This is a 70s low-budget version of a Poe tale by the director of Alucarda. A reporter goes to a famous asylum only to discover that it is being run by a madman, It feels a little like an episode of The Prisoner but there is no visual flare. It’s shot in a really flat, boring way and is completely lacking any energy. The actors (all filthy hippies) look like they raided a community college prop room and each put together a “crazy” outfit. On top of all that they plot is not very good and the score is terrible. I wanted to like this one, but alas it is not very good.
Another Philip Marlowe mystery featuring excellent hard-boiled prose. The story is filled with drug addicts, drinking, mobsters and crooked cops. The casual racism of the time is a bit jarring but, at some level, it is an integral part of the plot mechanics and the reasoning as to why certain cases aren’t being investigated. Just thinking about this book makes me want to keep whiskey in my desk drawer.
Philip Guston started as a WPA muralist, then became one of the leading figures of abstract expressionism. He is one of the few abstract expressionists whose work I can stand and I think it’s because figuration was always a lingering presence even when the work was pure abstraction. Eventually he abandons abstraction for what would become his most important and influential work: large, loosely painted cartoons with hints of political meaning. I love this later work and this book features a lot of it in big colorful plates. The writing is very informative and to the point. You’re probably not going to find a better overview of Guston’s life and work.
Every couple of years I get back into emulation, mostly as a reaction against some massive open-world game I just spent hundreds of hours playing. This time ’round I enhanced my retro-gaming experience with the purchase of an 8BitDo M30 gamepad which mimics the layout and feel of a six-button Genesis controller.
Crusader of Centy is a Genesis game which I only know from grabbing a pack of a zillion ROMs from the Internet back in the days of the Genecyst emulator. It has the look and feel of a console JRPG but is really a simple action game with some puzzle moments. It’s styled very much after the original Zelda with a top-down view and sword-shooting attacks. Also, if you are looking for a copy on Ebay it will cost you more than a grand.
The overworld view. You are limited to a handful of points.
Unlike many games on the Genesis, Centy is bright and colorful with smooth animation and excellent pixelated character design. Along with the cheery music, this feels more like a Nintendo game than an exercise in x-treme Blast Processing™.
The controls work well for movement and interaction but combat is a bit clunky. Your sword never quite swings fast enough and enemies don’t react to hits other than their sprites blinking. Outside of boss battles, you are better off just avoiding fights since there is no leveling-up or noteworthy loot drops. The main hook of the game is collecting animal friends which give you special powers. You use these powers to get past obstacles and occasionally as specific means of attacking a boss.
Nearing the final boss fight.
All this makes for a very light and casual gaming experience. Unfortunately, there is very little of interest in the overarching plot in the game. At one point there is some time-travel to mix things up, but mostly its going from point A to point B for unspecified reasons. The dialogue is terse and bland and there are no memorable characters. A more developed narrative would have added so much more. Instead we are left with a very pretty but shallow action adventure.
I have been looking for this movie for quite some time. I love Charles Bronson and I love Tele Savalas (look at that guy, serioulsy!). As per usual I know about this one from its Ennio Morricone score which evoke all sorts of seedy, urban action. I was a bit taken aback hearing the title theme being played of tranquil shots of Bronson on a Caribbean vacation. For a movie about a city which is violent, a lot of it takes place in a rural countryside. The opening set piece is an exciting car chase and it sets up the expectation that the rest will be balls-on action, but, alas, it is not. The remainder of the film is a slow build-up to the revenge climax which is brief, but very effective in the way it is shot and sounds.
A wildly entertaining Indian film about a man trying to save his sister from the evil British governor and another who must stop him. They unknowingly become friends and things get awkward. The movie goes on about 45 minutes too long but when it’s going it really kicks it into high gear. The action set pieces are filled with mediocre CGI that you hardly notice because the action is so incredibly inventive. Of course there’s tons of said action, but there’s also a decent story (with some long boring bits), great music, and, of course, a few musical numbers thrown in for the ladies.
This one is a collection of art criticism essays from the early 70s. They mostly grapple with the perceived death of painting after the pop art movement. I hated this kind of writing back when I was in art school and it hasn’t really gotten better in my old age. There are a handful of chapters that concentrate on a single artist which I did somewhat appreciate.
The third book in this series is finally bringing things together for most of our main characters. I am bored by the Yoss “chosen one” storyline in which a uncivilized former slave journeys across the world to do things. That whole thread seems so unrelated and tonally too serious. I’m sure it will all come together eventually. Two more volumes to go?
There’s no escaping these superhero movies. I was trapped in rural America with two hours to kill and this was literally the only show in town. I’ll admit I was a curious as to whether Sam Raimi’s style would come through and it does a little here and there. Overall, it’s a fairly blah installment to the Marvel franchise. It wasn’t horrible, but who cares about this stuff anymore? The two seconds of Bruce Campbell squirting mustard in his face was far superior to the endless scenes of actors shooting colored LASER beams out of their hands.
