in the levels still have a certain amount of world building, though this time it seems more skewed toward explaining what pop culture looks like in this world, such as, an allusion to this world’s equivalent to Instagram.

Cynical as it is…

That’s definitely still interesting in its own right, though perhaps it’s less of a revelatory gut-punch as slowly piecing it together that the game takes place in the post-apocalypse of Earth itself, and the inklings copied ancient human culture.

We still got some backstory for this game’s idol duo, though. And that, I appreciate. It means Pearl and Marina still feel like a part of this world, rather than seeming obligatory for the sake of familiarity, given the first game had an idol duo as well.

Meanwhile, perhaps it is a bit obvious that Marie’s cousin, Callie, has gone rogue, and that she is the mysterious entity cracking into the radio transmissions between her and Agent 4. If I recall correctly, that was a working theory that came about with the first trailer or two. That, or she had died.

As soon as Marie says aloud she wonders where Callie has gone, I knew right away. And that’s just in the introduction.

That said, on some level, after stomaching through certain other games and such that actively lie or withhold information to force an arbitrary plot twist for plot twist sake, it feels almost nice to go back to a narrative that actually bothers to foreshadow these things. Plus, having gotten already invested in Callie as a character from the first game, I still felt motivated to see the story through to find out why she went rogue. And, loving the Squid Sisters already, there was a hope in me that she could be redeemed, or at least understood. In terms of building off the prior game’s story, Splatoon 2 is moderately decent.

Also, I mean, c’mon. The big narrative drive might be a tad predictable, but hey, this game is for kids. It’s fine.

That, I think, is something I love the most about Splatoon. Despite feeling like you’re playing in a Saturday morning cartoon, and being aimed primarily at children, it doesn’t shy away from fairly heavy subjects. Such as the aforementioned fact that the humans are all long dead and you’re basically playing paintball in the ruins of their consumerist culture.

Which brings me to what fascinates me so much about Splatoon 2: the way in which Salmon Run is framed.

You see, on the surface, Salmon Run appears to be your typical horde mode; a cooperative team (typically comprised of randoms) fights off gaggles of foes as they take turns approaching their base in waves. Pretty standard for online shooters these days, as was modernly popularized by Gears of War 2, and Halo ODST.

I say “modernly,” as the notion of fighting enemies as they approach in waves is not exactly a new concept for mechanical goals within video games. Rather, the term itself, as applied to multiplayer shooters, “horde mode,” became a point of game discussion when Gears of War 2 introduced the new game mode by that same name back in… 2008?

No, no that can’t be right. I played Gears 2 back in high school (I had worse taste back then, okay?). Which, from my perspective, was basically yesterday. That game being ten years old would mean I myself am old now, and that just can’t be. I’m hip. I’m young.

I am, to stay on theme here, fresh.

But okay, existential crises and game talk terms aside, the writing team behind Splatoon 2 probably decided to absolutely flex when it came to the narrative surrounding Salmon Run. It is one of the most gleaming examples of the nontraditional things you can do with writing in video games, to really elevate the experience.

Let me explain.

You see, narrative in video games typically falls into one of two categories: either the story sits comfortably inside of the game, utilizing it like a vehicle to arrive at the destination that is its audience’s waiting eyes and ears. Or the narrative, on some level, exists rather nebulously, primarily to provide something resembling context for why the pixels look the way they do, and why the goals are what they are.

Not to say this is a binary state of existence for game writing; narrative will of course always provide context for characters, should there be any. It’s primarily older, or retro games that give you a pamphlet or brief intro with little in the way of worrying over character motivation, and the deeper philosophical implications of the plot, etc (though not for lack of trying). These would be your classic Mario Bros. and what have you, where the actual game part of the video game is nearly all there is to explore in the overall experience.

Then you have games like Hotline Miami that purposely sets up shop right in the middle to make a meta commentary about the state of game narrative, using the ideological endpoint of violent 80’s era action and revenge-fantasy genre film as inspiration and the starting point to draw comparison between the two. It’s bizarre, and I could drone on about this topic.

But I digress.

Despite falling into that latter category, that is to say having mainly just an introduction to the narrative context so you can get on with playing the game, Salmon Run is a stellar example of how you can make every bit of that context count (even if it does require the added context of the rest of the game, sort of, which I’ll explain, trust me).

First, a (very) brief explanation of how the game itself works, for the maybe three of you who haven’t played it yet.

A team of up to four inklings (and/or octolings) have a small island out in open waters. Salmonid enemies storm the beaches from various angles in waves. Each wave also comes with (at least) one of eight unique boss variants, who all drop three golden eggs upon defeat. Players are tasked with gathering a number of said golden eggs each round, for three rounds, after which their failure or success in doing so shows slow or fast progress towards in-game rewards.

And it’s all an allegory for the poor treatment of labor/workers, utilizing the fishing industry as both an example and a thematically appropriate analogue. Yes, I’m serious.

First, Salmon Run is not available through the main doors like the other multiplayer modes. Rather, it is off to the side, down a dingy looking alley. And when you’re shown its location, either because you finally entered the Inkopolis plaza for the first time, or because the mode has entered rotation again, Marina very expressly describes it as a job.

A job you should only do if you are absolutely, desperately hard strapped for cash. You know, the sort of job you turn to if, for one reason or another, you can’t find a better one.

An aside: technically, playing Salmon Run does not automatically net you in-game currency, with which to buy things, as regular multiplayer modes do. Rather, your “pay” is a gauge you fill by playing, which comes with reward drops at certain thresholds; some randomized gacha style capsules, and one specific piece of gear which gets advertised, to incentivize playing.

The capsules themselves drop actual paychecks in the form of aforementioned currency, or meal tickets to get temporary buffs that help you progress in the multiplayer faster via one way or another. Which, hey, you know, that helps you earn more money also. Working to get “paid,” so you can get things you want, though, still works perfectly for the metaphor it creates.

When I first saw it open up for rotation, I found out you had to be at least a level four to participate. Pretty par for the course, considering it’s the same deal with the gear shops. But, again, it’s all in the presentation; Mr. Grizz does not simply say something akin to the usual “you must be this tall to ride.” He says he cannot hire inexperienced inklings such as yourself, because it’s a legal liability.

After returning with three extra levels, I was handed off to basic, on-the-job training. Which is only offered after Mr. Grizz (not ever physically present, mind you, but communicating with you via radio), the head of Grizzco, uses fairly typical hard sell rhetoric when it comes to dangerous, or otherwise undesirable work: calls you kid, talks about shaping the future and making the world a better place, refers to new hires as “fresh young talent,” says you’ll be “a part of something bigger than yourself.” You know, the usual balancing act of flattery, with just the right amount of belittlement.

Whoa, hang on, sorry; just had a bad case of deja vu from when the recruiter that worked with the ROTC back in high school tried to get me to enlist… several times… Guess he saw the hippie glasses and long hair and figured I'd be a gratifying challenge.

The fisher imagery really kicks in when you play. Which, I figure a dev team working out of Japan might have a pretty decent frame of reference for that. A boat whisks you out to sea with your team, and everyone’s given a matching uniform involving a bright orange jumper, and rubber boots and gloves. If you've ever seen the viral video of the fisherman up to his waist in water telling you not to give up, you have a rough idea. Oh, and don't forget your official Grizzco trademark hats.

It’s on the job itself where a lot of what I'm talking about comes up the most; that is to say, despite buttering you up initially, Mr. Grizz shows his true colors pretty quickly. While playing, he seems to only be concerned with egg collecting, even when his employees are actively hurting. This is established and compounded by his dialogue prior to the intermediate training level, in which informs you about the various boss fish.

Before you can do anything remotely risky, even boss salmonid training, Mr. Grizz tells you he has to go over this 338 page workplace health and safety manual with you. But, oops, the new hire boat sounds the horn as you flip to page 1, so he sends you off unprepared. “Let’s just say you’ve read it,” he tells you, insisting that learning by doing is best.

This flagrant disregard employee safety, in the name of met quotas; the fact we never see Mr. Grizz face to face, making him this vague presence that presides over you, evaluating your stressed performance with condescension; that we are not simply given the rewards as we pass thresholds to earn them, having to instead speak with another, unknown npc for our pay… It all drives toward the point so well.

The icing on the cake for me is when a match ends. You, the player, are not asked if you’d like to go back into matchmaking for another fun round of playtime. Rather, you are asked if you would like to “work another shift.”

The pieces all fit so well together. I shouldn’t be surprised that, once a theme is chosen, Splatoon can stick to it like my hand to rubber cement that one time. It has already proven it can do that much for sure. But it’s just so… funny? It’s bitterly, cynically hilarious.

Bless the individual(s) who sat in front of their keyboard, staring at the early script drafts, and asked aloud if they were really about to turn Mr. Grizz into a projection of all the worst aspects of the awful bosses they’ve had to deal with in life. The answer to that question being “yes” has led to some of my favorite writing in a video game.

All of these thoughts, as they started forming in my skull, really began to bubble when I noticed Salmon Run shifts become available during my first Splatfest.

Splatfest is, to try and put it in realistic terms, basically a huge, celebratory sporting event. Participation nets you a free commemorative t-shirt and access to a pumping concert featuring some of the hottest artists currently gracing the Inkopolis charts.

The idea, the notion, that a hip young inkling (or octoling) might miss out on one of the biggest parties of the year because they need money more than they need fun? It’s downright depressing.

It got me thinking. I looked at my fellow egg collectors. In-universe, we were a bunch of teen-to-young-adult aged denizens missing out on all the fun because we desperately needed the cash. We became stressed together, overworked together, yelled at by our boss together. But in those sweetest victories, where we’d far surpassed our quota? We celebrated together.

Spam-crouching, and mashing the taunt, something changed. I felt a greater sense of comradery with these squids and octos than I did in nearly any other coop game. And it’s all thanks to the rhetorical framing of the game mode.

It accomplishes so many things. It’s world building which wholistically immerses you in the setting. But mainly, its dedication to highly specific word choice does exactly what I mentioned earlier: it elevates the experience to one I could really sit down and think about, rather than use to while away the hours, then move on to something else. So many games make horde modes that feel inconsequential like that; it’s just for fun.

There’s nothing wrong with fun being the only mission statement for a game, or an optional mode of play. But this is exactly what I mean when I say this is the nontraditional writing games can do so much more with. And Splatoon 2 saw that opportunity, and took it. And what a fantastic example of bittersweet, cold reality, in this, a bright, colorful game meant mainly for children…

Happy Holidays, everyone!

[tachyonpub]

Tachyon tidbits featuring George Saunders, Bruce Sterling, Lavie Tidhar, and Peter Watts

The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.

George Saunders (photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images), Bruce Sterling, Lavie Tidhar (Kevin Nixon. © Future Publishing 2013), and Peter Watts (Johan Angelmark [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

George Saunders, whose short story “Escape from Spiderhead” appeared in Jacob Weisman’s acclaimed INVADERS: 22 TALES FROM THE OUTER LIMITS OF LITERATURE, has won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for his novel Lincoln In The Bardo.

On the Portuguese site RASCUNHOS, Cristina Alves praises Bruce Sterling’s Sidewise Award-nominated PIRATE UTOPIA.

Brutal graphic appearance and fantastic premise - what could fail? The embodiment. PIRATE UTOPIA presents an alternate reality within the genre Dieselpunk, where pirates, anarchist warriors, build their own world by hating fascists and communists alike.

The original atmosphere is delightful, with hordes of rough men watching a delicate film in which there are unlikely relationships (and far more platonic than we anticipate).

Translation from Portuguese courtesy of Google.

Zeno Agency reports that תחנה ��רכזית from Yaniv Publishing, the Hebrew edition of Lavie Tidhar’s John W. Campbell Award winning CENTRAL STATION, is now available.

TOR.COM reprints Peter Watts’ “ZeroS” from Infinity Wars, the latest Infinity Project anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan.

From the author:

In my last novel, a grizzled old soldier reminisces bitterly about the early days of the military zombie program, of which he was an early recruit. He wasn’t the first recruit, though. The first recruits, some of them at least, were corpses scraped off various battlefields, booted temporarily back to awareness with jumper cables to the brain, and told Hey, you’re actually dead, but we can bring you back to life so long as you’re willing to work for us for a few years. Or if you’d rather, we could just unplug these cables and leave you the way we found you. As contracts go it’s pretty take-it-or-leave-it, but given the alternative would you walk away? […] “ZeroS” is the story of one of those first recruits.

ZeroS

Asante goes out screaming. Hell is an echo chamber, full of shouts and seawater and clanking metal. Monstrous shadows move along the bulkheads; meshes of green light writhe on every surface. The Sāḥilites rise from the moon pool like creatures from some bright lagoon, firing as they emerge; Rashida’s middle explodes in dark mist and her top half topples onto the deck. Kito’s still dragging himself toward the speargun on the drying rack— as though some antique fish-sticker could ever fend off these monsters with their guns and their pneumatics and their little cartridges that bury themselves deep in your flesh before showing you what five hundred unleashed atmospheres do to your insides.

It’s more than Asante’s got. All he’s got is his fists.

He uses them. Launches himself at the nearest Sāḥilite as she lines up Kito in her sights, swings wildly as the deck groans and drops and cants sideways. Seawater breaches the lip of the moon pool, cascades across the plating. Asante flails at the intruder on his way down. Her shot goes wide. A spiderweb blooms across the viewport; a thin gout of water erupts from its center even as the glass tries to heal itself from the edges in.

The last thing Asante sees is the desert hammer icon on the Sāḥilite’s diveskin before she blows him away.

For more info on PIRATE UTOPIA, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover and image by John Coulthart

[anghealachghorm]

Preamble

This year has been wonderful for interactions with other bloggers, cementing friendships and even learning new facts about each other. You know already I’m a huge fan of Lee’s Hall of Information, and his commitment to writing never ceases to amaze me.

Have you read Jack Thorn: A Story of the Future:

Jack Thorn: A Story of the Future

He’s kindly nominated Thinking Moon for the Sunshine Blogger Award and I couldn’t be more humbled. He is always out there supporting other indie authors by reviewing their work, keeping up his blog, writing books and plays.

He has published four books which are available on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teleporter-Lee-Hall-ebook/dp/B07CKFXDP4/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=lee+hall+the+teleporter&qid=1564430218&s=gateway&sr=8-1

The Rules:

Thank the blogger who nominated you and link back to their blog.

Answer the 11 questions the blogger asked you.

Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions.

List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo in your post and/or on your blog.

My questions for nominees:

Why did you start blogging?

Sometimes when I’m writing my blog I ask myself the same thing. Am I adding value? Is my writing good enough? Are people enjoying it? Eventually, I realised that it didn’t really matter because two things were happening. I was practising my writing skills and I was joining a wonderful community. 

To make a long story short, to practice and have a portfolio to show people.

Thinking Moon

Who is your go-to blogging influence/blogger that inspires you?

There are a good few, and Lee is definitely one of them. I adore Megan from A Geeky Gal, she is so inspirational. Finally (there are more these are just the main ones), A Stoner On A Rollercoaster. She published her own poetry book this year and it is genuinely beautiful.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swinging-Sanity-N-F-Mirza-ebook/dp/B07P2SLSP5/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=n.f+mirza&qid=1564432982&s=books&sr=1-1

Name 3 music albums that shaped your life?

Ooohhhhhh really hard to narrow it down but definitely “Hotel California,” by the Eagles, “Jagged Little Pill,” by Alanis Morrisette, and finally “Fumbling Towards Ecstacy,” by Sarah McLachlan. I grew up listening to the Eagles and still love them to this day.

Alanis has many excellent albums, but this was the first one that made me realise that women can be badass rocks stars too. Finally, two of Sarah McLachlan’s song were featured in Buffy The Vampire Slayer season finales, so, need I say anymore?

  Jagged Little Pill – Alanis Morisette

Hotel California – Eagles

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – Sarah McLachlan

Is there something out there who you think is underrated?

There is so much out there that is underrated, especially when it comes to art. There are so many musicians I love that are just scraping by. However for fun: Mooncake is totally underrated! Final Space is a great show and I just don’t think it gets the love it deserves.

Mooncake.

Which season of the year do you prefer and why?

I was born in Spring but I’ve always felt like an Autumn child. I love the colours, the cosiness and of course, HALLOWEEN! Last year throughout October I had some very special blog posts and stories. So look out for that again this year.

Halloween.

Name a television show or film you couldn’t live without?

Hahahahaa BUFFY! The show, not the movie.

What Would Buffy Do?

What are you currently reading?

I am currently reading new and rereading anthropology books. I am currently writing that section of my thesis at the moment. I just reread “The Forest People” by Colin M. Turnbull. This is the third time I read it and I still love it to this day. I highly recommend it you don’t need to be an anthropologist to enjoy it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forest-People-Colin-M-Turnbull/dp/1847923801/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=58394635677&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsvrpBRCsARIsAKBR_0J49jECgQHx7HHzeL4oAfiCHYqXOBu9-d03t6gheb6vRtIlzmZqaDMaAk-ZEALw_wcB&hvadid=291694740940&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9047193&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=16780538107346298134&hvtargid=kwd-298742831700&hydadcr=24633_1795986&keywords=the+forest+people+turnbull&qid=1564433467&s=gateway&sr=8-1

What are you currently writing?

My PhD confirmation transcript! I have an exam in November where I basically present my research so far and they say whether or not it’s good enough to go on! This is me below presenting my research to the faculty back in May so they can review what I’m doing.

Name something you don’t like but ‘everyone’ else does?

People are obsessed with pancakes and I just don’t get them. I’d much prefer something else for breakfast. Don’t worry if you’re offended by that Le’Boo thinks I’m crazy.

Do you have a profession outside of writing/blogging?

I’m an academic, and a trained anthropologist.

Name a place you’ve always wanted to visit but never have?

The Atacama desert in Chile, because it’s reportedly one of the best places to view the night sky and all the stars.

Nominees

These nominees have less than 100 followers because I would like to spread the love for those working hard regardless of the size of their blog.

Parufog – Paranormal UFO Group

Dalen – Dalen Flynn. (Dalen how do you not have thousands of followers!?)

Va Va Voom Vintage.

Lynnie – You Are Strong For Surviving.

Adnke – Bruxa Livra.

Mytutosblog – Technology News

Not Sorry Feminism.

The Fandom Jumper.

Pussy Tantrum – Bunnula TV.

Psychobitchslytherin – Bipolar Rollercoaster.

Anovicescribe – acolourofme.

Eleven Questions

If you were an animal(real or mythical) which would you be? Logically, not what you’d want to be. 

When you get up in the morning, what is the first thing you think? Is it positive or negative?

Which fictional world, book or otherwise would you like to live in?

If you could meet your favourite fictional character, but only as their villain, who would that be? 

If you could build a theme park of any theme which would it be?

What’s the furthest you’ve ever travelled? In Kilometres (or Miles, if you’re into that).

Do you have any animal or plant friends?

What’s the weirdest job you’ve ever worked?

Do you have an obsession others find strange?

The ultimate 90s question. Oasis or Blur?

Finally, can trees hear what we’re saying? Opinions?

Copyright © 2019 Thinkingmoon.com – All rights reserved

Sunshine Blogger Award! Preamble This year has been wonderful for interactions with other bloggers, cementing friendships and even learning new facts about each other.

[dearly]

The band have seen more than their fair share of people through turbulent times, tending to collect the vast majority of fans in the throes of adolescence and carrying them through from there. Considering how different each album sounds – from the wounded, cutting pop-punk of Your Favorite Weapon to the self-aware, sex-obsessed Deja Entendu; the desperate soul-searching of The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me to the abstract chaos of Daisy – it wouldn't have been surprising to see their fanbase splinter into factions defined by era, like those of Conor Oberst or Manic Street Preachers. But Brand New have continually reinvented themselves while fundamentally providing the same thing on each album – namely confirmation that, yeah, being alive is quite difficult if you think about it to any meaningful degree, and that undercurrent of dread which you feel most days is probably justified, and here are 50 minutes worth of relatable reasons why plus some new ones you hadn't even considered. That's what stops them from being lumped in with all your other favourite bands from back when you had snakebites and a fake ID.

Before we get into the meat of things, it's worth mentioning that Jesse Lacey has always been the kind to wear his influences on his sleeve. The man performs in front of a mic stand wrapped in flowers; make no mistake that he worships Morrissey. I once watched him have a go at a festival crowd for opting to watch Brand New instead of Explosions in the Sky, who were playing at the same time. Brand New named one of their lead singles after a famous quote from Rushmore, another after Audrey Tautou, another after a line from a fictional gangster film in Home Alone 2, and another after a short story written by a character in Stephen King's Secret Window, Secret Garden. "I Will Play My Name Beneath The Spin Light" borrows lines from "Chumming The Ocean" by Archers of Loaf, and several bootlegs of Jesse Lacey's solo sets have become cult essentials for containing covers of Jawbreaker's "Accident Prone", Built To Spill's "Car" and Neutral Milk Hotel's "Oh, Comely" or "Two-Headed Boy". The list of references goes on and on. Such direct nods were largely abandoned on Daisy and replaced by samples from reel-to-reel tapes that Jesse bought online from an estate site, leaving fewer dots for fans to connect on Reddit. So, it's both unsurprising and a welcome return to form that Science Fiction appears to be assembled on touchstones.

Ahead of it's release online, Science Fiction was mailed to everyone who preordered the vinyl, as a CD containing one long track called "44.5902N104.7146W" – the approximate coordinates for Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming (also the setting for Close Encounters of the Third Kind). It came with a booklet featuring quotes from the fictional Poole vs HAL 9000 chess match in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The number plate on the car in the cover art reads "SOS 666", while the photograph itself, shot by Swedish photographer Thobias Fäldt, originally appeared in a VICE fashion spread about intelligent textiles. The two girls jumping off the roof are wearing clothes designed to turn stiff in response to impact, making it much harder for them to get hurt.

There are two ways of reading this. You could go deep on Stanley Kubrick and try to connect his juxtaposition of imagery with Jesse Lacey's lyrical content in a Charlie_Kelly_At_Pinboard.jpeg approach to deconstruction. Or, you could set that aside and grab the common thread of dread and dissociation that runs through it all. Both have value; the title itself speaks to that. "Science Fiction" is a tangible element of pop culture. We know what to expect from science fiction, we're familiar with the concepts it deals with, we "get it" – hence the Close Encounters and Space Odyssey references. But it's also inherently oxymoronic. If you strip away the context, it says more about a disconnect between fact and perception, reality and the surreal, understanding and fabrication – things that are much harder to grapple with in a definitive way. If you go further down that path, Science Fiction becomes a question of perception. The cultural references extend branches to grab onto, but they don't root anything down. That's the point. The world may be made up of concrete things that exist – the people you know, the moon, a laccolithic butte composed of igneous rock in northeastern Wyoming – but the only reality is the one you make for yourself based on how you view them.

Trauma can manifest in many ways: avoidance, anxiety, depersonalisation, hallucinations, self-harm, dissociation. The lyrics allude to pretty much every single one as we hear from Jesse Lacey as well as various fictional narrators and real strangers (like the therapy patient) attempting to understand themselves by reconciling the internal and external forces around them. Some of those forces are a bit on the nose; it's impossible to ignore the political context of "137" and its playground-esque chant about nuclear war, but it's hardly a political song. It romanticises an event in which we're all "vaporised" at once and nobody has to deal explicitly with loss. Equally, "In The Water" references each Brand New album – including the making of this one – in a swan song that writes anxiety, writer's block and expectation directly into the band's history before tethering it to tragedy. It ends with a line from Daisy's title-track, followed by the words "seven years" looped seven times in reference to "Limousine" – a track from The Devil and God about a girl called Katie Flynn who was killed in a car accident when she was seven years old. It's an odd callback to put at the end of a song that's ostensibly about Brand New's own career, but in the context of Science Fiction as a whole it feels symbolic of the endless and universal nature of pain as a significant part of the human experience.

Unsurprisingly there are multiple allusions to death and rebirth, but they feel much less linked to questions surrounding religion or the afterlife. Now, those allusions mostly appear within images of water or the body, which – while formless and temporary, respectively – are easier to hold on to than a belief system. This re-focus on the tangible makes sense when you consider that, for all the obvious external forces on the album that either make themselves apparent or offer themselves up for projection, it's the internal ones that feel most threatening. "Could Never Be Heaven" ends with audio of someone in a therapy session questioning, quite manically, the degree to which conditioning has influenced their beliefs and decisions. It's the voice of someone desperate to know who they really are, like it's the key to understanding why they have such a hard time existing and, maybe, if they had that understanding it wouldn't be so hard anymore. Of course, the more you interrogate yourself like that, the deeper you will fall into an existential hole where everything about yourself and the world splinters into infinite different timelines and you lose yourself among them. A different voice cuts in, saying, "You don't know how to break through this contradictory mess and really find your own authentic individuality," emphasising the word mess. The track that follows is generally about flawed human nature and specifically about someone trapped in a cycle of self-loathing and self-harm.

Brand New albums have a timelessness that's missing from those by most of the bands they came up alongside. After The Devil and God, a certain level of trust had been established that whatever they did next would be "right" even if nobody could be sure how it would sound. But as the years went silently by after Daisy – the distance between the band and their fans widening as both grew older, and possibly apart – doubt set in. There wasn't just the matter of whether a new album would ever materialise after they announced their impending breakup, printed a run of T-shirts that read 'Brand New 2000 – 2018' and then released several new Very American Rock songs that never went anywhere. There was the matter of whether Brand New would still be recognisable, or even relevant. A statement by the band later confirmed that a new album was coming, and would be their last. "What's left should be a strange demise, but hopefully one as loud and as fun as the rest of our time together has been," it concluded. "Please send flowers."

Science Fiction feels like a fitting ending, and parts with the same sort of advice an older sibling or a mentor might give to you before they fuck off to college or otherwise move on with their life. "Batter Up" reflects on the self-referential world that Brand New have built for themselves over the last 17 years and resigns itself to the fact that existing is just really bloody hard. Depending on what mood you're in, it could either feel like an inspirational mantra or the kind of depressing truth that knocks the wind out of you. It could either be, "Batter up! Give it your best shot!" to which you say: "Hell yeah, thanks Jesse, I will!" Or it could be, "I tried, someone else have a go," to which you take a deep breath and silently brace yourself.

I imagine it's the latter. If someone you may well have turned to over the years to do all your articulating for you couldn't make much progression in all this, then the fact that he is purposefully leaving you with the image of him offering you the bat to take your own swings in the dark is very bittersweet. We spend so much time clinging to the idea that things are moving towards some sort of logical conclusion, that there is forward momentum in all we do, but there is a quiet beauty in the fact that, for the most part, everything is cyclical and almost maddeningly simple. If you strip away all the hows, whys, wheres and whats that we spend our time preoccupied with in hope that the answers will ascribe some concrete meaning to being alive, there's really nothing to do besides step outside and hope for the best. That's basically the gameplay, in a nutshell: you give it your best shot and then you die. If you're lucky, someone might send flowers.

[businessliveme]

From Amazon Ring to NASA Moon Project: 15 Predictions for 2020

(Bloomberg Opinion) –It’s been my habit, as the year draws in the day, to offer my predictions for the coming year, but only after doing what every commentator should do — assessing my predictions for the year just ending. So before I get to my predictions for 2020, in the second half of this column, let’s see how I did in 2019.

Let’s put one of last year’s prediction right up top:

“The Washington Nationals will overcome the loss of superstar Bryce Harper in free agency and win the World Series over the Houston Astros.”

Nailed it precisely! If you need end-of-the-year help, Las Vegas or ESPN, give me a call.

The 2019 Scorecard

Now, as to the others, I predicted:

That Amazon would react to bad publicity during its 2018 HQ2 search by promising to put another headquarters in an economically distressed part of the country. Instead, the company is donating millions of dollars for “affordable housing” in Northern Virginia, where its new campus is planned. Mostly false, but I did get Amazon’s motive right.

That President Donald Trump would achieve neither his border wall nor a Fed hewing more closely to his views. True.

That the level of CO2 in the atmosphere would continue to rise. Although final figures for 2019 are not in, this one will almost certainly wind up in the “true” column.

That the melting Arctic ice cap would continue to pour thousands of gallons of water per second into the oceans. True, and true again.

That significant numbers of U.S. armed forces would remain in both Afghanistan and Syria. True, despite the president’s efforts in Syria.

That the New England Patriots would win Super Bowl LIII. True. Not a hard prediction but still true.

That allegations of fraud in the settlement fund established to pay former professional football players who have suffered neurocognitive damage would turn out to be a big story. Sadly, true. This month’s federal indictments were big news.

That despite investigations of Trump’s conduct, no resolution of impeachment would reach the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote in 2019. False, but so, so close. If they had but waited two more weeks!

That special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report would find no clear evidence that Trump committed a crime (true) and that NeverTrumpers would try to raise $1 billion to pay the president to resign. (I was mostly kidding but I wasn’t wrong.)

That homeschoolers would turn to virtual reality as a principal educational tool, and that over time others would embrace the idea. Still feels inevitable, but much too early to tell.

That during the summer of 2019, Marvel would finally announce a release date for the second “Black Panther” movie (true, right down to the time of year); that the highest-grossing film of the year would be “Avengers: Endgame,” if we count actual revenues during calendar 2019 (true, both worldwide and domestic); and that if we were instead to count all revenues for the movie’s run, the late-December-premiering “Star Wars: Episode IX” would win (I thought this was a slam dunk, but between tepid reviews and fissures in the fan base, I now believe this one may not work out.)

That despite the openly expressed skepticism of the federal judge overseeing the case, the $69 billion merger of CVS and Aetna would go forward. True.

That wealthy progressives who continue to sneer at the Republican tax cut as a giveaway to the rich would not offer the U.S. Treasury their gains from the rate reductions. True — and now members of Congress from high-tax blue states are demanding that their well-heeled supporters get an even bigger cut.

And that — sorry, but I can’t resist repeating — the Washington Nationals would win the World Series over the Houston Astros!

2020’s Predictions

Now we come to my predictions for 2020. As always, not all are seriously meant but some are meant more seriously meant than they might appear. I will leave it to the reader to figure out which are which.

1. Except for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidates will condemn the Secure Act’s new limits on the ability of non-spouses who inherit retirement accounts to stretch their disbursements over a long period of time. In particular, the candidates will agree that adult children who inherit should be able to leave the money invested for as long as they like. (Those who voted for the new rules will say they didn’t understand the implications.) Most of the candidates will stop short of promising repeal, however, and will instead promise unspecified adjustments.

2. Due less to government spying than to the growing popularity of Amazon’s Ring and similar devices, the number of surveillance cameras in the world will blow swiftly past recent estimates of one billion. By the end of 2020, all but a fraction of the outdoor spaces in most cities around the world will be recorded on video somewhere, and significant inroads will have been made in suburbs and towns. (Say goodbye to the “shadow map.”)

3. Speaking of technology, for the second year in a row, the final appropriation for NASA will be insufficient to allow any significant progress on its goal of returning to the Moon by 2024. Rather than surrender the dream, proponents will push the realization a couple of years further down the road.

4. Despite concerns by consumer activists, the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint will survive judicial scrutiny.

5. The New England Patriots will win Super Bowl LIV in February. No, I’m not a particular Patriots fan. But I pick them every year anyway, because … well, come on. Even if you’re a Patriot hater, you know I’m right.

6. Due to global warming, the rate at which the Arctic ice cap is melting will continue to increase. (This has become an even easier prediction than picking the Patriots.) Meanwhile, such innovative ideas for mitigation as pumping river water southward instead of letting it flow north will be rejected by climate change skeptics as too expensive and by climate change activists as a distraction from the urgent need to sign lots of treaties.

7. Swirling rumors that Russia might annex its longtime ally Belarus will drive dictator Alexander Lukashenko to seek rapprochement with the U.S. and the West. Already Belarus imports nearly half a billion dollars worth of goods from the U.S. annually, with fertilizer leading the way. Russian boss Vladimir Putin will view closer ties between Washington and Minsk as a strategic threat and begin to rattle his sabers. President Donald Trump will assure everyone that his “good friend” Putin will “allow Belarus to go its own way.” Pundits will jump not only on “good friend” but also on “allow.”

8. The highest grossing film of the year will be Warner Brothers’ “Wonder Woman 1984.” People will look around and say, “Wait, this intellectual property isn’t owned by Disney? Is that even allowed?” Disney, wondering the same thing, will take swift measures to fix the problem.

9. A congressional near-ban on vaping products will pass and be signed into law by President Trump, well in advance of serious clinical studies about potential health hazards.

10. Despite news reports to the contrary, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, accused of rape by two black women, will announce unequivocally that he will not be seeking the governorship of the state, or even another term in office.

11. The U.S. stock market will continue to rise through the first half of the year, bringing several new highs. As the political conventions approach during the summer, the market will begin to stutter. When the election season reaches full swing, we will see a significant drop, which the left will call a collapse and the right will call a correction. After the election, the markets will rise sharply.

12. The Los Angeles Angels will be the surprise team of the baseball season, but will lose in the playoffs to the Houston Astros, who will go on to defeat the Atlanta Braves (the other surprise team) in the World Series. (Bonus prediction: If Braves star Josh Donaldson jumps to the Washington Nationals, then the Nationals will reach the World Series once again, where the Astros will get revenge for 2019.)

13. Speaking of sports, nobody in the news media will offer any but the most half-hearted apology for the cravenness and stupidity of running all those photos of the Army-Navy game and asking whether the cadets who circled thumbs and forefingers were flashing white power signs.

14. Despite concerns raised in other countries, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will adhere to its position that there is no scientific evidence of any health problem from the trace amounts of nitrosamines in some prescription medications.

15. In the presidential election, the Democrats will flip Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin but the Republicans will flip New Hampshire. The result will be a tie in the electoral college. Under Article II, section 1, of the Constitution, the choice must then be made by the House of Representatives. Democrats cheer the perspicacity of the Framers until they realize that when the House sits to break an electoral tie, each state gets one vote. At that point Democrats remember that the Framers were white supremacists trying to protect slavery, and that the opinions of such monsters should play no role in contemporary governance.

The 26 states that have a majority red House delegation will vote Republican; the 22 states that have a majority blue delegation vote Democratic. The other two states, where the delegations are divided, will cast no vote, resulting in another tie.

The issue will be thrown to the courts. A letter signed by several hundred law professors will argue that all judges and justices appointed by President Donald Trump should recuse themselves, as they are likely to be biased. Television commentators will take up the cry. Conservative bloggers will reply that the argument is “another” attempted coup d’état.

Before the courts can rule, the political parties will agree to hold a new presidential election in February of 2021. Under the agreement, Trump will remains in office until that time but can take no action without the concurrence of Congress. Lawsuits will immediately be filed to block the plan, including by Trump himself, who will claim that not having been defeated in the election, he should win by default.

Alas, we don’t know how the lawsuits will come out, because my crystal ball runs only through 2020.

Those are my predictions for 2020. For you, my loyal readers, I wish a new year full of awe, joy, rationality, civility, and love.

The post From Amazon Ring to NASA Moon Project: 15 Predictions for 2020 appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2MEmaqy via IFTTT

[theworstbob]

the thing journal, 7.9.2017 - 7.15.2017

capsule reviews of the pop culture i took in last week. in this post: i’m going to die alone, and i feel fine; 1000 forms of fear; count on my love; seen it all: the autobiography; satellite flight: the journey to mother moon; mind over matter; molly’s theory of relativity; certified copy

1) I'm Going to Die Alone, and I Feel Fine, by Jen Kirkman: It's always been fascinating to me how some people will get married and divorced without first starting a family. You basically break up with someone, but it's not just any break-up, it's a failed marriage, and you're suddenly single after planning on never being single again, figuring out your relationship with your married friends when your marriage was what led you to be friends with them. This performance dives into that, Jen Kirkman analyzing why her marriage failed and how she's adjusting to this weird life where she's still a person but occasionally being treated like a half-person. I really dug it! Jen Kirkman's one of the best, and I'm glad I finally got around to this!

2) 1000 Forms of Fear, by Sia: hey. hey guys. would you have ever guessed that sia was good at writing pop songs? she sure is. this is like late-breaking news, but if you only know sia from her work with zero 7, wowie zowie, you gotta check out her more mainstream stuff! Except for the back half of this album, the last couple songs on this album are sort of, to borrow a phrase from Quentin Tarantino, Great Lady Tour-like. "ennnnnnnnnh You've got a great voice, and you got it to show off, but I wanna see you ROCK." I wanted to swing from a chandalier, not look at my fucking eeelings, Ms. Furler! But yeah, no, Sia makes pop music! Who knew? Wonder if she writes for anyone else, I know sometimes these popsters will write songs for other people, maybe SIa's getting that paper?

3) Count on My Love, by Tessanne Chin: This album has two really cool reggae-influenced tracks, and if it had followed that arrow, we might have had something. But because this is an album by The Voice champion and no one but the Voice champion cares how this album does, it's filled with these corporate ballads about strength and power and how nice it would be if even one adult contemporary station found a home for the song. The Voice has never found an artist that found any meaningful mainstream success, but that's not really the artists' fault. If this schlock is what The Voice is pumping out, no wonder they can't find any traction. They're getting these songs from known songwriters that were rejected by more well-known artists, and you can hear they're getting lesser efforts. It doesn't work.

4) Seen it All: The Autobiography, by Jeezy: Jeezy was always one of the most reliable rappers; I don't know that I ever looked forward to a new Jeezy track or got amped when I saw a Jeezy feature on a track listing, but I always, always enjoyed him when he showed up. This album is just fun to listen to. It's weighty, but never feels like it's dragging that weight, always ready to bounce back from occasional dips into darkness. Jeezy sort of reminds me of Biggie, just in the way where I'm not hailing his lyrical precision or anything, but the way he can fit into the groove of any track and make the song feel complete, it's a special skill (if obviously not quite as pronounced as Biggie's), and Jeezy's ability to simply rap well is on full display, or would be if this weren't an album and was a thing that could be seen, hey bob maybe instead of calling yourself for being a bad writer,,, edit?

5) Kid Cudi Presents: Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon, by Kid Cudi: ...I was expecting this album to be certain things. I was not expecting it to be this? I don't know how I could have expected it to be this? This seems like a poor introduction to Kid Cudi. Like, instead of saying TWENTY FOURTEEN! and jamming this into the library, I should have thought about having like a Kid Cudi day and experiencing him like that. I know, if I get an album with actual music which is meant to be enjoyed, I'll dig it, but I got this one by chance, and that's disappointing. Like, when an album has two colons in the title, that's your signal to riun.

6) Mind Over Matter, by Young the Giant: This is an indie rock album that probably might have worked better for me if my mind weren't trying to figure out an LttP randomizer while listening to it. Or maybe it's just thoroughly whelming indie rock and if it were capable of grabbing me it would have grabbed me. Soi apologies to Young the Giant if I didn't give them the fairest chance, but I'm pretty sure I got everything I'm gonna get out of this album.

7) Molly's Theory of Relativity, dir. Jeff Lipsky: So this is a movie that exists. This felt like a really interesting play that someone decided could be a film if they aired some scenes out of chronological order and threw in a couple of well-composed shots. There's a lot of cool ideas in this film, and the woman playing Molly gives a wonderful performance (my favorite line reading in any film I've seen this year is her saying matter-of-factly, "My husband wants to fuck me in the ass."), but also it's about a bunch of well-off white people with problems together in an apartment? The movie begins with a man yelling at his father about his inheritance. I can get involved with that problem to a certain extent? But that's not a real problem.

8) Certified Copy, dir. Abbias Kiarostami: I was tooling around Hulu looking for something to fill the Saturday morning, and I saw this pop up. I sad, "Hey, I remember this being a topic of sume discussion back when it was released, I guess it found its way to me!" I can see why film internet was abuzz over this film. I actually didn't even realize that there was a pivot until I was reading about this film after I'd seen it, I just thought I missed something because I'm shitty at paying attention. "Oh, I guess they're married. They probably said so earlier, whoops." Nope! So this effectively splits the film into two different shorts that are united because they're about the same set of characters being copied (theme) into different situations. (Also, as someone who thinks a lot about whether or not originality can truly exist in 2017, I am so into a movie dealing with that very idea.) And that's this really cool thing, how both characters can be the same people in those two different situations, how the actors can still play them like the same people even after their relationship suddenly changes, and I want to blather on about what I think about this but I'm still trying to get a solid hold on my thoughts and might not be smart enough to meet this film on its level, like I listened to awful '90s house music after I finished this film, I need to give this film the think it deserves before I try to engage with it using words.

[thezerolevel]

Cheapskate Reviews The Devil’s Cavaliers

The opening credits play over shots of dudes galloping across the countryside: a few of these shots repeat themselves. This is supposed to be southern France in the 1550s, but looks like it’s undergone a dry spell. Once the credits end, we get the first line of the movie: “Hey Captain, look there!” Shades of the beginning of Hamlet! A guy in black (the captain) sets off on horse-pursuit of somebody else whose horse reared up and whinnied. That’s a crime, I guess. The second rider falls off and is revealed to be a woman in a shot that contains the glissando harp that tells you she’s beautiful.

She’s Louise and he’s Richard Stiller (unusual surname for a Frenchman) and they’re in love. Or at least Louise is, all dreamy and stuff. Richard’s got the expression of a coach giving a postgame conference. Louise is traveling with Baroness Elaine (Fairchild?) who’s come to visit from court, “where she knew the queen’s magician, Nostradamus, and apparently he taught her a few of his secrets: she actually predicted your return!”

Elaine called Richard the jack of spades upon meeting him.

RICHARD: My lady has trumped the jack. But may I ask, why the jack of spades? ELAINE: The sun of Spain has given that shade to your features, my cavalier, and every time I read the cards, you always come out between two hearts.

Awwww yeahhh, we’re gonna have some Hercules-quality dialogue here. (And Richard is no darker than Elaine.) The actress who played Elaine, Gianna Maria Canale, may look vaguely familiar to fans of doofy adventure films (e.g. me): she was the Amazon queen in the Steve Reeves Hercules.

Their banter is interrupted by a group of dudes who ride in and accuse Richard of being a brigand, kicking off our first sword fight: guys wielding fencing swords on horseback attack Richard, who fights back with his sword at head-level. I’ve seen a lot of fencing scenes in movies, and I’ve seen a lot of horseback fights in movies, but I’ve never seen a horseback-fencing scene before, and for good reason: the riders just go around in circles and the women stand in the middle, as confused as I was. Fencing seems like it would just forfeit all the advantages of being on horseback. You’d prefer to just ride in and spear your opponent before they can get away. Likewise, fencing is all about fancy footwork, which is in short supply among horses. Then again, this film had a pair of fencing masters coordinating the fight scenes named Andrea and Franco Fantasia. And I’m not prepared to doubt a guy with a name like Franco Fantasia.

The Baroness orders Richmond, the captain of the guard, to knock it off and apologize. (The voice that says “apologies accepted” is completely weird.)

Our hero, who seems to be self-conscious about his teeth, and our heroine, whose hat angle is midway between “jaunty” and “rakish.”

Richard’s headed home to rebuild his house, which was somehow destroyed. He’s been away for a while:

LOUISE: Do you need to say that it was my influence that brought you back to the land of your childhood? RICHARD: I’m out of practice with madrigals. I was a little clumsy.

Try inserting that line into the suggestion box next time you go to an improv show.

They’ll be headed to the palace for a ball tomorrow. Cut to Richard’s castle, which looks very medieval and totally inappropriate for the 1550s. Richard is a mercenary at heart and doesn’t want to settle down, so he wants to sell the castle to the king and go off adventuring. The king would want to buy the land because “heresy is spreading rapidly.” Presumably he’s talking about the Huguenots, the Calvinists who were a few years away from launching a protracted civil war.

Richard’s traveling with a retinue of his former soldiers. For some reason, one of the guys in Richard’s retinue doesn’t hear very well and it’s a joke. Anyway, off to the tavern. Richard’s been smiling more around his dude friends and the tavern people than he was around his girlfriend. Maybe he just can’t be tied down. Richard gets a super awkward line about his father:

RICHARD: Is it possible at your age that life hasn’t taught you that it’s useless to waste tears on a dead and buried past?

He gives the tavern keeper a gift of the tavern to show us that he’s the good guy, and there’s a round of totally unconvincing laughter that runs just a little too long.

Cut to a four-piece ensemble in front of a tapestry. I thought for a moment that the tavern had really splurged on entertainment, but no, this is the palace. The two sets aren’t different enough from each other visually to tell the difference. There’s some of that fancy cultured dancing going on, one of them quadrilles or some shit that I would know if I wasn’t a yokel from the sticks.

Richard says he hates the dances, but he smiles through them anyway. (The incessantly-smiling hero is another element borrowed from Hercules.) Elaine is here, dancing with the duke. The duke is not a fan of Richard and Louise getting together.

DUKE: They may have grown up together. They may be no more than childhood playmates. But this is a little game I don’t like at all!

Our villains, Elaine and the duke.

The duke is dismayed because he is, in his words, “a jealous man. Louise’s absurd flirting upsets [his] plans and a strange childhood friend returned home at a most inopportune moment could easily become a serious obstacle.” I guess he wants to marry her, but I’m not sure if it’s out of lust for power or lust for… lust. As the courtly dance continues, Elaine echoes my thoughts:

ELAINE: This ball is on the verge of becoming extremely boring.

Elaine and Richmond are competing for opportunities to take out Richard. They agree to give Richmond first crack. Meanwhile (do you always hear this word in your head in Allison Pregler’s voice when it leads off a sentence?), as Louise speaks of how entranced she is by the wonderful evening, she gazes off into space, looking kind of like the portrait of the Queen on the back of a Canadian quarter. Richard pitches woo for a while and then a guy with a mustache (repeated viewings, plus IMDB, convince me that this guy’s name is Duneil) purposefully bumps into him. When mustache guy says Richard should watch his feet, Richard gives an ever-so-pithy reply:

RICHARD: From the looks of you, I should put at least one of them in a certain part of your anatomy… the presence of a lady forbids my naming precisely.

I know what he’s getting at, but it’s funnier to imagine he’s referring to the pisshole. Anyhow, it’s time for a duel, which breaks up the party as everyone heads outside to watch. And this one is going to be a treat, because Duneil is portrayed by the one, the only… Franco M. F. Fantasia.

Signore Fantasia is not amused.

Some guy tells Louise she shouldn’t have invited Richard because he’s a vagabond, but she thinks he’s the hero she’s been waiting for. The fight kicks off in the garden, in front of a pool. Franco M. F. Fantasia is pretty damned quick. Some of his best moved are parried when Richard is off-screen. Sadly, there’s no music in this scene, just crickets. And the fight scenery is pretty dull. Nobody watches swashbuckling sword fights just for the swordplay: they want to see people slash candelabras and slide down bannisters and swing from chandeliers and trade quips. They at least attempt the latter, but the quips here have lost something in translation:

DUNEIL: I hope you have a piece of land left where your friends can bury you! RICHARD: They won’t bury you! They’ll leave your body for crow’s meat!

Not exactly “you fight like a cow” territory, here. It’s also disappointing that the dubbing team isn’t reading the lines like they’re in the midst of a fight: nobody’s out of breath.

Did you guess that Duneil would be going in the pool? You guessed correctly. The whole fight runs about two and a half minutes, and while students of stage fighting might enjoy it, it’s not thrilling enough to keep the general audience engaged.

The next day, Richard and Louise are out chilling in the countryside, wearing their Sunday best, as you do. The music is a bit too loud here as Louise suspects that Richard’s just running away from his soldierly responsibilities (which haven’t been defined as of yet—I thought he was a mercenary captain). Louise wants him to find adventure closer to home by overthrowing the Duke. Richard demurs.

RICHARD: You’re expecting your St. George… and you find only a tired soldier.

But he was just talking about how much he loved adventure! On the other hand, I guess it’s more fun to have a daring adventure in a faraway land than in your hometown. I’d much rather carry out a secret spy mission in Vienna than in Dubuque.

This lasts right up until Louise mentions that they’re trying to promise her to the Duke as a bride, which gets Richard to flinch. Louise wants to beat the Duke with his own weapon—scheming—and she says she has Elaine on her side. This may not end well for her. This whole conversation takes place while they’re standing dead still in front of a waterfall, facing away from it. Perhaps there’s something even more scenic behind the camera, like, I dunno, the Chrysler Building standing atop Mount Fuji.

You’d think Louise would be impressed by this, right? See her next line.

LOUISE: What do you think you’ve solved by doing that?

If I heard that after kissing a woman, I would probably be so embarrassed that I would go stand in the waterfall and wait for it to carry me to a merciful death. Some dude rides up—I can’t tell who it is at this distance—and it seems it’s bad news because Louise expects an argument and Richard wants to go help in whatever useless way he can. Nope, she’s going along.

Ominous gong and drumroll at the castle, where Elaine and the duke are trying to cut a deal. Elaine thinks the duke’s pride will be the death of him. Seems she tried to use a love potion to make Louise fall for the duke:

ELAINE: The potion that is able to put out the flame of love has not yet been invented.

Their ultimate goal is to overthrow the king. I guess they’re Huguenots. Elaine doesn’t like the duke, but she thinks the duke can take out the king, and she’s going to avenge herself on the king because it seems the king is not a good guy. Elaine promises to deal with Richard in her way, and the duke decides that this is a good time to get flirty.

DUKE: But in the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt you to make an effort to be a little kinder to me…

Elaine leans way the hell back when he says this. and shoots him down.

Back at the tavern, Richard’s doing some paperwork (with the only guy who’s faking a French accent) when Giselle, Louise’s handmaid, comes in to buy supplies for Louise’s engagement ceremony. Even after she’s said, several times, that Louise is getting engaged, Richard acts like he doesn’t understand what’s going on. Maybe he took a few polearms to the head. Giselle straight up says that Louise is marrying the duke, and that Louise is preparing for the wedding. Richard’s response?

RICHARD: I don’t understand why you’re being so mysterious!

They’re going back to the palace together, plus one of Richard’s hangers-on, apparently because he has the (understandable) hots for Giselle.

I challenged braid enthusiast Jill Bearup to tackle this hairstyle.

Giselle and Louise meet in a garden and Giselle says she’s got a plan: if the guitarist stops playing, run like hell. Now off to talk to Richard again for a while, after they just did that a few minutes ago. There wasn’t really an engagement, this was just an attempt to lure Richard to the palace to make out. But now the duke sees that Richard is here, and he’s got Franco Fantasia with him who’s looking for revenge!

Louise’s plan is to “denounce [the duke’s] dissolute ways before all the nobles of the province,” with Elaine helping her. Richard puts on a goofy grin as he complains that nobody trusts Elaine. That’s her plan, and she’s sticking to it. Once she leaves, Franco Fantasia meets him with two guys who have to be German, based on their clothes. A three-on-one fight begins, with the two Germans acting in concert sometimes, and other times applying the one-ninja-at-a-time rule. Again, there’s very little use of the scenery.

After Louise sees the fight, Franco draws first blood, and we get our first swashbuckling dirty trick: Richard grabs some foliage, throws it in Franco’s face, and runs. Somehow, they didn’t have him surrounded, and he runs to Louise. Which is weird, because the camera angles used implied that Franco was between Louise and Richard, but somehow Richard ran offscreen in the other direction and wound up with Louise. Louise sneaks him into the palace.

Elaine is unhappy to learn what happened:

ELAINE: What is the thing you have done now? And I’m really astonished at you!

Elaine’s learned that Richard is in the castle (somehow) and clues in the guards. But she doesn’t want their help, because she has a plan.

A kid named Henri arrives to meet with the duke. He’s Louise’s brother, and he’s prepared to help the duke court her. He’s even providing a bit of love advice.

HENRI: As a rule, young girls of her age are fond of the unexpected, monsigneur.

Women readers: how would you react to your brother saying this about you?

After some more talkity-talk scenes that don’t really add anything to the plot, Giselle shows up at the tavern and tells Richard’s posse that Richard is a prisoner in the castle and needs rescuing. Then, back at the castle, Elaine cleans up Richard’s wounds and plots with Louise and Richard to escape tomorrow. She then reports tomorrow’s escape attempt to Richmond, who’s going to try and capture Richard with the help of… Franco Fantasia. Again. Elaine is not impressed.

ELAINE: If there’s absolutely no one else available whom you can use.

Despite being a grand schemer and a master of deception, Elaine is awfully loose-lipped about her disdain for the duke in this scene. She calls him a “blusterer” and a “mediocrity,” and she thinks it’s time that the duke get deposed and replaced with a man who can really inspire the people. You know, like Richard.

RICHMOND: You are ambitious. ELAINE: I know what I’m doing.

She distracts Fantasia, then invites Richard back to her room, where she offers him some wine. If you’ve seen a Hercules film, you know what happens next.

RICHARD: This wine is full of fire. What kind of vineyard could have produced the grapes for such a powerful wine?

He’s knocked out as Giselle reports to Louise that Richard is toast. Louise heads out to do… whatever (sadly, she’s not getting in a sword fight). Henri is waiting in Richard’s room and delivers the most wooden line reads of the whole script as he insinuates that bad things are going on. He busts into Elaine’s room, reveals them in what kinda looks like flagrante delicto but not really, and… shoots Elaine? I don’t understand this at all. Elaine dies, a victim of “a dream that was too great for [her],” and now we have sword fight #3.

Scandalous!

Now, in a good swashbuckling film, the environment has to come into play during a fight. This fight takes place in a room full of furnishings. I want to see the drapes thrown on a guy’s face, or somebody get whacked with a candelabra. But it’s just sword fighting here. One table is kicked over, but otherwise, bupkis. Richard ends the fight by turning Franco’s sword on himself. Meanwhile, Louise traipses off unnoticed.

The escape day-for-night is so dark that you can hardly see a thing except Richard’s white shirt. Thankfully, the only thing they do here is have Richard horsejack a dude and ride away.

Richard rides into the tavern the next day and tells his sidekicks (one of whom is doing a really awful Danny Kaye impression) to barricade the door to make it more defensible. You may remember that Richard also owns a castle, which is a structure that is generally well-suited for defense. Perhaps the plan is to wait for the guards to besiege the castle, then burst out of the tavern and attack them from behind.

No, actually. It seems that the guards knock down the barricade without much effort, only for the tavern denizens to vanish. Here begins a reprise of the horse chase from the intro, with chase music that isn’t so bad, really: the short bursts of percussion remind me of the chase music from Planet of the Apes. But it doesn’t match the tempo of the chase. The music is faster and more energetic than the horses are.

When our heroes arrive at a place with a gate that they want to go to (it’s a convent), they can’t get it open in time, and we have another patently absurd horse-fencing scene. There seems to be a gentleman’s agreement not to stab anybody’s horse. Richard gets to try out a one-liner:

RICHARD: I surrender only to God, and he’s not on your side!

The nuns just stand around watching the carnage, wherein Richard finds himself occasionally getting the worst of a one-on-one fight for the first time in the movie. Eventually the Mother Superior drops in to figure out if they want to give Richard & co. sanctuary, but she needs to know if they’re heretics. The nuns get the first decent joke:

NUN 1: We’ve heard them say their prayers. NUN 2: In their own way, but with great devotion, Reverend Mother.

The comic relief guys get subjected to a CCD exam by the nuns as they fight with their backs to the wall. That’s enough to get the good guys admitted and the bad guys somehow get the gates shut in their face, even though Richard was very clearly behind some of those bad guys just a shot ago.

It’s OK to get in a fight in front of a convent now and then, as long as you don’t make it a habit. *RIM SHOT*

The next scene is at court, where Henri and Louise are on trial for murdering Elaine. Henri’s defense is that he tried to kill Richard instead, but it seems that killing a baroness is a strict liability offense and doesn’t require proof of motive. The duke won’t reveal the deal with Henri to kill Richard, so it seems that Henri is dead meat.

LOUISE: You have never known how to select your friends.

At the convent, the men are welcome to stay as long as they’re in danger, but they’re going to have to work for it. Exciting scenes of swashbuckling minor construction work follow! Laugh (or not) as the guy who wants to be Danny Kaye and who has no trouble going to war, for crying out loud, tries to get out of building a dove pen!

Louise and Giselle have a stitch-and-bitch party. Louise is convinced that the duke will offer her a pardon in exchange for marriage. She’s lost her faith in Richard at this point because of Elaine’s tomfoolery, and boldly proclaims, “I want only to die.” (Her line read doesn’t sound all that sad to me, but whatever.)

The duke shows up, as predicted, and demonstrates his inability to flirt.

DUKE: It is your obstinate attitude that exasperates me. Despite all my excesses, I think I am less inhuman than you are.

He has no choice, you see, he has to put somebody to death for killing Elaine or else the king will be mad. And once she gives him a chance, she’ll start to love him eventually (as so many heavyset men with unflattering haircuts and beards have said over the years).

It’s time to break out of the convent, but it’s surrounded by enemy soldiers. Richard asks the mother superior about a disguise. Meanwhile, Richmond explains that the duke needs to do something grand and showy to convince the provincials that the duke is worthy to be king.

Richard’s bold plan is to put on a guard outfit and ride right up to Richmond’s castle. He didn’t even shave his mustache! Admit it, you were expecting him to disguise himself as a nun.

”I mean, I, of course, am a master of disguise. But he, on the other hand, looks like a dink.”—Die Fledermaus

The duke is going to have a grand and showy tournament to demonstrate how great he is. (Or rather, a “tourney.” This is a dubbing decision to cover for the Italian “torneo.” I wonder if George R.R. Martin insists on “tourney” because he’s trying to emulate the atmosphere of low-budget Italian films, or whether he’s iffy on the spelling of “tournament.”) He’ll face Henri in a joust: if Henri loses, Henri is guilty. (So we can now place the time of the film: it’s between 1555, when Nostradamus went to Paris, and July 10, 1559, when France held its last jousting tournament—a tournament that killed King Henri II.) Henri’s never jousted before (the Henri in this movie, not King Henri), so this may not end well for him (but it didn’t end well for King Henri either). The duke claims the weapons will be totally safe.

Richard’s infiltration plan has a fun shot in which the camera sits in the middle of a spiral staircase and follows him around. He’s immediately recognized when he gets to the top. Shoulda shaved the mustache. When you have a brief scuffle in a swashbuckling movie next to a staircase, you gotta throw somebody down the staircase, right? But it doesn’t happen here.

At Louise’s apartment, Giselle wants to stop the tournament (or “tournée,” as she calls it). Louise thinks it’s no use. Then, just out of the blue, Richard bounds right in and Giselle matter-of-factly greets him. Louise is still sore about the whole arms-of-Elaine thing and isn’t prepared to escape with him, and it’s time for a one-on-three sword fight as the guards burst in. This doesn’t last long, as a guard threatens to kill Louise unless Richard drops his sword. He complies.

Henri walks in after the guards and Richard leave (maybe they nodded to each other in the hallway). Henri thinks he can take out the duke at the tournament. Now Louise wants to escape, and she sends Giselle off to the tavern to get the guys to do… something.

Cut to a girl doing a belly dance at a feast. You know, a belly dance of the kind that was so popular in France in the 1550s (or, rather, of the kind that no proper Hercules movie could be without). The dance is interrupted when Richmond tells the duke that Richard is in the dungeon. As they leave, a group of hitherto unidentified noblemen complain that more men are siding with the duke these days and that they’ll probably lose the tournament.

In the dungeon, Richard notes how unusually laconic the torturer is: “men in your profession usually ask a thousand questions.” The torturer explains his system: if he sees a red hanky in the window, Richard dies slowly. If it’s a white hanky, “we’ll pass the evening playing cards.” The arbitrary nature of early modern justice must have driven this guy nuts, but his work-a-day attitude towards his job makes him the funniest character in the film.

The duke is going to taunt Louise by explaining the hanky code (not that kind of hanky code) and letting her know that she only gets the white one if she agrees to marry the duke. She takes the deal, and Richard will get to go to the wedding.

Meanwhile, the rest of the soldiers escape the convent on a rope that’s been tied to a tree. It’s too dark to see, but the plan is successful. Giselle seduces a guard (“from my window, you can see everything”) and much as you suspected, Richmond reveals that the lances for the tournament are real, but disguised to look like wood.

Time to bust into the castle and save Richard. There’s a great moment where our heroes find themselves at the business end of an arquebus and hit the deck in unison, but the fight is otherwise undistinguished as they dispatch their opponents quickly and get right to Richard. They’re set upon by guards again upon leaving the cell, and this fight turns into a real scrum, complete with flipped tables and (finally) a guy getting thrown down the stairs.

The only way out is through the roof, which Richmond is patrolling with more goons. This fight has great energy, but it’s shot from so many different angles that it’s hard to tell where the characters are in relation to each other. And Danny Kaye guy keeps acting as ineffective comic relief right up until he gets a Chaplinesque kick in the ass. Rather hilariously, the sidekicks form a circus-style human tower to leap over the wall and unlock the gate from the outside.

Quickly, men! Climb the wall, then hop onto your unicycles and speed away!

Richmond and Richard get a climactic sword fight on the stairs. At least, it would have been climactic if we’d seen Richmond’s swordfighting skills at any previous point in the film: even just a quick scene to establish him as a dangerous opponent. Team Circus gets the gate open, and Richard wins his fight with a really disappointing finisher: he jumps over a short obstacle, and when Richmond follows, Richmond leaps right into his enemy’s sword.

RICHARD: To the tournament, men!

…

The things that make a peplum movie entertaining are bizarre dialogue, good looking people wearing very little clothing, and goofy fight scenes. This film has one out of three: the dialogue is appropriately silly, but the 16th century setting means that everyone’s covered up, and the fights leave too many buckles un-swashed.

The Good: I’m going to need to find an excuse to say “Is it possible at your age that life hasn’t taught you that it’s useless to waste tears on a dead and buried past?” more often. Some real athleticism from the sidekicks in the fights. Loved the jailer.

The Bad: Sword fights on horseback are really awkward. Utter lack of characterization among secondary characters makes them easy to confuse with each other. Scenery rarely changes, making the adventure seem less grand.

Watch It If: You’re a swordplay addict or a peplum completist.

Cheapskate Reviews The Devil’s Cavaliers was originally published on Channel Zero