This is going to sound silly, but I didnāt really realize until
recently that TV shows are meant to be merely an approximation of real
life. Theyāre not meant to be like the real thing. Thatās why a
character can walk into a bar and say, āGimme a beerā and the bartender
will act like thatās not a ridiculous thing to say. And thatās why
nobody says goodbye when they hang up the phone. Itās really obvious,
but it never really clicked for me until I heard somebody say it that
succinctly.
Anyway, I just watched The Dark Tower (2017) and as a huge fan of the
books I have to say: it was alright! By no means is it any kind of
acceptable adaptation of the seven (eight?) novels. It is an
approximation: it contains elements of the Dark Tower. And for that it
was enjoyable. But it certainly wasnāt the real thing.
Furthermore I canāt imagine trying to watch this without knowing
about the series. It hardly stands on its own as a film. There are a
couple of amazing moments: Roland shooting a taheen without looking from
100 yards away? Awesome. Rolandās final shootout at the Dixie Pig?
Amazing. Thatās kind of all we get though.
Okay so I bought the itch.io TTRPGs for Accessible Gaming Charity
Bundle because I think that Accessible Gaming is awesome, and one of the
highlights on the bundle was this cute little game called Under The
Neighborhood. Turns out these are the rules custom made for the
Quest Freinds podcast! So I decided to give the podcast a listen. And it
has been really fun!
I think Kyleās Under The Neighborhood ruleset is spot on
great. Dead simple, but also plenty of room for customization for the
players. Itās 85% pbta and 15% cypher system, which makes sense because
I think I remember hearing one of their first games together was
Numenera. And you can see it in the phrasing of playbooks and modifiers:
I am an āxā who āyās.
And I like how modular they play it. All of the necromon rules are
adapted from and layered on from Animon Story. Kyle makes heavy use of
the āPaint the sceneā mechanic from Brindlewood Bay. All of the
courtroom mechanics are lifted straight from the Ace Attorney games.
Itās a great example of how you donāt need to invent everything
yourself. Beg, borrow, and steal from other games!
Jason Segal is good when heās big and sad and goofy.
I havenāt really enjoyed any latter day Harrison Ford. He only has
one expression (stoney), one tone of voice (growl), and one attitude
(grouchy/exasperated). And that is true here. But I can also tell that
theyāre working really hard on getting him to break out of that on this
show.
Jessica Williamsās Gaby is the breakout role in this show. Sheās so
good.
This season was pretty good. Adam Brody was great. Kristen Bell was
okay. I canāt tell whether she was flat or her character was flat. At
first I thought the āloser siblingsā getting together was pretty cliche.
But then I liked it.
This show was medium good. It probably should have been an hour and a
half movie instead of a 6 hour miniseries. I know that in the book,
nobody outright kills Merrit, but everybody plays a hand in her
accidental death. This is much better than what happens in the show.
Thereās a little too much of Amelia just staring off into space. And a
little too much is supposed of her relationship with Shooter: it is
portrayed as a thing that never really happened, but also as a deep
connection. The funniest and weirdest scene is when Greer (Kidman)
starts awkwardly and desperately dancing along to Never Gonna Give You
Up when Tag is ruining her book release because she is otherwise
powerless to do anything about his going off the rails. It was a little
hard at times to keep track of what was a flashback and what wasnāt.
I didnāt realize it until this episode, but Iām really rooting for
Eve to snap. Kind of like rooting for Joe in You. Oh snap, Eve
stabs Villanelle at the end of Season 1 so V shoots E at the
end of Season 2? Damn. Also V crossing the line with Gemma and Niko.
Also E going Jack Nicholson on Danny. V vs Peel felt like a weird fugue.
Big ole season!
This is really funny. Some of the best television Iāve seen. Sandra
Oh is really good. And Jodie Comer? I can see why she got an Emmy for
this. Mercurial. Equally hilarious and terrifying in equal measures.
Canāt look away from her. Theyāre walking a fine line with Fionaās
Carolyn character: her alienlike aloofness borders on the terribly
absurd. The intimacy and the violence of the season finale was
perfect.
Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman as Drs. Jean and Gene. What a
treat! Already over Lutherās slapstick. They done Klaus dirty. What are
they doing to my beloved Umbrella Academy?
Christmas Village of DEATH and DOOM. As far as dysfunctional
families of super heroes go, I think I still like the Doom Patrol the
best, but these guys are a close number two.
Finally get to see Mrs.Ā Hargreaves. And looks like Klaus is back.
Ben takes out the entire Thibodeau compound and shows us why his
codename is The Horror.
Jesus how many of his children has Reginald NOT murdered.
Viktorās screaming monologue is a tad much. Durang Marigold
reveal.
I know that Five is actually like almost seventy years old, but
this Lila and Five sequence is weirding me the heck out. I should listen
to more Tagically Hip. Holy shit Sy Grossman was Mrs.Ā Hargreaves this
whole time? Sheās trying to bring about the cleanse? This episode felt
very unfocused. Klaus and Alison feel like a tangent. Same with Diego
and Luther. Five and Lilra was a little bit interesting I guess.
Stripper jokes got legs.
Finale! Bennifer are pretty messed up arenāt they. Feels like a
bit of a let down of a season, and of a series finale. The family spent
most of the time splintered off away from each other and bickering with
each other. Weird time to introduce a new love triangle just in time for
the show to end.
I ended up really liking this. I love the six episode structure: one
episode for each of the 5 characters, plus one finale where they all
finally come together and team up. Super (supa) cell is an evolution of
sickle cell that give black people super powers. This is kind of like
Misfits but if it happened to people with real lives and real problems.
Struggling with family and obligations and work and money. Revealing
Krazy as a traitor at the end was really cool, and I was surprised they
(allegedly) killed him off; he could have been a great Season 2 villain.
And then also with introducing āthe bossā at the end. Before we even got
to see the director be a proper villain either. I assume they know what
theyāre doing, but getting rid of both of the main bad guys at the end
of the season before we even really got to see them do their thing seems
a little rushed to me. Ultimately, a really good āregular folks get
super powersā show a la Misfits and Heroes. But again, more serious and
dramatic.
I stopped watching Greys Anatomy and started watching Suits because I
donāt have the appetite for a medical drama when my life is suddenly a
medical drama. This show is deeply unserious. I donāt actually really
like it that much; I basically jeer all the characters all the time.
Except Lous Litt. All he wants is a friend, but heās so unlikable and
everybody just shits on him all the time. Heās the only character on the
show who is ruled by his emotions. Except maybe for Rachel Zane. The
premise of the show is a joke: Mike Ross could do almost anything with
his brain powers. Or, maybe the whole point of season 4 (Investment
Banker Mike) was to show that having a super brain doesnāt mean you
canāt fail. Harvey and Donnaās relationship is very Sorkinesque a la
Joshua and (his) Donna. I basically donāt pay attention to the arc plot
at all because I canāt keep up with the nuance of the legalese and the
double crossing and backstabbing. And the great part is, as long as you
can keep up with the āUh oh, Louis did something stupid and now Harveyās
pissedā bits, then the bigger plot elements donāt matter. Itās all about
how the characters react and relate to each other. The particulars of
the legal proceedings behind those actions and relationships is less
important. Iām going to have Bingo squares made for this show: āYou
think I canāt x?ā āYou think I donāt know how to y?ā
āDonāt my name me.ā āWhy the hell not?ā āIām gonna goddamn
x.ā Donna reads somebody. Rachel is annoying.
Wow, I didnāt realize I never watched the final season of Doom
Patrol! Letās go.
I could never really get into Cyborg in this series. But he really
shines this season. Big welcome back to Danny, Dorothy, Maura Lee
Corrupt, and Candlemaker. Welcome to Casey Brinks. They are really
rushing Jane + Casey as we get close to the end. Bored with the musical
episode, but good to see Brendan actually make another appearance. And
Larryās actor can really sing! And I did crack up when they started
onomatopoeia acapella singing the title song. Okay fine, the musical
episode was good lol.
At first I thought this season was pretty formulaic: a minor crisis
of their own making is escalated to earth-ending proportions due to
their own faults, flaws, and ineptitude; but then they get their shit
together act like a family and solve the crisis kind of on purpose kind
of on accident. But weaved throughout the tapestry of this tried and
true formula is a thread of vulnerability, finality and mortality, and
healing and acceptance. The ending does feel rushed, but itās not weak:
the last fifteen minutes are a sort of epitaph for each character, and
Cliffās ending definitely brought a tear to my eyes.
Series review: four seasons of spectacularly fun, top-notch,
irreverent and exciting, emotional superhero drama. 5/5 stars, do
recommend. Itās tempting to say that peaks in Season 1 with Alan Tudykās
Mr.Ā Nobody. But in actuality, the first season merely sets the stage for
the surreal and absurd antics of the following seasons.
This movie is about how America is addicted to consumerism. Itās not
that great. But itās pretty okay. The best part is maybe how Abe Vigoda
and the Whereās the beef? lady make a cameo together in a tv commercial
for The Stuff.
This is a movie where Sandra Bullock blindfolds 2 five year olds and
yells at them for two hours telling them theyāre going to die. Malkovich
was fun to watch but when is he not. The ending was kind of convenient,
but didnāt detract from anything. I enjoyed it quite a bit! 5/5
stars!
This movie is one part very silly and one part very cool because we
get to see Michael Keaton reprise his role as Batman. And we get to see
a bunch of cgi supermans: George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Adam West,
even Nicholas Cage who didnāt even get to be Superman because Tim
Burtonās Superman was never made. (Which is actually a very clever way
to demonstrate the whole āall possible worldsā thing.) Without all those
cameos I donāt think this would have been much of a movie. The
Flashpoint Paradox arguably did this story better. It was especially
distracting watching Ezra Miller knowing what we know now.
I really am not that into āsuperheroā as a movie genre. But Iāve
always had a soft spot for the Flash because I used to watch the 1990
television series when it was on. So Iāll probably always watch any
Flash series or movie that comes out. This one was enjoyable because of
references and nostalgia. It is the Ready Player One of its genre.
WARNING: this film is 1960s sexploitation / softcore pornography.
Thereās nothing in the world Vixen likes more than fucking. And
thereās nothing in the world she hate more than black people. Thatās
pretty much it! Thatās the whole movie. She has sex with her husband,
her husbandās client, the clientās wife, and her little brother. All for
no real apparent reason but for fun, power, and to fuck with and or
manipulate people. Also sheās suuuuper racist. Itās really
uncomfortable. This was allegedly the first film to receive an X rating.
So it has that going for it.
I thought Natasha Lyonne was doing a bit when she played Nichols on
Orange Is The New Black, but apparently thatās just who she is. And itās
kind of a lot! But this show was good. Like Groundhog Day but a lot
darker. The premise started out kind of dark, then got funny, then got
really dark by the end. The ending was particularly satisfying. 5/5
stars!
Just finished playing this through for the second time. One of the
best games on the platform. Itās a little disorienting at first until
the disparate vignettes start to fall into place like puzzle pieces,
creating a larger picture of pain and trauma, and how one deals with and
escapes from it. The theme of inevitable and advancing destruction are
subtly woven throughout. And the author took care to weave names and
locations throughout the episodes so that the player is never quite sure
who or what originated from where. Even the very name of the
protagonist, elly, is uncertain. Sometimes it is short for Elhaym,
sometimes Eleanor.
It is a profoundly lonely experience. elly seems to have a single
friend, Cassie, who is available sometimes for texting. But Cassie is
busy working and ultimately elly is left with her pain, her fear, and
her haunting visions and dreams.
In the end, the creeping horror suddenly manifests, and the simple
matter of abandoning the by then familiar dialog system in favor of the
on screen floating text makes it feel like choices are no longer up to
the player, but that the game is now on a runaway course of its own
choosing, right up until the final choice that brings a sudden and
abrupt end to the game, leaving the player to ponder ellyās fate and
reflect on acceptance, pain, and destruction.
I donāt know the name of the genre where you get orders and have to
fulfill them, but this game is that genre. You play Lune, a fledgling
witch who just graduated witch school and just opened up
Spellcorked! their very own potion shop! And apparently youāre
the first witch to leverage modern technology by using your CubeOS
crystal āballā to take orders via emeow and get reviews via Welp. So
thereās a daily cycle. Each day you get a few orders, and then you brew,
bottle, and ship the potions, and then you go to bed! Throughout the
game, you unlock new ingredients. And a large part of the gameplay is
figuring out / discovering what effects the items have. I found this
part fun!
The creators made a decision not to have ingredients be consumable.
Thusly, because you canāt use them up, there has to be some kind of risk
somewhere in order for potion making to be fun. The risk is
that once you start making the potion, you cannot stop or start over.
Consequently, there were times when I accidentally grabbed the wrong
ingredient and immediately realized I was making the wrong thing. But I
had to continue making the wrong potion, and then bottle it, and ship
the wrong potion to the customer. Which felt really bad to me! But I get
why the creators made this choice. And it made me feel very extra
cautious when getting ready to brew.
The alembic alchemical still took me a very long time to figure out,
and to be able to use confidently. It is a whole little mini-game in and
of itself, and each of the six alchemical ingredientsāand their
animationsāare so compelling and evocative and unique and magical. I
eventually would play the animations on āfast modeā but never once
wished that I could skip the animations even though it takes up a lot of
time even on fast mode. Itās one of the best parts of the game.
For a Season 1 game, Spellcorked feels half finished: quips and jokes
from Beau and Manny, Luneās familiars, stop about halfway through the
game, and the two of them just become background scenery. Correspondence
from Faer, Luneās significant other, stop disappointingly early in the
game. Lune themself kind of fade into the background as the game as
continues on in silence. Eventually, for lack of anything else to engage
with (other than just brewing potions for its own sake) the player might
end up deciding to ship potions until you get enough positive reviews to
reach Tier 5 on Welp. After which you get a meta email from the
Spellcorked developers congratulating you on finishing the game by
winning the respect of your former professor. This was a surprise to me
because the professorāalthough they do send Lune a skeptical emeow now
and thenānever seemed like anybody I should focus on, or whose approval
I need.
I think thereās a memory leak in the game somewhere. Twice I noticed
the game grind to a very slow crawl. Once, it crashed. And the second
time, I proactively restarted the game, after which it worked fine
again.
But anyway, this game is awesome and I love it! I find it peculiarly
compelling. Many times I told myself I would put the game down after
fulfilling these next three orders, only to take a peek at the next
dayās orders and decide to just fill them real quick. I will definitely
reach for it again in the future when I want to do some cute witchy
potion brewing. 5/5 stars!
I started this show as something to watch in the background while
working on something else. But then I had to stop doing that because the
show was so good and so compelling that it demanded my full attention.
Itās about family and relationships, and how hard it is to really
connect with somebody. And how precious it is once you finally do. Emma
Stone is of course insanely watchable in everything she does. What i did
not expect is that Jonah Hill is insanely watchable in this as well.
Surreal and ridiculous. Thereās no telling what time this is supposed to
be set in. There are anachronisms all over the place. Funny nod to
Quantum Leap when theyāre at the taxidermy shop trying to save Wendy. It
must have been so fun for Stone and Hill to get to play so many
different roles. 5/5 stars!
Edit: Hereās the thing. Maniacās low-key, background, 1970s
retro-futurism is uncommented on and unexplained, but itās actually what
makes the whole thing work. Consider the Ad Buddy. Consider the Proxy
Friend. These are the artifacts that make this show work. People are so
desperate for a genuine connection but relationships are so superficial
theyāre literally commoditized. And itās normal. Itās
unremarkable. I think the rest of the retro tech in the showācampy,
delightful, and glorious as it isāis just a happy accident that we get
because the story required normalized and widespread, over-the-top,
crushing loneliness, without it seeming too alarming or out of place.
And so the creators were like, āLetās just distract the viewer with a
bunch of weird stuff and pretend itās normal. So that when the truly sad
and awful bit comes along, we can just portray it as part of the
background weirdness theyāve already accepted.ā
Itās pretty okay! A band of misfit kids solve supernatural mysteries
for Dr.Ā John Watson. Good spooks. The first half is a good monster of
the week kind of show. The second half is kind of weird family mystery.
The weak point was the irregulars themselves. The two sisters are the
main ones. Leo makes sense as romantic interest. But Billy and Spike a
lot of the time were just kind of, there. They were all good archetypes.
There was the leader (Bea), the weird (Jessie), the muscle (Billy), the
outsider / brains (Leo), and the face (Spike). Some of the twists are
predictable, some arenāt. Anyway it was pretty okay, I enjoyed it. 5/5
stars!
Really neat movie about a Bad Guy who is traveling backwards through
time killing people (with some kind of gruesome brain melting injection)
and the cop who keeps encountering her every ten years or so. Very
mysterious, good action, good drama watching the cop slowly descend into
obsession and madness in his single minded pursuit over the decades.
Very interesting, very entertaining. 5/5 stars!
The second installment in the Unbreakable, Split, Glass trilogy. The
first āstealthā sequel Iāve ever seen, where you donāt know until the
last 60 seconds of the movie that it is actually a sequel to a previous
movie. Tremendous acting props to McAvoy who not only had to play half a
dozen or more different roles as Kevin, but also at one point had to
play one personality playing a different personality. Lots of tension,
plenty creepy. A lot left unresolved. I preferred his portrayal in Glass
where the question of whether the Beast is really super powered or just
a deranged man is definitively answered. Major points off for
spectacularizing and villainizing dissociative identity disorder. 5/5
stars!
M. Night Shyamalan presents ā¦ Glass! The final installment of the ā¦ I
donāt know what itās called, the superhero trilogy? Pretty good build up
with Dunn / Unbreakable and the Hoard focused on each other while
Mr.Ā Glass masterminds the whole thing. Itās Shyamalan so you know
thereās going to be a twist, but I think he did a good job at having
three twists, one for each character: the reveal of the ancient secret
society of superhuman hunters, the fact that Glass was (predictably, but
not expectedly) playing at a whole nuther level, and finally the death
of all the main characters. Bold, that. This works 90% as a standalone
movie, but works better if youāve seen the previous films. Having not
seen the 2nd film at this point, I was left wondering about some of
Crumbās personalities and their relationships with ATJās character. 5/5
stars!
meandering. webās precognition was pretty fun to see play out, but
after the second or third time you really lose all investment in
anything that happens and instead expect the cosmic rewind button to
kick in and save the day. it was especially poorly executed in the
final, climactic scene in the abandoned warehouse where nothing really
happened. this was definitely poised as an origin story for a series of
movies that we are certainly never going to see. But hey it had sydney
sweeney in it? 5/5 stars!
Best movie Iāve seen in recent memory. Absurd, surreal. All about the
relationship between a mother and a daughter, and how love is the only
thing matters. If I hadnāt already known Jamie Lee Curtis was in this
movie I would never in a million years known that was her. 5/5
stars!
My first godzilla movie! Deeply symbolic and metaphorical. All about
trauma and how to survive and overcome it, and chosing to live. Very
bleak, very sad. 5/5 stars!
What good fun! I really liked it. I enjoyed the Dead Boysā first
appearance on Doom Patrol. And this was a great world for them to āliveā
in and inhabit. Great secondary and tertiary characters. Canāt wait to
see what becomes of them all.
Uncomfortably good. Infinitely quotable. Could easily have ended
after episode six or seven. I liked it a lot. An incredibly Shondaland
cast of actors, which made it feel comfy and familiar. 5/5 stars!
This was roughly half as good as Amazing Spider-Man 1. They just
tried to cram too much in. Thereās no excuse for having the Crocodile
AND the Green Goblin be the main villain AND ALSO managing to slip in
the guy from Sideways as the Rhino???? Too much man, way too much. The
death of Gwen Stacy was too sad. 5/5 stars!
Started listening to this after discovering Loganās autobiographical
tabletop game, āLogan.ā Very short (~10 minute) episodes exploring the
nature of Lyric Games. Logan is adorable, and the conversation is great.
Do recommend. https://redcircle.com/shows/lyrical-ludology
I overlooked this game in my library when I was looking for solarpunk
games. Its subtitle is āSolarpunk Adventures in the Futureā. It is ā¦
kind of solarpunk? It is little more than a reskinning of the Push SRD
by Cezar Capacle. Which is a really good system! The core mechanic is
the āpushā: roll 1d6. 1 - 4 = weak hit; 5 - 6 = strong hit; 7+ = miss;
you can reroll and add your result as much as you want. Characters are
made by rolling for gift, upbringing, experience, mark, charm, and bond.
There are tables for creating missions, challenges, moments, etc. And
thatās pretty much all there is here! No setting, no real guidance on
building community and harmony in the face of conflict and scarce
resources. Which is to say, thereās not much here that feels like
solarpunk. Cute game though! 5/5 stars! https://zeruhur.itch.io/solaris-a-new-dawnhttps://capacle.itch.io/push
The ultimate distillation of d100 games in the BRP / Chaosium / CoC
tradition. Found this via Sean F. Smith, who chose it as the ruleset for
a play-by-post game of Dark Conspiracy that weāre playing. Incidentally,
Iām also starting a short campaign of Delta Green, and the character
creation process was okay, but still way complicated. I would far prefer
to have just done Die 100 Times. Very flexible, short and sweet,
hackable. Love the integrated combat roll. Would 100% run/play a game
with this! 5/5 stars! https://alexandre-kobayashi.itch.io/die-a-hundred-times
Look at this cute little guy! āA sisyphean dung beetle solo RPG.ā You
play a little dung guy trying to roll a ball up the hill. And it
frequently rolls back down the hill, and that is frustrating! And thatās
the whole game. A strong undercurrent of capitalism vs organized labor.
Love it! 5/5 stars! https://sleepy-badger-games.itch.io/little-dung-guy
Disquietingly beautiful game. Logan shares very intimate key moments
of his life, and allows the reader to determine their outcome through
the roll of the dice. You are encouraged to consider your own lifeās
significant moments and how different outcomes might change your life,
and who you are. I love the āmethods of playā section. Method #1 says
explicitly that reading and thinking about the game is playing the game,
which is something I believe to be true about games. You play by
completing the playbook, which guides you through experiencing moments,
narrative milestones, and self-care breaks. The layout is fantastic.
Canāt believe how good this is. 5/5 stars! https://breathingstories.itch.io/logan
Iāve never seen the Andrew Garfield spiderman movies. Only ever
watched the Tobey Maguire ones. Delighted to get Martin Sheen and Sally
Field as Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Martin Sheen is so great. He didnāt get
to deliver the iconic Uncle Ben line. But instead said something like,
āIf you have the ability to help somebody, you do it. Responsibility!ā
Emma Stone was pretty good as Gwen Stacey. Couldnāt stand watching
Dennis damn Leary as the police chief. I wish there was a little more to
bridge the characters of Peter Parker and Spider-Man: Spidey was so
confident and wise-cracking and kind of egotistical, and Peter was such
a mumbling, unconfident kind of character. The villain (The Lizard) was
pretty good. Sympathetic to a degree. It was good! Iād watch the
sequel.
willās back for 2024! first post since the birth of his daughter. his
droid is still broken, sad. this is a fun, conversational episode
recorded in the car about wanting to be more offline first, about the
distractability of our always-online life and smart devices. he uses a
palm tungsten pda to try to combat this but still misses his droid. https://lambdacreate.com/podcast/ltrg/5
Lucas Pope releases Mars After Midnight for the Playdate. Very
interesting interview about his development process and how all these
different disparate pieces fit together: designing procedurally
generated martian faces, designing a squiggly font, creating speech
synthesis, learning a music tracker to make the music, learning lua to
supplement his C programming, learning the hardware and the simulator
and how the buttons and the crank work (and donāt work) together,
specific techniques for 1-bit art on the sharp display (although he
already has 1-bit art experience from making Obra Dinn).
Interesting to hear about one can pursue so many different interests and
learning opportunities in the course of making a game! https://podcast.play.date/episodes/s01e29/
NASA released an adventure! missed opportunity to call it HUBBLE
TROUBLE. the plot is: a dragon steals the hubble telescope. adventure
design is by Christina Mitchell with graphic design by Michelle
Belleville. so, nice to see some women driving the project. they go out
of their way to not say āD&Dā probably because legal and licensing
reasons, but this is a D&D adventure ādesigned for a party of 4-7
level 7-10 characters ā¦ for your preferred tabletop role-playing game
(TTRPG) system.ā iām a little disappointed that they decided to go with
straight D&D fantasy instead of a more sci-fi or even science
fantasy game, but I understand the marketing reasons for doing so. the
adventure is pretty okay! player characters wake up on a mysterious
planet with no memory of how they got there, and start to slowly reveal
and unravel the mystery. there are locations (and a map!) and npcs and
guides for roleplaying them. thereās a fair bit of ābackground science.ā
thereās exploration, combat, puzzles, and social encounters.. it is a
varietally correct if not particularly inspiring dungeons & dragons
experience with space telescopes. 5/5 stars! https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/multimedia/online-activities/the-lost-universe/
super neat mystery game inspired by Disco Elysium. this game borrows
heavily from Everyone Is John in that different aspects (Intellect,
Psyche, Fysique, Motorics) compete for control of the detective, and
also play NPCs and locations under their domain. while the objective of
the game is ostensibly to solve the murder, a significant portion of the
game is occupied by the minigame of the aspects competing for control
and dominance, forming alliances against the dominant aspect, tampering
with each others evidence, etc. other mechanics are from pbta: playbooks
full of detective moves and aspect moves, and 10+ strong hit / 7 - 9
weak hit / 6- miss 2d6+aspect rolls. evocative of Brindlewood Bay in
that the mystery is generative: the mystery itselfāand the solution to
itādonāt exist until you start playing, and are resolved via mechanics.
not logic or deduction or anything premeditated. of course, this doesnāt
prevent you from using logic and deduction to drive the mechanics. itās
just that the solution doesnāt already exist anywhere ahead of time. the
mystery resolution mechanic involves a tree called the DEDUCTION
PYRAMID. you begin by collecting eight pieces of evidence. these can be
combined to create 4 minor deductions, connections that donāt directly
identify a suspect or method of death, but that suggest plots like
alibis, alliances, etc etc. these can be combined into 2 major
deductions which do relate directly to the murder and or suspect.
e.g.Ā murder weapon, motive, time of death, etc. finally, the fourth tier
combines all the evidence and deductions into the final solution. this
game seems super clever and super fun, and i would love to play it! 5/5
stars! https://pieartsy.itch.io/after-the-mind
i was turned off by this game for a while because of the tactical
mercenary / assault weapons packaging. but upon actually reading it, it
is actually pretty great! So donāt judge a book by its cover. Its vibe
is The A Team meets Doom Patrol: you are a rogue team
of strangely powered mercenaries investigating weird stuff. Thereās even
an evil / rival agency a la COBRA called CYCLOPS. Character creation:
choose one of d66 ROLES and two of d666 TRAITS. Complete with a Mission
Generator to create missions, objectives, and complications for you. A
rare āWar Diceā meta-currency allows you to add an extra d6 to your
roles for when you really wanna succeed. (I like it when thereās a way
for you to bargain with the game and bend the rules a little bit when
you really wanna roll good.) It has PBTA dice resolution: miss, weak
hit, strong hit on 6-, 7-9, 10+ after rolling 2d6+skill. Double Skills
are Force, Tactics, Creative, and Reflexes. Lots and lots of GM advice
supplement the relatively light core rules. I like this quote: āFIST is
camp and pop-cultural pastiche. Weāre being grim, gritty, and serious as
a jokeābut the joke weāre telling is dead serious.ā 5/5 stars! https://claymorerpgs.itch.io/fist
my beekey blinders group is thinking of running this game. it is
directly descended from Call of Cthulhu and retains nearly all of its
character creation rules and dice mechanics. In fact, itās just CoC with
with an X-Files / Government Agents kind of vibe to it. There are some
additional rules around relationships, which slowly deteriorate as you
spend more time investigating and succumbing to The Strangeness. Seems
fun. Iād play it.
this is a fun and silly show! total fluffy, guilty pleasure. big old
nothing burger. lovely sets and outfits. hereās the royal pains drinking
game: 1) somebody passes out, 2) āCFO of Hankmedā, 3) Divya says
something sassy or withering, 4) āKuester von Jurgens-Rateniczā, 5)
awkward Dieter, 6) Jillās bad/awkward acting
Wanderhome! Picked this up because of Last Tea Shop and
Fox Curioās Floating Bookshop. A very beautiful book full of
gorgeous art work and very lovely writing. Itās a No Dice No Masters /
Belonging Outside Belonging game which means it has Playbooks for
characters and a token based metacurrency based on playing to your
strengths and vulnerabilities. Itās a cute-as-a-button animal-folk game
about wandering and traveling. Thatās pretty much the whole game! Itās
full of traits and natures so that players can also play NPCs and
Locations. It doesnāt provide you with any kind of plot or storyline.
You open each session arriving somewhere and prepping some locations and
npcs to interact with. It has a full list of seasons, months, and
seasonal holidays complete with rare seasonal specials. Wanderhomeās
influence on Floating Bookshop is so strong that Bookshop is
essentially Wanderhome on a river with a āselling and trading booksā
aspect to focus the game and provide Wanderhomeās missing storyline.
This book is gorgeous, friendly, and dreamy. 5/5 stars! https://possumcreekgames.itch.io/wanderhome
This show is really silly and fun. I started watching it because Alan
Tudyk. And I think because I read somewhere that the alien alphabet used
in the captions is a tranliteration of poorly spelled Esperanto, written
backwards. This season is cute. I chuckled. It started to drag in the
middle a little bit, but then it picked up again for the season finale.
Tropey, but entertaining.
This is a short 16 page pdf. A solo journaling game (with alternate
rules for 2 players) about operating a quiet tea shop between the lands
of the living and the dead. You receive guests on their way to the land
of the dead, and serve them tea and ask them questions. My grandfather
died this morning. It got me emotional thinking about getting to ask him
the questions I never asked. And thinking about somebody offering him
tea and comfort on his journey. He would prefer coffee though. He liked
to talk about how ātoffeeā was one of his first words, and how heās been
drinking coffee since he was a little kid. Anyway, this is a very cute
game and I really like the feel of it. I picked it up because I had just
read Fox Curioās Floating Bookshop, and it listed this game as an
inspiration. Floating Bookshop is clearly a descendant of Last Tea Shop.
Incidentally, this game cites The Lighthouse At The Edge Of The
Universe by lostwaysclub as an influence. Lostwaysclub is who wrote
Floating Bookshop, which cites Last Tea Shop as an influence!
Mutual respect! They should be friends. https://springvillager.itch.io/last-tea-shop-complete
this book is fucking delightful. super cute, super cozy. itās a solo
journaling rpg in which you float up and down the river in your floating
bookshop and sell books to animal folk a la redwall, etc. itās a fully
realized setting with seasons and weather and seasonal holidays and
river towns with features and characters, and stuff happens that you
have to address, and you can make friendships and go fishing and cook
meals for your new friends and i just love it. thereās even a part where
you can photocopy or tear out a page and then cut out a bunch of
furniture and then arrange it in your bookshop however you want. i canāt
stand how cute this is, and i canāt wait to play it. it says it is
inspired by the last tea shop and wanderhome, and i
think i have both of those, so iām going to read them next. because if
theyāre like this, then i will love them. 5/5 stars! https://lostwaysclub.itch.io/floating-bookshop
spoilers
Okay I cannot BELIEVE they ended this series with āit was a figment of
the main characterās imagination.ā Thereās just no way that anybody
could have thought that would be acceptable. Itās hard to come up with
an alternative interpretation though with the way they kept reminding us
that Magne was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and that he
retreated into the comfort of his Thor comic books as a child. On the
other hand though, Isolde definitely died. And Magne definitely had a
bunch of interactions with the Jutuls that cannot be explained away. I
think what happened is that Magne rewrote Ragnarok by getting everybody
to lay down their weapons and avoid the war. But the gods still had to
die some how, for some reason. They cannot be allowed to continue to
live in our modern world. So Magne changed the story and spared the
gods. But then the story changed reality to make it so that the gods are
effectively dead anyway by virtue of having never existed. Or rather,
having only existed in Magneās mind. So Ragnarok, or fate, or The Story,
was going to wipe the gods and giants out one way or the other. Either
by war and mutual destruction, or via a very tropey āit was all a
dream.ā Either way, still a terribly disappointing ending to a show that
honestly should have been canceled after one season if this is the wrap
up weāre going to be given.
Fivewild, and Hey Check Out This Cool Thing I Found In The Gullet #
2024-02-24
Richard Kelly aka SprintingOwl aka kumada1 is my favorite game
designer. He churns out an improbable number of games. Some of them are
memes, some are jokes, some are hauntingly beautiful, none of them are
just straightforward boring games, and nearly all of them show very
careful and deliberate thought and design.
Fivewild is a shockingly complete old school clone, and āā¦ In The
Gulletā is an adventure scenario for it. I say shockingly complete
because it starts out with such a tone that the reader is convinced that
this will be just another jokey memey product. But no. It is 150 pages
of very funny dungeon fantasy adventure that you can tell came from a
very fun home campaign. It has details that otherwise wouldnāt be in a
mere joke system. Details like fall damage and suffocation damage. Rules
for multiclassing. An equipment list and a bestiary.
Language takes a new front and center role in the game. Including
introducing what is possibly the doom of all mind kind: crabs, and their
dangerous, magical language āThatās carcinization, baby!ā Totally custom
races, each with its own language. Kelly attempts to address the āHuman
Problemā with the āLadiesā race: all humans, male and female, are
āLadies.ā All custom classes, some familiar some exotic and some, you
can tell, custom made as a joke for a player who had one very specific,
odd itch that needed scratching.
I canāt say enough good things about this! I would run it / play it
in a heartbeat. 5/5 stars!
A short madcap adventure made for, and by the author of, Brighter
Worlds. A wizard has been portaling modern tech into their fantasy
world, and throwing it away down the trash chute. Only to find out that
the resident goblin population has found and been using the tech. So the
wizard summoned a bunch of autonomous quad-copter drones to stop the
goblins. And hilarity ensues! I would run this in a heartbeat. I love
the artwork and the layout too. That progressive roll d6 on a ten item
table on the inside cover? Chefās kiss. 5/5 stars! https://awkwardturtle.itch.io/wizard-trash-goblin-treasure
This short essay describes a method for creating procedurally
generated dungeons that have a cohesive feeling of intentionality and
human design. It defines twelve different ācycles,ā all of which have a
starting point, a goal, and some insertion points. Cycles can be nested
within cycles to create complex dungeons. Examples of cycles include
ālock and keyā and āhidden shortcut.ā It finishes with an example of the
creation process, in which we follow a hypothetical dungeon designer as
she creates a dungeon from scratch. The dungeon map and key are included
at the end. Canāt wait to try this! 5/5 stars! https://sersavictory.itch.io/cyclic-dungeon-generation
Wormskin is a series of short zines that establish and develop the
setting of Dolmenwood, a dark fairy tale forest. Now that the Dolmenwood
player guide, campaign book, and monster book are nearing completion,
these zines are no longer available.
This zine provides a beautiful hex map of the forest complete with
settlements, rivers and roads, and magical leylines.
It primarily showcases two playable races: the Moss Dwarf (a druidic
forest gnome / classic dwarf / swampthing kind of creature) and the
Grimalkin (a catperson capable of some innate magic, and that constantly
evolves back and forth between mundane cat, cat person, and a fey
trickster). Both races are dripping with flavor and I would love to play
either of them.
The zine also has a lengthy guide buying and selling mushrooms, and
about 30 different mushrooms + effects for Moss Dwarfs and other
characters to experiment with.
The tone is very whimsical and fairy tale-y. If this is what
Dolmenwood is going to be like, I will purchase it in a heartbeat when
itās available.
A very cute little book. Excellent layout and art. It has a two stat
Honey Heist mechanic: move points from Grandmother and Mothership when
attempting tasks. The classes and loadout and setting all adhere to the
āGrandmas in Spaceā theme. And the point of the game is to gather clues
and put them together as in Brindlewood Bay. All in all, a fantastic
package! 5/5 stars! https://armandah.itch.io/grandmothership
Named is a framework / toolkit for playing high-trust,
rulings-over-rules games in the Free Kriegspiel tradition. And Sky
Pirates of Jotnaar is a setting guide for Named.
Sky Pirates is great. The setting takes place on a gas giant planet
that is covered deadly mists. A few mountaintops protrude from the mists
like islands. But most of the action takes place on hot air balloons
equipped with lightning coils, batteries, furnaces, and swivel-guns.
Named is mostly advice on playing and cooperating. The chore mechanic
is the āNameā which can be any character descriptor in the tradition of
Risus cliches, only with no dice value attached to them. You just start
with 3 - 4 Names.
In a sticky situation, you can avoid rolling by accepting a Devilās
Bargain, or revealing a Dark Secret, which is kind of the same thing as
a Devilās Bargain. It is something undesirable that happens in exchange
for you succeeding at the task.
If you do decide to roll, Named provides the One Dice Engine (ODE)
resolution system:
Roll a six sided die. If itās a 1, 2, or 3, that is 1, 2, or 3
āSwordsā or successes. If it is a 4, thatās a āDevilās Bargain.
Essentially a success at cost. If you roll a 5 or 6, that is one or
twoāSkullsā or failures.
If you donāt like your roll, you can choose to re-roll by
invoking a name that you havenāt used recently. If the new roll is a
sword, thatās a success. Add any swords from from your first roll. If
the new roll is a skull, thatās a failure. Add any skulls from your
first roll.
If you donāt like your re-roll, you can choose to roll a third
and final time if you agree to feel a Strong Emotion. This has
consequences on future actions. Re-roll, adding any previous skulls or
swords, plus one for your strong emotion.
Thatās basically it. A great system because it can resolve conflict
quickly with a single role. Or it can draw out the conflict with
multiple rolls and escalating stakes.
A very cute little solo journaling game about finding a record shop
and having experiences with your discoveries. Does a pretty good job of
creating that magic feeling of rifling through a bin of strange and
wonderful records, and then choosing something to take with you and be a
part of your life forever or for a short time. One thing that has stuck
with me about solo journaling games after talking to Paul Czege about
his āThe Ink That Bleedsā is that thereās really no reason not to play a
bunch of solo journaling games all at once and all at the same time. And
this game seems like a 100% perfect candidate to slip into some other
game (or games) in which youāre playing an approximate version of
yourself. Be it about relationships or adventure or whatever. That
version of yourself can certainly take a moment to duck into a
mysterious record shop or a yard sale and have a personal experience
with some music. 5/5 gold records! https://craigmaloney.itch.io/record-shop
Put this on for a Valentines Day watch. It was not really what I
expected. I found it hard to believe parts of it. Like when Paige
initially believed there was no evidence of her and Leo being in love,
when there was in fact an entire house full of their life together,
including a video of their wedding. I was pretty sure about halfway
through that Paige had left her previous life to find out who she is on
hew own, and that she would do the same to Leo. But what brought her
back to him was that he gave her space to find out who she is on her
own. It was cute, and sad. Not a straightforward, stereotypical,
formulaic romance. 5/5 stars! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606389/
This is the second title, and the last one, in the series of two
āsolarpunkā games that I downloaded and read after thinking about and
looking for solarpunk games. (The first was Arcology World.) You can
blame tomasinoās solarpunk prompts podcast for my current interest in
the topic: https://podcast.tomasino.org/@SolarpunkPrompts
The World After is starkly different from Arcology World. It is
primarily a game of violence and combat, whereas Arcology explicitly has
no rules for combat or violence. In fact, there are almost no aspects of
solarpunk in this game at all, aside from it being set in a now thriving
post apocalypse after the world was destroyed by climate crisis. I wish
I could remember who told me this was a solarpunk game so that I could
tell them, no. It is not. There are none of the elements of hope,
cooperation, and co-existing with nature intrinsic to Arcology and to
the solarpunk genre. Nature instead is something to be harnessed and
controlled and channeled through the magical Essence.
None of which is to say that The World After is a bad game. It
emphatically is not. It is a highly polished and very complete game.
What sets it apart is its deep lore. Humanity has evolved down five
differing paths, resulting in five different human species and societies
from which player characters can come. Each is complete with pages of
history and culture. The lore and setting are extremely rich and
detailed.
The game also has a starting adventure, a bestiary, and advice for
starting a campaign.
It has a branching āevolutionā system instead of leveling up that
grants you different abilities and bonuses. Each branching path (I think
there are five) eventually rejoins at the capstone evolution, proving
once again that the journey is the thing, not the destination.
It primarily uses a d6 pool mechanic, counting āsuccessesā (4-6)
against a difficulty number, with extra degrees of success for exceeding
the difficulty.
And then it goes and ruins a perfectly nice d6-only system with an
interesting but unnecessary initiative system. You get two of a set of
predefined actions per turn. And every combination of two actions is
assigned an initiative die ranging in size from d4 to d20. Everybody
rolls their different sized dice to establish initiative order. Cute,
clever, but also probably the first thing I would throw out from this
system because it would require constant look-up, and also throwing it
out means a d6 only system.
Its magic system is based on Essence, the magical material the Earth
secretes when under extreme duress. Its white blood cells. It provides
just enough crunch and math to be engaging. The formula involves whether
the spell is innately weak, common, or strong; the difficulty number
based on the desired effect; and the amount of essence it will cost the
caster. It allows a little bit of nuance and consideration to
casting.
The World After is a fantastic vehicle for classic turn-based game of
exploration, combat, and adventure. I would definitely play it. 5/5
stars!
Ten short episodes of varietally correct teen mutant superpower
drama. It was super fun and I liked it. Rhys Nicholson as Alex Sarkov
was really good for the first half of the season when he wasnāt in the
show that much. You get to have a little Sarkov as a treat! But then
when he was back as a main character again, he got to be a bit much. But
then I adjusted to his over the top presence, and grew to really like
him again.
It wallowed quite a bit in the waters of āWhat makes us monsters,
vs.Ā What makes us human?ā and āWould you give up your powers to be
Normal again, or are we meant to embrace our gifts?ā but stopped just
short of overdoing it.
Tilda really started to outshine the other two āimperfectsā by the
end. But maybe thatās appropriate because she was the only one who
embraced and really turned toward and tried to explore her abilities. I
liked the end where she left the gang to basically go be a solo
superhero on her own. The final five minutes of the last episode were
obvious Season 2 teasers, but they were so fun and entertaining. I
wouldnāt mind a Season 2 to explore these cliffhangers, but I also
wouldnāt hate it if it ended here. 5/5 mutated DNA sequences!
If Apocalypse World and its various and sundry Powered By The
Apocalypse progeny have a lasting legacy on games and game design, it
will be because of the Playbook, a list of triggers and moves that allow
a character and its player to have a profound impact on the story being
told and potentially on the world in which that story is being told. The
genius of the Playbook is that there is one for each character type
(i.e.Ā āclassā) and there is also one for the Guide, the non-character
player who guides the game. The GM, or DM. There is thus no distinction
between a Fighter archetype player gaining a situational advantage based
on in-game bravery and strength, as defined in their Playbook; and the
Guide creating drama and tension by offering a Tough Choice as defined
in their own Playbook.
Gone is the adversarial āDM vs the Playersā relationship encouraged
and perpetuated by some classic dungeon crawling games. Instead,
everybody is just playing their own Playbooks toward the same end:
telling an awesome story, creating interesting situations, and seeing
what the heroes will do.
In Arcology World, Dyer Rose capitalizes on the defining legacy of
Apocalypse World by giving each player not one but two Playbooks, a
Method and a Role, each complete with its own special moves, and
triggers for collecting XP, and relationships, etc. So you can be an
Aggressive Doctor, or a Dramatic Zoologist, or any other
combination.
All of the moves and Playbooks are based on the theme of Solarpunk.
This is a post-Disaster world of small communities working together to
survive in an unpredictable world of heavily mutated flora and fauna. A
lot of the general moves shared by all players have to do with calling
an assembly and convincing them of a course of action. And a lot of
moves have to do with science: analyzing, research, hypothesizing, and
synthesizing. It is thematically all about community, resources, problem
solving, and working together.
I picked this up I think because nico mentioned it.
It is a not a game. It is a super short guideline on
self-exploration. Super light on details or instructions. Barely a
manual at all. Doesnāt even commit to what itās teaching you: this
practice can be considered mindfulness, meditation, magic, or
self-hypnosis. Basically you meditate on an Intention (concept/question)
every day for six days, and then journal about your experiences.
warning: although there is none in this book, the author writes a lot
of hypno-kink. so if you donāt want to see that, donāt click on their
itch page.
Okay so I identified a gap in logging. And that is indie rpg
gamebooks. I log everything I read on goodreads, and everything else
here. But these tiny indie itch.io gamebooks arenāt on goodreads. And I
read a ton of them. But then I donāt write anything down about them, so
then I forget about them. But no more!
So here we go.
Last night I read TGPOAG. I found out about this game on the Party of
One podcast. The one featuring Brennan Lee Mulligan, where they play
goblins, and they Find Out. It was highly entertaining obviously. But
also the game mechanics were really fun, and they were based on this
ātech pack.ā
It is designed for GMless, high stakes playing, where the player/s
roleplay themselves into a sticky situation, and then do one huge roll
to resolve everything.
You start with a 1d6 player pool, and a 2d8 challenge pool. Then you
add d6 for each advantage, and add 1d8 for each complication or
disadvantage, and then you throw them all.
Line up all the d8, and then you assign d6 to each challenge to try
to beat it. If the d6 total exceeds the d8 total, thatās a success. If
they are equal, thatās a complication. And it the d8 is greater, thatās
a failure. So there are multiple potential outcomes, one for each
challenge in a scenario. There are also opportunities for Extreme
Success (if you beat all d8s with a d6 left over) or a Catastrophe (if
there is a d8 left over with no d6 assigned to it).
Listening to Brennan and Stormer play, there was a fair bit of
consideration involved in deciding how to stack up your d6, deciding
which challenge took priority over the others, and what kinds of
collateral and failures are consequently acceptable.
I think this is a very fun system that allows for interesting degrees
of success and failure! The book is short, 7 pages long. And the whole
system fits on just 2 pages. The rest of it is advice for playing and
for incorporating this system into your own original game. So this is
definitely a framework to be adopted and hacked. Five out of five
stars!
Started watching this on my local libraryās instance of Kanopy after
it was recommended at book club. It is super intense, very violent and
disturbing. But also very compelling televison. Watching Catherineās
slow burn spiral is captivating. Definitely have to watch with the
captions on. Their accents are so thick! Kanopy dropped it before I
could finish Season 1, so now I need to rent it I guess if I want to
find out what happens.
Been listening to a lot of back episodes of HPR. Lots of klatuās old
RPG episodes. And a couple of other grab bag episodes. Itās a nice
variety of content and hosts.
Started listening to Indiepocalypse after duder started shipping
thumb drives of the zine/game bundle in cassete tape cases, which i
think was really rad. Nathalie Lawhead was in episode 1 which was really
cool.
i canāt believe i havenāt logged Ragnarok seasons 1 and 2! this show
is awesome! Iām excited about season 3. thereās only 6 episodes i think?
Loki is Really good in this show.
This was an odd little movie! Cher was pretty good in it. Nick Cage
was pretty good in it. It was all about people being in love and not in
love and crashing into each other and being afraid of death. It was very
bizarre and chaotic.
Okay hella good. This is one of my favorite series. Based on one of
my favorite comic books. But I did not remember enough about Season 2 to
understand what was going on in the first part of this season with
Harlan. And I did not understand the beef between Alison and Viktor.
Truly enjoyed how Eliot Pageās character changed genders and everybody
was just like, thatās cool. Nice to see Klaus come into his own. I think
this is supposed to be the final season which is sad.
2023-12-14
— I don't know because they don't number their shows. Up through Murder Of Crows.
super raunchy and dirty but also bust a gut funny. i thought it was
just gonna be an immature laugh fest, but there is also some damn decent
character development and roleplaying too. this is gonna turn out to be
a top tier D&D podcast, I think. not for anybody who wants to hear
actual dice rolls: they edit those out. itās all narrative and story
telling.
Did not finish at ~1:30. Why is this movie three hours long??? Iām
super glad that they scaled back the stupid Christian Bale batman voice.
Just one small step in a series of decisions that made batman seem more
vulnerable and more human: give him a normal voice. Also enjoyed seeing
Bruce as kind of traumatized and vulnerable. HATED the character design
of the riddler. He was basically an original character the way he was
designed and portrayed. Ultimately just didnāt care enough to put in
another 1.5 hours.
A Christmas musical! Christine Baranski is the villain who is
evicting the whole town right before Christmas, but is there some secret
in her heart that sheās guarding? And Dolly Parton is a magical angel.
At first I was utterly delighted by this movie. But the pacing is way
slow. Too many musical numbers. And also verrry Christian. It was cute
though! 3/5 stars!
maybe i was in a Mood while watching this one, but this was the worst
of them all so far. most of these so far have been so-bad-itās-good, or
at least fun to watch in some way. this one wasnāt interesting enough to
even elicit any negative opinions. just a waste of time. -1/5 stars!
Much more cute and adorable than.. good. There was really no reason
for Jennifer Coolidge to be in the movie at all. Except that she
directed it. And to get people to watch it. Pete was clueless, Nick was
adorable. 3/5 stars!
It was kind of cute? They oversold the kiwi joke at the beginning.
Jimmy O. Yang was good. The Die Hard + Love Actually mashup at the end
was satisfying, but the ending overall fell kind of flat I think. Quirky
grandma was obnoxious. 3/5 stars!
On the tin, this looks exciting! Brooke Shields! That guy from The
Princess Bride! But it took less than 10 minutes for me to utter the
Eight Deadly Words: I Donāt Care What Happens To These People. It just
didnāt pick up any drama or intrigue. The main characters had zero
chemistry. The plot wasnāt interesting. The ending wasnāt satisfying.
-1/5 stars!
This one was actually pretty damn cute. It has Jennifer Garner and Ed
Helms. It is a self-aware Freaky Friday alike. (They 4th-wall mention
Freaky Friday, Big, and 13 Going On 30.) They struggle to fix their
family relationships while learning about themselves and each other, bla
bla bla. Formulaic. But varietally correct. 3/5 stars!
wow how did this movie even get made in the year 2021. the
filmography looks like it was shot on a couple of iphones by some art
school students. the music is a bunch of mouth noises that jerk the
watcher away from being able to pay attention to the scene. the writing
is ridiculous: the entire plot revolves around which song the cousins
will sing at their grandmotherās funeral as though you canāt sing both
silent night and also amazing grace. also it should have been called 4
cousins and a funeral because it could have happened in the middle of
july because the fact that itās christmas is mentioned maybe 0.5 times
and it has no relevance to the movie whatsoever. itās not a christmas
movie, itās ā¦ i donāt know what it is. itās like if a high school
freshman attempted to deconstruct the family comedy drama movie genre
and then a million years from now the apes that inherit the earth found
that script and tried to reconstruct not just that genre but motion
pictures altogether as a medium. all of the things that are supposed to
come together to create an enjoyable cinematic experience? each one of
them independently fails in its own spectacularly in-your-face way and
the result is a disjointed mosaic of discomfort and unease that should
never have seen the light of day, but instead is inexplicably a featured
hulu holiday movie. 0/5 stars!
this was a weird quasi knock off of youāve got mail. the big box
bakery comes in and tries to put the small shop out of business that the
baker just inherited from her grandmother. she was like, Why are you
trying to put me out of business?? and then she was like, I hoped it was
you!! the funny parts are: 1) the entire town randomly did a bowling
tournament together for some reason. like the entire town. and 2) wendy
āfrom the newsā showed up and kept introducing herself as Wendy From The
News. 2/5 stars!
this movie was boring! i feel like cameran diaz and jude law were the
main story line, and kate winslet and jack black were just kind of
intruding on it. i guess i feel like that because cameran and jude were
falling in love since the beginning, and kate and jack didnāt really get
together until the very end. not enough time for either storyline to
really launch i feel like. i expected more from a major motion picture
holiday movie with an all a-list cast. but this was kind of hallmark
tier instead.
this is a movie about a rich white guy who bullies a small business
owner out of a job, and then gaslights her into falling in love with
her. and dave chapelle was there too. 1/5 stars.
this show was deleriously unfunny and boring until the final four
episodes, when it suddenly got kind of funny and interesting, and then
the series was canceled forever. oh well! victim of the writers
strike?
watching buffy! never watched this show thi first time around. i know
itās a whole THING and it starts out really good so i get it. funny
seeing sarah michelle geller and allison hannigan, such babies. dialog
is kind of heavy handed. trying to be super teenager socal. oh, they
just fixed their mouth prosthetics halfway through season 2 so luke can
actually talk without lisping now lol
just finished playing this little game for the playdate. it was soo
good! a spooky little mystery evocative of old lucasarts / scummvm
point-and-click adventures. i was never sure until the end just what
exactly was going to happen. five out of five stars. possibly my
favorite game for the playdate so far.
gay icon and embodiment of mental illness, Mr Babadook, stars in his
very own movie, The Babadook! This was a great psychological thriller
about how the momās grief and depression isolate her and her son and
wreak havoc on both of them. The trick to mental illness is to not deny
it, and to feed it worms every day. Probably the best horror flick iāve
seen this year
still one of my absolute favorite albums. iām not got going to bother
looking, but i bet you a dollar that iāve already posted it here at
least once.
Spectacular! The lack of dialogue felt gimmicky only once or twice.
The rest of the time, I feel like you barely noticed it was missing.
Good action, good scares, good monsters. Good heroine. Excellent ending!
5/5 spooky aliens.
Cute little Pico-8 game game. A bedtime story for a frog about a
pumpkin who crash lands on a monster moon and has to hop around
unburying a bunch of cryo-pods to terraform the moon. Itās a little
zelda-like, or a metroidvania i guess you could say, where you have to
get power ups that give you access to other parts of the map. Anyway,
cute. fun. short. Seems like a lot packed into it for Pico-8.
Second Peter Straub flick after Ghost Story. Although this one came
first chronologically. It was Straubās first movie adaptation in fact.
Starring Mia Farrow as Julia. She gets haunted!!
spoilers and liveblogging
So in the opening scene her daughter Katie starts choking on a piece
of apple. And Henry Heimlich hadnāt invented his maneuver yet in the
mid-seventies, so sheās a total goner! To make matters worse, Julia
decides to do Katie a tracheotomy herself with a small table knife. That
doesnāt go good! So yeah she kind of killed her daughter.
So then she moves out on her own because sheās all traumatized. And
she keeps hurting herself and the sight of blood triggers her because it
reminds her of all the blood from when she killed her daughter.
The music is all orchestral and i donāt think itās actually synth,
but it kind of sounds like it. must be the strings layered over the
piano or something.
Okay so then they decide to have a seance, which is a natural thing
to do for somebody still super traumatized by that one time she killed
her daughter.
Iāve kind of lost track of the dead kids in this movie. Thereās
obviously Katie, Juliaās daughter that she killed. And then Olivia the
little girl who died in Juliaās new house. And then Brayden, the kid
that Olivia and the other kids murdered. And Julia seems to be haunted
by ā¦ all of them at this point. By their memories at least. The only
mystery we havenāt solved yet is what happened to Olivia. I bet her
mother killed her when she found out she killed a boy.
Also has nobody realized that Magnus is dead in Juliaās basement
yet??
Oh yes, Mrs.Ā Rudge killed Olivia.
Also RIP Mark, died in the bath, poor fella.
For a movie about a haunting, there hasnāt been any ghosts yet. Just
a lot of accidents.
Julia laying around tracing patterns on the carpet, humming into her
bed sheets, like sheās just killing time, haunting her own space, her
own life.
wow spoke too soon, thereās the ghost. and julia just welcomed her
with open arms. goodness.
kind of a snoozer this one. neat seeing fred astaire in a modern
movie. i can never imagine him outside the 30s/40s. the
reveal/ending/climax was very anti-climactic
Film number 2 this spookerween. A monster story, a haunted house
story. Pretty spooky! Pretty scary! I feel like weāre meant to be
sympathetic to the monster, and ultimately by the end I am. But the
origin story flashback in the middle, while establishing who the real
monster is, seemed mostly to just mess up the pacing. What a very abrupt
and final ending!
But wait who was sending the people to the airbnb in the first
place?? was it bonnie? was bonnie in on this??
Last year around this time i got covid, and laid in bed for a couple
weeks watching scary movies.
This year i will repeat this tradition, minus the covid (I hope!),
starting with Ridley Scottās Alien (1979). Which Iāve never seen. And
which I will be liveblogging here.
Spoilers abound!
So the opening credits start rolling and itās funny to me that Tom
Skeritt gets top billing over Sigourney Weaver because I donāt even know
who Tom Skeritt is, and if anybody knows just one thing about
Alien itās that Sigourney Weaver is in it. And that there is an
alien I guess.
Thereās a cat! Is there a small kitty cryochamber somewhere?? Did
they space-freeze a cat? Just to keep them company in space? Just to be
a cute little space kitty?
The facehugger and chestburster scenes happen pretty early on. Poor
Kane. John Hurt looks good as a youngster. I donāt think I know him from
anything other than Doctor Who, when he was quite old and grizzled.
Ash the Science Officer is highly ā¦ illogical. Heās on the side of
the alien.
Aw no the cat is back. Its name is Jones!
The Nostromo is massive, but the interior shots are often so tight
and cramped. Why is it raining inside the ship??
Ripley gets boss as fuck as soon as Dallas bites it. Good thing we
established early on that when Kane and Dallas are gone, sheās in
charge. Because now sheās fucking in charge.
Ash actually was in cahoots with the alien! Well, with the company.
Was he just trying to smother Ripley with a rolled up magazine? Mirror
of how the facehugger impregnated Kane I guess.
Android reveal! He was acting logically all along. He just had a
different set of instructions to follow. Inhumanly logical science
officer archetype intact.
Who knew Jones the Cat would end up being one of the most important
plot-driving characters in the movie.
This movie is worth watching just for all the amazing retro-futurist
technology aboard the ship. Truly spectacular. But also at the end of
the day itās really all up to a woman and her flame thrower.
Oh no did Ripley just abandon Jones The Main Character Of The Whole
Movie to the alien?? Jones!!
Oh good Jones is okay, whew.
Oh my god be careful Ripley, you cant just fling the cat carrier into
the shuttle like that! Be careful with Jonesy!
Whoa Mother wasnāt messing around with that Self Destruct procedure.
The Nostromo blew up like a god damn super nova.
Oh okay Jonesy just goes into a regular people sized cryo pod. That
answers one of my questions. Letās not kid ourselves here. Jones is
definitely the main character of this movie.
Ripley stripping down to her skivvies to go into the cryo pod is on
the one hand a scintillating little bit of cheesecake for the viewers
but also on the other hand signifies the upcoming final showdown and its
stakes: no ship (exploded), no weapons (discarded), no clothes, no prep.
Itās Ripley vs.Ā The Alien, one-on-one. High vulnerability. I donāt
really get how or why the thing is just chilling out like, inside the
guts of the escape pod though.
Um holy crap Jones has their own book???? Jonesy: Nine Lives on the
Nostromo. How can I immediately get my hands on this?? And their own
wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_(fictional_cat)
This has been Ridley Scottās Jones (1979), thank you for
watching.
Iāve been playing a whole bunch of playdate games! Casual Birder is
the number 1 best season game so far. and the Pick Pack Pup and then
Crankinās Time Travel Adventure. the best 3rd party game is Woods. itās
a really well done and thought out tiny zelda-like. so many little art
games and toys too. love it!
slow burn but what a hoot! everybody DIES and then comes back as
ZOMBIES and michelle gomez is amazing in everything iāve ever seen her
in. i feel like weāve been waiting for like 2.5 seasons for larry to
figure his shit out. and giant robot cliff! lol
scissors for the drifter!! kind of over charlieās constant old guy
young guy transformation. i get it, he literally preys on youth. now
just keep him zach quinoa aged. EDIT: Wait WHAT, I cannot believe that
Scissors For The Drifter was not the season finale, there are three more
damn episodes?
could not be more excited for this. I thought Dream was a little too
young and handsome, but he really grew on me. Wowzers the whole scene
with Lucifer was magical. John Dee is really growing on me. canāt waeit
to see the diner scene.
just started playing this and it is extremely my jam. an open world
sandbox with a light crafting system and an emphesis on exploration?
sign me up! the world is very large and scary, and i am very small and
weak.
total agony. just broken people being broken, hurting themselves and
hurting each other. exploiting and being exploited. exploring the
violence inherent in imbalances of power. it was beautiful.
i cannot stop thinking about this song. entirely on its own, it is
one of the trippiest, most surreal, most bleak musical experience you
can have. the constantly repeated refrain, āWe die alone, we die afraid,
we live in terror. Weāre naked and alone, and the grave is the lonliest
placeā over the peppy monotonous beat is a delightfully disonant
juxtaposition. BUT THEN come to find out the song was written explicitly
to be played to Aerosmith and RUN DMCās Walk This Way, and it goes to a
whole nuther level. https://gamemaking.social/@SpindleyQ/109279993652923258https://archive.org/details/LastWave_201712
This album is all over the place! I kind of love it. The opening
transition of Itās Okay To Cry -> Ponyboy is out of this world.
Dissonant noise, beautiful melodies, peaceful ambience.. itās all over
the map. This album title introduced me to the concept of a mondegreen.
OIL OF EVERY PEARLāS UN-INSIDES = I LOVE EVERY PERSONāS INSIDES. The
word mondegreen comes from mishearing a line of a poem, āThey
have slain the Earl o Moray and Lady Mondegreenā. The correct
version is and laid him on the green. So it refers to an
instance of mishearing a lyric or phrase and changing its meaning. Like
Hendrixās āexcuse my while I kiss this guyā, etc. https://invidious.baczek.me/watch?v=AC8h4HnWyys
Just browsing movies on archive.org, and popped this one on in the
background while working on other things. I donāt know if itās just the
part of the collection Iām browsing right now or what, but there seems
to be a lot of low budget Australian horror. The opening ouija board /
seance scene was good and spooky, but then a whole heck of a lot of
nothing happens for the next hour. Not even in a building tension /
suspense kind of way. The ending is actually spectacular, but it all
comes to a head in the last 15 minutes which, for a 95 minute film, is
not really enough pay off. Great first 15 minutes, great last 15
minutes. With an hour of ho-hum in the middle. https://archive.org/details/alisons-birthday-1979
wow this show has really been on for six seasons now? this season is
much better than last season. last season was fucking weird. this one
has interesting work drama. surprise teenaged children. the angry oneās
anger issues. the āother oneā has a lot of story line this season. which
isnāt interesting. sheās cut off from the other characters so much.
like, why do we have her? super sad that kate and anne had a friendship
breakup. i expected anne to flip out way more at the crazy lady stalking
her daughter. also, did crazy lady murder anne in the last scene????
2022-11-07
— Matthew Perry has Friends, Lovers, and a Big Terrible Thing
itās the matthew perry book! i donāt know what kind of weird
narcissistic a-hole can say with a straight face āIāve done 30 years of
therapy, thereās nothing else it can teach meā while continuing to have
obvious personal issues the size of OUTER SPACE.
a whole lot going on this season. I feel like they tried to pack too
much in. It was good, but kind of scattered and unfocused. Lots of meta
self-references. Funny though! Do recommend!
tried to get phoebe to watch this with me because i remember adoring
it the first time i watched. I did not remember how weirdly scary the
first episode is though with the woodcutter and the dog with the saucer
eyes. they did /not/ like it. The episodes are only 10 minutes long!!
gonna finish this one by myself.
settled on this trying to find a halloween movie we could both watch
together. first part is boring. but it has a baby Mark Feuerstein for
like 2 minutes before he gets killed off. and more importanted 1998
Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, and Stockard Channing? Whatās not to
like!! Later: finished it. It was ā¦ not good! But a nice waste of time
if you want to eat popcorn and sit on the couch.
i didnāt know there were a bunch of sequels to the original movie!
the aftermathematicians were streaming it this afternoon. Perkins plays
a very watchable nervous, fidgetty norman bates. (later..) Okay yeah
this is maybe the best horror/suspense movie iāve ever seen. slow burn.
plots within plots. crazy norman is a show stealer. āThatād be a great
load off my mindā had me rolling.
I didnāt know this was a show! Read the book a long time ago and
thought it was weird and fun. Thereās 2 seasons on hulu. So letās check
it out! followup: that was cool! i like seeing zach quinto back in a
villain role.
kind of a closed room horror, where people slowly lose their minds.
The opening scene when they all walk into the bathroom like players
walking onto a stage was kind of brilliant. In fact, this whole thing
could have been a theater production. So very very much happened off
camera: the end of the world, the monster whatever it is, the death of
the would-be savior, the momās infidelity and cheating, the dadās entire
fatherhood apparently. the whole thing was kind of amazing.
Okay this movie is basically āNicholas Cage stars in Five Nights at
Freddyāsā and I was really excited about it, but it was in fact the
stupidest thing Iāve ever seen. It wasnāt even good in a āso bad itās
goodā kind of way. Just bad. The only funny part was the janitor walking
away from the chameleon fight because itās his break time. 0 out of 5
stars, do not recommend.
the 2022 Spookerween Horror Fest continues with Books of Blood!
Books of Blood is the collection of short stories by Clive
Barker that Hellraiser comes from. And this movie is an
adaptation of sorts about the core framing story, which is a variation
on Ray Bradburyās The Illustrated Man. In this case, the one who bears
the stories of the dead carved into their skin is the eponymous Book of
Blood. Iād say Iām a Clive Barker fan. I read Imajica recently and
really liked it. Thief Of Always was a favorite of mine as a kid. So I
was stoked to check this one out. Itās one of those stories that is
three different interconnected stories, and you get to find out how
theyāre related as the story goes on. I enjoy this format. Ellieās
garden was uniquely creepy. Simonās ultimate transformation into the
book was satisfying. Probably the most entertaining and engaging horror
movie Iāve watched so far this season.
a monster movie staring Keri Russel and some creepy kid about the
WENDIGO. very good! interesting watching this one right after Evil Dead,
which was all effects and no plot. This one is all plot, with sparceābut
excellentāeffects. and this was better. It was weird seeing little
Felicity pulling the beating heart out of a beast and then murdering a
little kid. Whatever actor played her cop brother ā¦ I donāt know if he
was perfect, or completely miscast. Kind of doofy and ineffectual. Also
the abusive father plotline was ā¦ important because it gave Keriās
character a motivation and a way to bond with the abused kid. But they
explored it and showed us just enough that it was like, either take us
there or donāt. Either establish it as background and then build on
that, or spend ample time exploring what that was like, but donāt do
something weirdly inbetween those. the monster was great. I liked
watching the transformation from meth head dad to fucked up dad to
wendigo. not positive about the token Wise Native American. felt
tropey.
I thought Evil Dead movies were supposed to be kind of funny. This
was just gore and blood spatter. The plot was ā¦ not really there. Young
adults go to a cabin in the woods, release an demon, and get picked off
one by one. It was literally all just gore factor. Not that
impressed
Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard #
2022-10-15
I wonder what the legacy of KG+LW will be. I wonder if theyāll be
talked about in the decades to come. I think theyāre underappreciated in
their own time. I know music people know them and that they have a huge
fan base. But if you ask somebody with only an average in popular music,
they probably have never heard of them. I canāt believe they continue to
churn out 2 - 5 albums every year on top of touring. i literally donāt
understand how itās possible. this is a weird psychadelic soup of
elements that is probably my favorite thing of theirs since nonagon
infinity, which remains my favorite https://kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/ice-death-planets-lungs-mushrooms-and-lava
been jamming out to these boys lately. Sports is probably a career
defining song. And the rest of it is so good. Sebastianās Tom Waits
style growling sounds good. Groovy bass lines and noise, and horns. itās
all good
spookers! I recognized that Pinhead was Nomi from Sens8 by her voice.
that was cool. Not jump scare scary. But lots of gore and body horror
that made me kind of squeamish. The story itself was okay. Classic
hellraiser stuff. Kind of a buddhist parable isnāt it? Desire and
longing leads to suffering.
okay as soon as i finished writing the last entry about B&PC
(#133) stuff did get a lot more meta arc. AND IT WAS GREAT. i
loved getting to see the warlocks. Mouly coming back was really neat.
finally getting to see some Space Outlaw (and Violet and ā¦ Baby?) was
rad. (Cardamon = Baby?) Still donāt know what Bee is. Maybe the ship
itself? Like the shipās AI? and who is her dad?? Cannot WAIT to see more
of this weird ass story.
a couple of my friends always reference this show. popped it on hulu
after Paper Girls ended and I didnāt have anything else i was watching.
It is funny! Fast, quick, witty. I shall continue to watch it.
got this in an itch bundle a long time ago. somebody (cymen?) was
talking about it on town, so i whipped it out and played the first zone.
It is very fun! challenging, innovative puzzle game play. i shall
continue to play it.
okay so Felicity got canceled and they rushed the ending like mad.
The result was a kind of stupid episode that was really unsatisfying
because the friends all break up, Ben suddenly has a baby, they get
engaged and then they split up. And then he magically shows up in Palo
Alto. There was a lot of satisfying symmetry between the finale and the
pilot. But the writing was rubbish. SO NOW WHAT HAPPENS is that the show
gets extended for another couple episodes after the finale, and the
writers go OH SHIT and try to squeeze a few more drops of content out of
an already wrapped up show. Iām told there is time travel involved lol.
canāt wait.
If season 1 of B&PC was a cozy nap, then season 2 is a hectic
fever dream. Totally surreal, much more āanimeā. Very random. Glad we
got to see more of the wizard family. Toast is actually funny this
season. Being spoonfed tiny portions of the meta stories, which I am
sooo curious about. Canāt wait to see how this ends. I wonder if weāll
get a tight conclusion, or whether it will continue to spin off. The
racetrack planet and the vacation coconut planet are two temp jobs that
are satisfying at face value, and which are also rich with meaning and
nuance. Especially racetrack planet.
Well that ended stupid. I didnāt even know it was the end of the
season. No rising action, no tension, no climax, no nothing. If the
entire show is about time travel, you canāt have the ācliffhangerā
ending for the season be that they time traveled. No duh.
meh glenn close was fun to watch way early 90s period piece. lots of
pre-iphone cellphones (which I love). but also the opening scene had 2
musical montages. just kind of dated romcom adjacent. the boyfriend said
it: the real relationship was between andy and miranda. no real romance
to be had took her way too long in the āsearchā phase to get to the
āfindā phase. āreturnā and āchangeā were smooshed together in the final
15 minutes. honestly the whole movie was watching andy adapt to this
world that she didnāt want and that didnāt want her. honestly glenn
carried the movie. she was fascinating to watch. little nuggets like,
āIāve only ever seen her smile once,ā and then her smiling in the final
scene. That made the whole movie. and her varied delivery of āThatās
allā, from dismissive and condescending to her wrapping up her own
fucking marriage.
it was good. after re-watching the alternative ending, i really donāt
think they needed to kill the mother probably wonāt ever watch this one
again, despite how hilarious it is. Too fatphobic, transphobic,
misogynist, and all around problematic
caught up! the last two psyche ward episodes were sensational. lots
of feels. potential best line of the series: āDid Mark create Steven to
protect him? Or did Steven create Mark to punish the world?ā
always surprised to see who all is on this show. this time, martin
short! okay also with the return of victoria comes the return of ted and
victoriaās theme song, spit on a stranger. itās a beautiful rendition,
but that doesnāt change the fast that SOAS is a song about a
relationship turning into bitter hatred, and it is super duper
distracting for this to be a sweet song about their breaking up because
itās supposed to be a sweet and tender moment of understanding and
regret, and hereās this song about growing to hate the person you were
with.
countdown to the series finale! feel like weāre rocketing towards it.
Wrong Hordak is really stealing the show. Much more interesting than
actual Hordak at this point okay listen iām not āintoā anime
like that but the episode where mermista and perfuma and scorpia dressed
up like dames from the 1930ss and went to a speakeasy was something
really special at first i wasnāt sure that spinnerella and netossa
should be these super powerful adeversaries, but on the other hand they
were the only active members of the princess alliance for a
long time, and probably the entirety of their field agents
nick and case came over this weekend and we played donkey kong and
ate pizza while the girls went shopping because GENDER ROLES. that game
seriously has great 2 player support though. itās funny to go back and
look now at what then were the most cutting edge graphics
absolutely stumbled through the ice level in the dark world. luckily
the boss was laughably easy. so much more so than Blind in the previous
level. in this case, the hard part was just getting through the maze of
the dungeon and figuring out how to fall into the boss lair from above.
I donāt know why itās called metroidvania and not metroidvanzelda
okay i feel like iāve been kind of binging this lately because i want
to see the part where adora and catra get together, and it used to feel
like it was going to take a long time to get there, but now it feels
like we are rocketing in that direction. now they both have
feelings and are doing crying, and catra is like, Iām sorry for
everything, waaaah! entrapta getting to go to spaaaaaaace was fun hordak
prime has a crazy messiah cult thing going on, but also is the most
messed up looking of his āperfect cloneā with his random mutated eye
holes
loving the crap outta link to the past, best game ever. Got into the
dark world and got the first two crystals. playing super mario world
with lasso which is super fun because they are super knowledgable about
it and itās super fun for them to be an expert in it metroid was too
hard and too scary for me as a little kid but I am finding it super
rewarding and fun now. Even so, itās hard enough that iāve had to look
up walkthrus for it because i couldnāt find my way out of norfair.
hate watch is not remotely the correct word because i love this show,
but also a small piece of me is only watching so that i can see adora
and catra profess their love for each other, like cāmoooon.
guess what hosers, dozens got a nintendo switch for their birthday,
so you can expect a whole lot more entries in the āplayingā category.
Link to the Past is soooo good, one of the best games ever made I think.
I just started it last night. itās so familiar, but itās been so long
since iāve actually played it that itās also fresh and new: i donāt
remember how anything works. well, most anything. broad strokes, i
remember. but the finer details are all new again.
Finished it up! Again, I know nothing about Critical Role. I think I
listened to 3 or 5 episodes. But I always considered Percy the least
interesting character. Well no more! That story was cool as hell! I like
it. Makes me want to maybe go listen to the podcast. Hope they make
another season.
super spooky vampires, percy is spooky. I wonder whether they were
unable to make a deal with Wizards because Pike worships the
everlight and Scanlan casts Scanlans Hand.
Forgot to mention we did a rewatch of all of Pushing Daisies a little
bit ago! Still one of my favorite shows. Very pretty, very fun to watch.
Forgot how boobtastic it is at times. Ended way too soon. tragic.
Never really got that into Critical Role. This show starts off
irreverent and crass to show that itās not a kidās animated show, I
guess? In the first two episodes they summarily slaughtered an ancient
blue dragon, which is a legendary achievement. Itās fun. Iāll keep
watching it.
started a rewatch of HIMYM. this show starts off so good. It knows
exactly what it is, and so many great gags and scenes start right off
from the beginning right in season 1. That said, a lot of it does
not hold up. Kind of fatphobic, transphobic, misogynist,
homophobic. That was 2005 I guess?
plowing through Fantasy High starting episode 6 right now brennan lee
mulligan is an absolute force of nature this is maybe Emilyās first time
playing D&D? She sounds much less experienced than in NADDPOD Her
flipping the car off the road was inSANE
Naddpod: Over! ToN: Over! Season 2 of Naddpod started this week.
Lapping it up. Season 2 of ToN has been teased. Anxious to hear it.
Weāve been promised more in-universe (multiverse?) continuity than weāve
been given with Naddpod. Iām digging Evermourn (Naddpod) though. Murph
managed to turn a triumvirate of gods into a fey vs.Ā undead dichotomy
that is really interesting so far. Also started listening to Dungeons
and Daddies at the insistance of Triple D. Itās awesome and Iām loving
it, and Iām loving seeing the effect that his listening to it is having
on how much heās been enjoying our own D&D sessions lately.
new Man Man! dream
hunting in the valley of the in-between still listening the crap out
of fiona apple got on a Tori Amos kick the other night. Fell down a
rabbit hole and learned that she has a strong, longstanding friendship
with Neil Gaiman, and has mentioned him in a lot of songs. Listened to
Silent All These Years, which is a great track, and this one
line stood out to me > So you found a girl who thinks really deep
thoughts > Whatās so amazing about really deep thoughts? > Boy,
you best pray that I bleed real soon genius.com asserts that the final
line is a threatening sort of way to tell āBoyā that he best pray she
get her period soon, which makes complete, total, and utter since, and
which is such an obvious interpretation, and one which I never made,
being a dude who didnāt grow up around girls. Given the juxtaposition of
deep thoughts and being silent, and finding oneās voice, I
always thought of bleed in the sense of a pouring out of
emotions, a laying bare of oneās most private thoughts. As in, āwriting
is easy. Just sit at the typewriter and bleed.ā
All of the Sparks. Iāve listened to all the albums from 2020 back to
the mid 80s. Drip Drip and Hippotamous are amazing. Some of the 90s and
80s stuff is way too 80s. Looking forward to seeing what the 70s are
like.
cooper said, āas long as you can keep the fear from your mindā at
16:00 which is a brilliant parralel to his character in Dune with the
mind killer litany lucy: leo was shot, jauc was strangled, the mill
burned, shelly and pete got smoke inhalation, catherine and josie are
missing, nadine is in a coma. cooper: how long have I been out?
They broke down the wall to the old hang out room and there was a
huge poster of the cover art of Radioheadās The Bends What if you took
out your fear? What would you do.
power corrupts: kinsey being vengeful, kids finding a memory of their
dad clubbing somebody. mama starting to notice weird stuff: keyhole
scars starting to see the teen drama stuff mentions on tildes. The
school bully really kinda came out of nowhere. We havenāt seen her in
several episodes, and when we did she seemed like a really minor
character, and also like she was not a high school cliche but just a
throwaway character.
wonder if Tibbetan Buddhism was just a more alien concept in the 90s.
Theyāre kind of making it a huge part of Cooperās quirkiness The Meals
On Wheels scene was Eraserhead levels of surreal THE OWLS R NOT WHAT
THEY SEEM that ājust you and Iā song was sweet
Watched the 1st episode of The Magicians! It rocked. The introduction
of the Big Bad was awesome. He reminded me of somebody from American
Gods, or the man with the cloak (briefcase?) of flies in Welcome To
Nightvale, or I think there was a guy in the Sandman comics whose face
was always obscured. Quite liked it altogether. watching S1E2 now. itās
like if Shaggy and Velma have their own spinoff series
Elton John, the movie! Okay so far. Kind of watching it 20 - 40
minutes at a time. Didnāt expect it to be such a musical. Itās kind of
like Elton Johnās Greatest Hits, with a little bit of biopic movies
thrown in. Lots of cheese. When he first named himself and saw a photo
of John Lennon, shining, with strings in the background, like he was the
damn messiah, I almost threw my laptop.
Ugh, I said I wasnāt going to watch this show any more after the
horrifically horrific first half of the first episode. But logged into
prime video and there was the unfinished first episode just a-taunting
me. I hear that all the villainous heroes get their comeuppance at some
point. Well, I finished episode one finally. Only margainly interested
in watching more.
3 episodes in. what a weird, delightful little headtrip. The process
of converting a podcast into an animated show means that the dialog is
upfront and constant, and is the main dish here. And it kind of weaves
in and out of actual relevance to whatās physically happening in the
show. And bodies and identities and life is so ephemeral and so easy
come easy go in the simulation. Itās a trip. Episodes are short at ~20
minutes and highly consumable. 5 stars, would recommend. So delightful.
Simultaneously whimsical and also incredible earnest in discussing the
nature of life and death and existence.
Watched all of the new season of The Good Fight. What is memo 618!
WTF at Jeffrey Epsteinās penis floating in a jar! what was with that
finale!! Apparently there were going to be another 3 episodes but they
had to shut down filming because of covid. Shame! I guess Iāll give them
a pass
also finished the 1st season of The Magicians. Feeling kinda eh on
continuing. Sudden time loops, sudden goddess turned mass murder + rape
scene. yikes. and now julia just kidnaps the BBEG and kind of blackmails
him into working with her? At Chuck E. Cheese? Weird. What is even going
on here with the writers.
Imma watch this because A) Netflix is shoving it down my throat
(along with Warrior Nun whatever the shit that is) and B) itās a dope
looking fantasy series with a woman lead. So, in the name of feminism,
why not? update: wow they really buried the lead that this is a King
Arthur story. I almost quit out of boredom until I heard the words
āUthur Pendragonā
Big news though: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse! Possibly the best
superhero movie Iāve ever seen. Super entertaining, super fun to watch.
The color and the animation, and the incorporation of comic book frames.
And Jake Johnson really stole the whole show as Fat Old Peter B. Parker.
Super great all around.
Did I tell you I gave up on Rocketman? I gave up on Rocketman. Itās
boring as hell. I wanted an Elton John movie. Not a musical of Eltonās
Greatest Hits, with little bits of biopic interspersed.
The totality of the second season. It was so friggin good! Diego and
Klaus and Alison looking so good with long hair. Vanya grappling with
her memories and coming into her own. Cool time travel shenanagins.
Expanding of powers: vanya, hello. The season long promise for No.Ā 5 to
learn micro scale time jumps. Hated Lila when I met her, but ended up
being a delight. Hargreaves. The Swedes. Carmichael. The Handler. Just
all so, so good.
Finished Cursed the other night. Outstanding final scene. Coudnāt
hate Iris more. The most petulant, punchable face. Started to see some
leadership from Arthur the conman. Merlin getting his magic back was as
epic as I had hoped it would be. Didnāt really feel Nimwayās corruption
that much, but her fall was tragic. Loved the final seen between Gawain
and Percivel. Powerful. Five stars.
Went back and finished up season three. It was okay. Billy was a
great villain. I liked how they sniped Elās powers so sheās not such a
deus ex machina all the time. The entire Russian thing was so over the
top 1980s red scare that is was kind of farscical and distracting.
Weirdly nationalistic. Crazy that Hooper dies at the end. It was pretty
good, nothing sensational. I donāt know if Iāll go out of my way to
continue watching season 4. Season 1 was a watershed. Season 2 struggled
to compete. and Season 3 was just pretty good.
Good season. Kind of a spotlight on Jared, which I like. The final
scene (in which Richard loses the thumbdrive) was out of character in
how unsatisfying and unresolved it was.
seasons 1 and 2. binged it. Season 1 was fantastic. Season 2 was also
good. very watchable. I like their unique spin on lycanthropy. Kind of
sad they dropped the Good Will Hunting kind of vibe of āunexpected boy
geniusā after the first two episodes. The cliffhanger at the end of
season one was amazing. The Season two ending was more divergent, less
convergent, but also really good. Really enjoyed watching Veraās
character evolution. Super hate the head of the council. Glad Randall
took her out. Super hate Gabrielle Dupris. I think her channeling of
Midnight was really dumb. Jack wore Midnight and didnāt get all super
crazy. If thatās the direction they wanted to go they should have made
the Midnight vs.Ā Silverback fight over Jack feel more personal. Also the
show was really funny. Overall 5/5 stars, would recommend.
The year Netflix won its first primetime Emmy for an original online
program, it won three of them: House of Cards, Arrested Development, and
Hemlock Grove. Never heard of Hemlock Grove, but it keeps good company!
Iāll give it a spin! Episodes 1 and 2: - Visually appealing. Good
colors. - Twin Peaks levels of dramatics and overacting over cheesy
music. Very much a spiritual successor. - Am I missing somthing or was
the jump to āCan I Watch?ā out of absolute nowhere? Are we doing chaotic
leaps forward? Does the plot advance off screen when the viewer isnāt
watching? - Was that the best werewolf transformation of all time? Yes,
perhaps it was. Episode 3: - They keep calling this kid hirsuite and he
is practically smooth! - the music on this show is really quite
something
Ended up finishing Season 2 after all after raging against the
misogyny. I ended up kind of liking it after all, which I kind of hate.
Thereās a not so subtle connection drawn between Homelanderās
nationalism and actual, living, breathing Nazis, which I kind of love.
Love Howieās commitment to Billy Joel. The āGirls Get It Doneā bit was
unfortunately steeped in homophobia (or maybe just blackmail? Which only
works because of homophobia) and, again, literal naziism. Only Starlight
was left as the normal one, and while she fights against fascism and
tyranny in general, thereās no denouncement of the rampant misogyny and
no real redemption to be had. The whole thing continues to create a
feeling of helplessness and powerlessness and frustration in the face of
overwhelming odds. But Queen Maeve taking out Black Noir with an Almond
Joy? Slapstick.
Haha. Lol. Lulz. Liked that they gave us 0.5 seconds of SPOOON.
Arthurās character was redone and good. I liked how in the 1st 2(?)
episodes we were lead to wonder whether the Tick was real or a
hallucination.
Holy shit, timely zeitgeist much? So good. I adore a show that is not
afraid to land its punches: killing a main character, torturing and
disfiguring another. Rainn Wilson + John Cusak are super watchable. Plus
the reveal of Mr.Ā Rabbitās motives was great because, while I may not
agree with the means, I super agree with the end. The tie in of that
reveal and his catchphrase, āWhat have you done to earn your place in
this crowded world,ā was also super satisfying. My least favorite part
was Jessica Hyde herself. She sucked
Half way through episode 5 of 10. After having played Call of Cthulhu
with the gang. I like how it goes back and forth between āThe real
monsters is racism!ā and āThe real monsters is MONSTERS!ā
watching a couple episodes with D as sheās rewatching it. Teddy
Altman is good. And, Brooke Shields! Iām curious about the story of how
Teddy Altman and husband were having mutual affairs and then the
pregnant mistress marched in and demanded compensation. I donāt imagine
Iāde be a fraction as charitable to her as Teddy Altman ended up being.
body: Also Teddy Altman was on Sesame Street??
Finished this show btw. Amazing middle game with Hippolytaās
adventures in space and time, and Topsy and Bobspy = supremely creepy.
The ending is wild, with cutting off magic from all white people, and
then Dianaās birthright = Bionic Commando + Lovecraftian beast tamer.
wuuuuut This is a show by black people for black people, more
unapologetically so than Iāve ever seen. A lot of the comments on reddit
were super distateful, crying out about reverse racism and moaning about
how every white person had to be evil, while missing the fact that not
only is This Is America but this is America in the 20s - 50s where
sunset tows and segreation and lynchings were actually real and so by
taking part in the system, yes, all white people were somewhere on the
spectrum between implicit and actively awful. So in conclusion those
commenters can fuck off with their white fragility Anyway, good show.
10/10. Would recommend. Would watch again. Anxious so see a Season 2,
but sadly doubt it will happen.
Absolutely stunning. The actress who plays Beth Harmon has the most
expressive eyes Iāve ever seen. The show is gorgeous. Itās making me
feel really romantic about the game, and it makes me want to play more.
I canāt believe the kid from Love Actually is some Johnny Depp cowboy
chess pirate.
Suuuuper intrigued so far. Didnāt realize this was made by the
Wachowskis. Would have started it long ago had I known. Mel played this
funny game during the first 30 minutes where she tried to guess the
dialog based on the watching the scenes with no sound. She was correct
80% of the time.
Done. Amazing. Iām pretty sure this is required viewing for all
people. Simply gorgeous. āI loved bisexual recovery chess rockyā
Interesting shots. So much silence and heavy looks The lady who played
Beth Harmon is so wildly expressive and was just perfect for this role
My favorite part was how Bethās mom, right before she died, said
something about āIām fine as long as Iām playing for funā in regards to
her playing piano. This was interesting to me because Beth never played
for fun. Until she was able to free herself from having to prove herself
by becoming the world champion. Which, you know. Is one way to free
yourself from having to prove youself. It was great
Story time! Once upon a time there was a tumblr blog of pictures of
celebrities eating food, and Arnold always looked fuckind
stupid/hilarious eating food, and the author of the blog alwas gave him
funny captions that usually involved him saying, JINGLE ALL THE WAAAAY
as he scarfed down a burger or hot dog. Anyway this movie was crap.
Arnold sucked, Sinbad sucked, young Anakin sucked. Phil Hartmon was
barely good, and Rita Wilson was the only sans character there. Weird
trivia: this was apparently the last movie Phil was in before he was
murdered.
Okay newer show in my lineup. Itās artsy. Non-linear storylines,
creative framing, fake starts, sudden overdubs. Itās all really fancily
done. And the story is good too. Intersectional pay gap in the tech
industry. Racial justice. Etc.
Watched the 3rd season after the 2nd ended fucking weird with an
extended prolonged penis joke. This one hit really heavy with expendible
black lives during covid, and political correctness making it so that
jokes are commodities. Dianneās white guilt is a recurring theme as is
the idea of neighborhood courts: where does justice actually come
from?
Definitely loving this show. Its artword is very eastern meets
western. Itās a little bit Steven Universe both in style and animation,
and in subject, in the sense that Iām looking forward to some LGBTQ+
subject matter come up, and am already enjoying some body positivity via
Glimmer.
The final season came out just recently. So Iām watching it from the
beginning now. On Season 3 now. Zombies are funny because they are such
a blank slate of a metaphor. They can stand for literally anything.
Collapse of society, disease, fear of the future, fear of being
forgotten, loss of control, seeing your loved ones become something
else.. I think there was a good Mixed Taste about Slavic Zombies on the
subject.
This show was great. It packed a whollup of nostalgia feels. My
favorite part was the big switch-a-roo in which He-Man basically wasnāt
in the show at all. It was in fact the Teela show. I was worried that
Alicia Silverstone was going to ruin the show because she has a
distinctive āCluelessā voice, but she did pretty good after all.
Just watched the first 3 episodes. I love it! The casting is amazing.
Nobody has tugged on their braid once. Padan Fain looks like he will be
terrifying later. Hate the look of Thom Merrilin. Heās supposed to look
more like Mark Twain than like ā¦ some sexy country rock star. Visually
itās amazing. Love the trollocs and the magic of the Aes Sedai.
Letās see, they survived the Governor, the cannibals at Terminus, the
cop hospital.. Taking the mullet to DC was a weird sidequest. Canāt
believe thatās how Beth goes out :(
The new Sex and the City where everybody is 50 years old and
problematic! Very compelling and kind of a hate-watch. Miranda having an
ongoing illicit affair is bonkers nonsense after almost breaking up with
Steve for having a one-time fling in the first movie. Also Steve is such
a muppet, they really did him dirty. Didnāt know (actress who plays Che
and Callie from Greyās Anatomy) is non-binary IRL.
The Alexandria story arc is actually pretty great. Itās an effective
kind of time travel: what if the Atlanta crew finds survivors who are
experiencing the pandemic for the first time? Rickās descent was hard to
watch, but well done. Carol going Stepford Wife mode is creepy. Sheās
stone cold. This is the person who single handedly liberated the prison
from the Governorās goons. The monk called her out on it too: āWere you
a cop? Youāre always watching. Ready.ā āTee-hee, Iām just a girl.ā That
scene was great. Finding the herd at the beginning of this
season is good writing. Small to medium groops of zombies arenāt
dangerous or interesting any more. Now we need an army. Glen
redeeming Nicolas is fun to watch. Edit: fuck I canāt
believe I just wrote that and Nicolas literally got redeemed and also
got Glen killed anyway ššš That was one of the worst, most needless
deaths thus far.
Just finished it tonight, and I gotta say, it was crap! Miranda is a
joke. Steve is a joke. I donāt even want to talk about them. Total
bullshit. Charlotteās storyline finally makes sense at the final moment
when she finally ābecomes a womanā butāand this is the problem with the
writing the whole season longāthe writers never at any point bring the
story. In retrospect, sure. She has allowed herself to be defined by
those around her. Her daughter gets her period and becomes a woman. Her
other daughter rejects womanhood and is instead non-binary, but also
comes into their own adulthood. So Charlotteās journey is all about rite
of passage and coming into your own. Which she finally does at her own
bat mitzah. She also creates some distance between herself and Harry by
whooping his ass at tennis and refusing to apologize (a scene which at
first I hated) and possibly also, though it wasnāt by her choice, by
failing to give him a blowjob in the bathroom. (That episode was
weiner-tastic. Two dudes showed peen, and for some gratuitious reason
they decided to give Harry a horse cock.) Carrieās storyline was
satisfying. She put Big to rest. She got to reclaim her brand and return
to Sex and the City, literally and figuratively. Sheās juggling two
boyfriends.
The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window #
2022-02-03
a disappointing series starring Kristen Bell that was not good.
Supposed to be a parody of the āLonely woman who is a shut-in who thinks
she sees a murder but doubts herself and also nobody believes herā
trope. But it doesnāt go hard enough. Thereās one or Police Academy
style gags throughout the series, but again, they donāt go all in. A
couple episodes they just donāt bring the funny, and when a parody fails
to satirize, itās just a lame imitation. There are two good parts of the
show: the over the top way in which Bellās characterās daughter died
(killed and eaten by a serial killer in the middle of a maximum security
prison) and during the finale when the real killer is revealed (the
sweet 8 year old girl next door) and the physical struggle that ensued.
The finale specifically almost makes it worth it, but not
quite.
I might be done with this show. I feel like it just jumped the shark
with Daryl fucking destroying an entire biker gang in one hit with a
bazooka. And with showing Glenn getting ate not once but twice. And Rick
and the gang deciding to just go outside and stab the horde to death.
Like, what? The death of almost the entire (kid Samās) family was
heartbreaking and bold. I feel like Wās redemption was half-assed. I
just donāt know if I have 4 more seasons of this left in me. Itās
getting really repeditive.