Definitely better than the first Tomb Raider films. This reboot seems to be using the game’s reboot as inspiration. The plot is pretty bland, but enjoyed the performance of the lead actor and it avoided the horrible CGI action until the last third of the movie.
A cartoon drama from Studio Ghibli about a teenage girl who misses her dead father and raises signal flags for him every morning. She gets involved with a boy who wants to save the school’s club building from demolition. No moving castles here, just melodrama and possibly incest. As always, it’s a stunningly beautiful animated movie, so I can’t really hate on it.
This should be a standard Roger Corman women in prison movie, but it was directed by Jonathan Demme and supposedly stands out from other movies in the genre. I wouldn’t go that far. It’s about as sleazy as these films come and hits all the required check boxes. But there are quite a few long, almost arty, boring stretches at the beginning. The last act is entertaining but what would make a film like this stand out for me would be some better developed characters and maybe a few plot twists. Oh, and Pam Grier.
What seriousness there was in the first Death Wish is gone. The violence is not terribly gorey but it’s ridiculous and just a joy to watch. The gangsters look straight from the cast of Breakin’ or a maybe low-rent Mad Max. Nothing makes any sense and the plot is just a means to get from one shoot-out to the next.
This game is a bit of a mixed bag. I really like the main characters and it has some genuinely funny moments but there are weird tonal shifts. One moment characters are bloodletting themselves to please an ancient Mayan god, the next you are walking around asking people to comment on the panties you found.The big issue with most point and click adventures is whether or not the puzzles make sense. Again, Broken Sword 2 is hit or miss. When your goal was clear, the puzzles made sense and had just the right amount of challenge. But many times you were put in a situation where there were no clues as to what you even should be trying to do. A few times a puzzle’s solution involved talking to a random person one more time after you thought you had exhausted all your dialogue options. Thankfully, there is a pretty robust in-game hint system. Spoiler alert: you never need to use the panties.
Despite the flaws, all the chaotic threads come together in the climax and I ended the game thinking that I wanted to play the sequels.
Another rambling philosophical tome from Taleb. It expands on the idea that good policy emerges from the participants having skin in the game. I’m not sure it works as a coherent whole, but there are enough nuggets of brilliance scattered between the insults, diatribes and math to make it worthwhile.
I’ve been watching The Expanse lately and wanted to get a taste of the novels that the show is based upon. This was a good read, and the show is a pretty close interpretation of the story. I’m not sure if I can keep going with the book though. If the T.V series gets cancelled I might have to.
Black Magic is a strange mix of horror and bumbling romantic comedy. Nothing in this movie makes any sense and I loved just about every minute of it. The plot is focused on various characters hiring a voodoo shamen to cast love spells. It’s filled with all sorts of skulls and weird voodoo action like centipede eating, dog wresting, forced lactation and hair stealing. The climax is super cheesy lightning bolt voodoo duel atop a crumbling, unfinished building.
There are a few gory moments, but for the most part this was a rather ho-hum Shaw Bros. kung-fu outing. Silly plot involves protecting a treasure caravan, five uniquely adorned outlaws, and a drunken master. Doesn’t really make sense and the fights are not terribly inspiring.
It’s been just about a year since I purchased The Witcher 3 from GOG.com and I have finally finished the DLC content. The Blood and Wine expansion like getting a completely new game world to explore. Worth every penny. But alas, I think it’s time to uninstall this fantastic game. I suppose I could keep going to try to complete all the achievements but my time and SSD space is limited. For now I will patiently await the release of Cyberpunk 2077. On the up-side, I will never be forced to play a boring round of Gwent again.
