The final book the The Tripods trilogy delivers a satisfying conclusion to the story. I picture the aliens looking like Sigmund the Sea Monster and it all just works. I don’t think I’ve torn through a series of books this fast in a long time. Just squeaking in to 2019.
Having read her other books, I felt obliged to read this novella. It’s a fairly literal take on individualism that would have benefited from a little world-building and character development. The sci-fi premise is that the world has regressed back into a primitive technological state. The collective is all-important. People are known only by numbers and their preferred pronoun is we. As expected, the hero is the character who begins to view himself as an individual only to be shunned by his peers. This idea would go on to be fleshed-out within the vastly superior novel, The Fountainhead. Anthem just reads like a episode of The Twilight Zone rather than the deep philosophical meditation Objectivists probably think it is.
I have had this wood block sitting around for years and years now. Every year I would make a resolution to finish it and, like all resolutions, never followed through. Until now! I was able to squeeze this in before the ball dropped in 2018 and now my twelve print Grand Voyage series is a thirteen print series.
Originally, I was visualizing that the series would be comprised of three books of twelve prints. That was back when I was young, stupid and enthralled by the Lord of the Rings movies. The main problem with my ambitions were that I don’t really have a full story fleshed out (and I’m lazy). I knew the two main characters would be separated and not much else after that.
This print shows the first moments of that separation when the fisherman is banished to the king’s dungeons. There really isn’t a satirical point to this image. It is just a way to introduce the inhabitants with a sense of tension and foreboding. I dunno. Just look at the pretty lines.
If you’ve seen my Planet Pimp Records site, then you know all about this movie. Planet Pimp regular Michael Lucas directed this homage to rock and roll era, juvenile delinquent B-movies with a radical feminist twist. Read my overview for some of the story behind the making of this film. I’ve finally had a chance to watch Blood Orgy after all these years and it is about what I expected. It’s amateurish and at times incoherent but there are a handful of moments that make a viewing worthwhile. Fans of the barely-related soundtrack will enjoy seeing their favorite lines of dialogue in context. This is punk rock film making and as such is definitely not for everyone.
A musical with no memorable musical numbers. There are a couple of nice dreamy dance moments. I think the key to a movie musical is the complete disregard for realism. This is why The Wiggles Movie is the greatest musical movie since Fiddler on the Roof. The problem with this movie is that the story and characters never go anywhere. There is no motivation behind why the male lead falls for the female lead other than she is the closest female. It was surprisingly nice to see Asian characters played by Asians in 1961.
Shadow Warrior 2 is a fast and wild shooter that continues in much the same vein as the first reboot game (which I never got around to reviewing here). The game is irreverent and revels in its 90s roots but does its best to avoid the politically incorrect Asian stereotypes of the original game. There is a really visceral quality to the combat, especially when focusing on swordplay and melee attacks. You are constantly surrounded and relying on spastic special attacks and super powers to thin the onslaught.
The story is nothing special, but the one-liners and goofy tone keep it interesting enough to not skip the cut scenes. There are tons of monster types and tons of weapons. In a lot of ways it feels like Borderlands as you constantly upgrade and modify weapons with random enhancements. Apparently there is also a good co-op mode which I have not tried. The levels are huge, but there aren’t too many of them and about halfway through the game you realize that you are constantly revisiting the same levels over and over again. In the end that doesn’t really matter since the game isn’t really about exploration. The levels only serve as temporary settings in which to obliterate foes in to clouds of gore.
I’ve never used this word ever in my life, but the best description of this Sean Connery/Michael Caine adventure movie would be rollicking. Nowadays I suppose it would also be called problematic from it’s depiction of foreign cultures and the ease by which they accept Westerner’s bullets in the belly.
Epic Biblical story which was partially directed by Mario Bava. Joan Collins is a bride to be who is stolen from the altar then falls in love with her captor, the king of Persia. It’s mostly a love story and the action is few and far between.
Sam Raimi directed this serviceable bit of 90s noir in which a trio of Minnesota lads discover a gym bag full of cash and make a plan to wait for the heat to die down before splitting it up. Of course they are idiots and do everything they possibly can to screw things up. These sorts of stories are so frustrating to me. This is basically every Walking Dead plot line (and why I stopped watching that show).
All these Ubisoft open-world games (Assassins Creed, Watch Dogs, etc.) follow the same basic formula. Main story which you can take your time completing, lots of side activities and missions, and collectible stuff that gets you nothing in the end. Each is enjoyable up to a point, but then they wear out their welcome and become tedium. But despite the flaws, I genuinely enjoy the Far Cry games. I am a sucker for the FPS/stealth mix in which you can approach any conflict from a large number of paths. Each outpost I conquer without tripping the alarms feels like a real achievement.
This is essentially the exact same game as Far Cry 3 but in an alpine environment. The story is nowhere near as engaging as that game, but it suffices. You get introduced to the eccentric baddie and then he disappears for 90% of the game. Instead, you must contend with some annoying rebels, a couple of drug smoking idiots, and a bible quoting gun runner. Of course the dialogue comes out sounding like something a high school freshman would think is cool. The radio DJ is particularly annoying. I wish you could go on a rampage without negatively affecting your karma score.
All that is moot. The real focus here is blowing up animals. Any game in which you can blast a pack of cute, cuddly dholes into oblivion with a grenade launcher is okay in my book.
