I can’t believe I went through the 80’s without ever seeing this movie or any of its sequels. Charles Bronson is great from the get go when we see him luxuriating on the beach in a Speedo, to scenes of him doing architecture stuff with big old man glasses, and then to the scenes of him blowing away dirtbags and street scum. I was never quite sure if the film is intended to be a darkly critical characterization of law and order conservatism or just a straight up revenge film where you are supposed to root for the anti-hero. That final frame of the movie is one of the most pitch perfect ways this movie could have ended and is the reason I walked away from this movie loving it.
One of the best indie rock records released after I stopped caring about indie rock. Every Shellac album is worth owning. but they tend to all sound about the same. At Action Park remains their best work. The songs are loud, precise and to the point. No twelve minute long bouts of self-indulgence here.
The final Shadowy Men album sounds much better than its predecessors thanks mostly to Albini’s roomy recording style. However, I don’t like this one quite as much as the previous two. The songs are perhaps a little less catchy? A little too serious? I’m not sure. Still, it’s Shadowy Men so there really isn’t much to complain about.
I loved the Lord of the Rings movies so I realize I have a huge bias towards liking this no matter what. So, yes, I loved this movie. I looks much better than LOTR and the acting is much improved too. The story is not as strong though. It feels padded with a little too much reliance on flashback, and, as usual, I would have liked to see less CGI creatures and more latex. Can’t wait for part two.
Also known as La Morte Accarezza a Mezzanotte, this is more of a Italian police story rather than straight up giallo. The cover art would suggest that this is nonstop wall to wall spiked-fist punching. Sadly, the spiked-fist punching is limited to one or two brief (although crucial) scenes. The movie opens with a silly drug use experiment that leads to hallucinogenic visions of the aforementioned spiked-fist punching murder. Our main character then spends the rest of the movie trying to find out what it was that she saw. They never really explain how she somehow forgot having witnessed a grizzly murder in the first place. But that’s neither here nor there as far as this movie was concerned. Eventually, the bad guys are established and this all leads to a rather thrilling climax. I’ll have to admit I was genuinely surprised by the plot twist in near the end.
Gutfeld’s latest is a bit more focused than his last book. The primary theme of the book is that people who say they are tolerant are the most intolerant people when it comes to opposing political viewpoints. His focus is primarily on liberals but he does pay some lip service to conservative outrage as well (but not much). Again, I think Gutfeld is better heard rather than read, but I’d still recommend this book if you like funny conservative/libertarian political commentary.
I’ve been playing a lot of adventure games these days. In Syberia you play Kate Walker, a lawyer working for a high-powered corporate client who is looking to close the deal on the purchase of a Wonka-esque toy factory. As you journey farther in the story and get closer to your goal, the world becomes more and more fantastic. The graphics showing all this wonderous worlds and characters are certainly a step up from The Longest Journey. The pace may be slow, but I liked most of the puzzles. The voice acting is very good and I really enjoyed the story. The game ends a bit abruptly so be sure to have Syberia II installed and ready to go so you can continue on your quest.
Dream Zone is a graphical adventure for the Apple IIgs that I was never able to complete when it was originally released in 1988. I managed to get about a quarter of the way through the game before I was stumped by one of the game’s unfair puzzles. Now, twenty years later and with a little help from the Internet, I have managed to beat the game. These pre-Craft of Adventure era games can be pretty brutal and a walk through will come in very handy. Now, this is about to get fairly spoiler-y so if you want give the game a try before I go on, you can play Dream Zone in your browser right now. It’s worth trying out.
As much as I love these text/graphic hybrid adventures, they all seem to suffer from the usual “guess the verb” problems. Dream Zone does a fairly good job of avoiding this most of the time with its click interface. But the click interface is deceptive because on at least three occasions you are required to come up with the specific actions yourself when a simple “use” action would have sufficed. The worst puzzle, and the one that stumped me back in ’88, is dispersing a crowd from in front of a bar. No game object works. No clickable action works. The solution is that you are supposed to say “free beer” to make the people scatter. How anyone was able to figure this out on their own is beyond me. The other horrible puzzle is one in which you are required to cuss in order to be sent to a room of punishment. Eventually you will find the room, but the solution to the puzzle requires you to visit the room twice (and again involves that pesky crowd outside the bar).
If you can manage to survive these cruel puzzles without throwing your monitor out the window, the rest of the game is rather enjoyable. The idea that this is all dream allows for some rather fun and creative moments like the giant bureaucracy staffed entirely by pigs. The art is cheesy and somewhat amateurish but it really fits the surreal theme of the game. The music is also wonky but appropriate. The whole production has a very homebrew quality to it and it’s obvious they are using off-the-shelf software like Paintworks Gold and The Music Studio to create their game assets. But—and this may just be nostalgia—I really liked this game and wish there were more 16-bit era graphic adventures like this. I mean, check out this insanity:
