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graveyardgremlin (7194 KP) rated Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later in Books
Feb 15, 2019
<b><i>"What a stupid book."</i></b>
That was my initial thought after turning the final page of <b>Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later</b>.
As a pre-teen, I was addicted to the <u>Sweet Valley High</u> series, and then later, the <u>Sweet Valley University</u> series as well. Before that even, I had read some of the Twins and Kids series, so when I heard this was coming out last year, I just knew I had to read it. I was excited beyond compare and went into full geek-out mode. Where are the perfect size-six Wakefield twins, and their friends and enemies, now? What are their occupations? Who are they dating or who'd they marry? And my questions kept going on and on. What has inspired this obsession? It's not like these books were high literature, but somehow they became ingrained into my life to this very day and I cannot help but remember SVH fondly.
It is nearly impossible to review the story within the covers without spoilers, but I am going to try my darnedest. Some cursing may or may not be involved.
<b>Short synopsis</b> (snarky comments in parentheses ;P):
Jessica has betrayed Elizabeth. <i>(Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what she did. Anyone who's read the books could make an accurate guess.)</i> The Ultimate Betrayal. <i>(Oooooh!)</i> Elizabeth flees to New York. Elizabeth is a slightly sympathetic bitter victim/martyr who craves revenge throughout the book. Jessica is supposed to be a sympathetic betrayer/victim who's heartsick at destroying her sister. <i>(I don't buy it.)</i> Tons of reminiscing flashbacks ensue throughout the book, sometimes the same ones told by different characters, and take up about half of it, so there's barely any plot. Book ends with a thirteen-page <i>Where Are They Now?</i>-type epilogue that tells old fans what has happened to many major supporting characters from the original high school series. <i>(Apparently no one is allowed to be happy. And anyone you may have originally liked from SVH has turned into a big dick. WTF?)</i>
I expected to enjoy this as the usual over-the-top, soap opera stories I remember, but revamped a bit. Sadly, I was left feeling underwhelmed, disappointed, annoyed, and rather pissed off. For one thing, I could not buy the main betrayal -- <spoiler>Jessica and Todd?! In love!!?? Really? In what surreal dimension does that make any kind of sense? This broke the book for me. How can I believe anything else if this doesn't ring true. A passionate affair, sure. A one-night stand, why not? But actual 'til death do us part nonsense? Bull. Not when it's almost always been the Elizabeth and Todd, "made-for-each-other" type of thing. I actually wouldn't have minded if E & T hadn't ended up together, but for Todd to be with Jessica, that's just madness, plain and simple.</spoiler> -- it was just so unbelievable. And I mean that in a Sweet Valley way, which we all know is not steeped in any form of actual reality, so my standards are quite low and I expect the extraordinary and overwrought. So from this point on, which is within the first two chapters, I struggled, but somehow managed to read on. I admit, I gagged more than few times throughout the book. Who wouldn't when faced with passages such as this one,
<blockquote>"And what faces they were.
Gorgeous. Absolutely amazing. The kind you couldn't stop looking at. Their eyes were shades of aqua that danced in the light like shards of precious stones, oval and fringed with thick, light brown lashes long enough to cast a shadow on their cheeks. Their silky blond hair, the cascading kind, fell just below their shoulders. And to complete the perfection, their rosy lips looked as if they were penciled on. There wasn't a thing wrong with their figures, either. It was if billions of possibilities all fell together perfectly.
Twice."
-page 9/10</blockquote>
I hope you managed to hold onto your last meal. I barely did. I also had to endure "his beloved," "his love," and other similar nauseating descriptions.
This is not the PG-rated books from the past, the word "orgasm" is actually used. So is the F-bomb and other expletives. *gasp* Seriously, it does push the boundaries more than the innocent SVH series, but it's not very shocking by today's standards. Except that it does involve the Wakefield Twins, which was strange at first. Of course, current trends had to pop up, like Twitter and Facebook, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce, which always makes a book better and doesn't date it in the least. (That was heavy sarcasm in case you weren't sure.) The book does refer to some incidents and people from the SVU series, but only certain elements, otherwise it's mainly a continuation of high school and no one from the university days actually appears in the book.
Neither Elizabeth nor Jessica felt true to form, especially Jessica, and in fact, none of the characters, whether seen or just talked about, were right. Sure, some people change and some don't, but not a one was recognizable. Where did these strangers with the same names come from? Why couldn't there have been some semblance of the original shining through? Again, I have a hard time with the basis of the book, so that has severely colored my view of the entire thing, but as it stands, it was a complete waste of a good idea. I'd be willing to bet that any fan of SVH could come up with something a million times better than this dreck. Wasn't there an original ghostwriter available? You know, someone who might actually know the world and characters, and have the skill to develop them both in a believable manner?
The writing is rather clunky and purple-ly, often managing both at the same time. Redundancy abounds, editing mistakes, including wrong names and inconsistencies to previous events in SVH-iverse, and lots of use of the words "like" and "so", more-so in Jessica's narrative than anywhere else, which was really, really, so, like, irritating. Like, really. Ms. Pascal must have had a thesaurus at the ready, because there were big words awkwardly thrown into the narrative. While I appreciate authors utilizing lesser known or used words, some just don't blend well with the rest of the text and they pop-out unflatteringly. The structure needed fine-tuning and tenses were oddly used to differentiate the flashbacks from present day.
To put it succinctly, the writing isn't great and neither is the storyline, what there is of it. This was a bizarre read even by Sweet Valley standards and an insult to fans. Seriously, does Francine Pascal hate this universe and its readers? I think I'll stick to the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/series/58723-sweet-valley-high">Sweet Valley High</a> series and make up my own stories about what happened afterward.
Slightly spoiler-ish lesson learned from this book:
<spoiler>Betrayal is okay as long as it's "Twu Luv."</spoiler>
Second lesson learned:
Everything always turns up fucking sunshine and roses and unicorns and lollipops for the worst person (or people) in the end.
I'd like to leave you with another winning description,
<blockquote>"There were no tears, but her mouth was twisted in a silent sob."
-page 17</blockquote>
<u>A thought a few hours after having finished this book:</u>
Maybe another "sequel" will eventually come out and it'll begin with Elizabeth waking up from the nightmare that is this book and we'll get the real ten years later story. Ahh, sweet dreams.
<u>Update: April 26, 2011:</u>
Oh yes, always good to blame the fans/readers for not liking their terrible book. By pointing out minor, petty reasons, I might add. <b>Warning:</b> book spoilers in article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/business/media/17sweet.html?_r=1
That was my initial thought after turning the final page of <b>Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later</b>.
As a pre-teen, I was addicted to the <u>Sweet Valley High</u> series, and then later, the <u>Sweet Valley University</u> series as well. Before that even, I had read some of the Twins and Kids series, so when I heard this was coming out last year, I just knew I had to read it. I was excited beyond compare and went into full geek-out mode. Where are the perfect size-six Wakefield twins, and their friends and enemies, now? What are their occupations? Who are they dating or who'd they marry? And my questions kept going on and on. What has inspired this obsession? It's not like these books were high literature, but somehow they became ingrained into my life to this very day and I cannot help but remember SVH fondly.
It is nearly impossible to review the story within the covers without spoilers, but I am going to try my darnedest. Some cursing may or may not be involved.
<b>Short synopsis</b> (snarky comments in parentheses ;P):
Jessica has betrayed Elizabeth. <i>(Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what she did. Anyone who's read the books could make an accurate guess.)</i> The Ultimate Betrayal. <i>(Oooooh!)</i> Elizabeth flees to New York. Elizabeth is a slightly sympathetic bitter victim/martyr who craves revenge throughout the book. Jessica is supposed to be a sympathetic betrayer/victim who's heartsick at destroying her sister. <i>(I don't buy it.)</i> Tons of reminiscing flashbacks ensue throughout the book, sometimes the same ones told by different characters, and take up about half of it, so there's barely any plot. Book ends with a thirteen-page <i>Where Are They Now?</i>-type epilogue that tells old fans what has happened to many major supporting characters from the original high school series. <i>(Apparently no one is allowed to be happy. And anyone you may have originally liked from SVH has turned into a big dick. WTF?)</i>
I expected to enjoy this as the usual over-the-top, soap opera stories I remember, but revamped a bit. Sadly, I was left feeling underwhelmed, disappointed, annoyed, and rather pissed off. For one thing, I could not buy the main betrayal -- <spoiler>Jessica and Todd?! In love!!?? Really? In what surreal dimension does that make any kind of sense? This broke the book for me. How can I believe anything else if this doesn't ring true. A passionate affair, sure. A one-night stand, why not? But actual 'til death do us part nonsense? Bull. Not when it's almost always been the Elizabeth and Todd, "made-for-each-other" type of thing. I actually wouldn't have minded if E & T hadn't ended up together, but for Todd to be with Jessica, that's just madness, plain and simple.</spoiler> -- it was just so unbelievable. And I mean that in a Sweet Valley way, which we all know is not steeped in any form of actual reality, so my standards are quite low and I expect the extraordinary and overwrought. So from this point on, which is within the first two chapters, I struggled, but somehow managed to read on. I admit, I gagged more than few times throughout the book. Who wouldn't when faced with passages such as this one,
<blockquote>"And what faces they were.
Gorgeous. Absolutely amazing. The kind you couldn't stop looking at. Their eyes were shades of aqua that danced in the light like shards of precious stones, oval and fringed with thick, light brown lashes long enough to cast a shadow on their cheeks. Their silky blond hair, the cascading kind, fell just below their shoulders. And to complete the perfection, their rosy lips looked as if they were penciled on. There wasn't a thing wrong with their figures, either. It was if billions of possibilities all fell together perfectly.
Twice."
-page 9/10</blockquote>
I hope you managed to hold onto your last meal. I barely did. I also had to endure "his beloved," "his love," and other similar nauseating descriptions.
This is not the PG-rated books from the past, the word "orgasm" is actually used. So is the F-bomb and other expletives. *gasp* Seriously, it does push the boundaries more than the innocent SVH series, but it's not very shocking by today's standards. Except that it does involve the Wakefield Twins, which was strange at first. Of course, current trends had to pop up, like Twitter and Facebook, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce, which always makes a book better and doesn't date it in the least. (That was heavy sarcasm in case you weren't sure.) The book does refer to some incidents and people from the SVU series, but only certain elements, otherwise it's mainly a continuation of high school and no one from the university days actually appears in the book.
Neither Elizabeth nor Jessica felt true to form, especially Jessica, and in fact, none of the characters, whether seen or just talked about, were right. Sure, some people change and some don't, but not a one was recognizable. Where did these strangers with the same names come from? Why couldn't there have been some semblance of the original shining through? Again, I have a hard time with the basis of the book, so that has severely colored my view of the entire thing, but as it stands, it was a complete waste of a good idea. I'd be willing to bet that any fan of SVH could come up with something a million times better than this dreck. Wasn't there an original ghostwriter available? You know, someone who might actually know the world and characters, and have the skill to develop them both in a believable manner?
The writing is rather clunky and purple-ly, often managing both at the same time. Redundancy abounds, editing mistakes, including wrong names and inconsistencies to previous events in SVH-iverse, and lots of use of the words "like" and "so", more-so in Jessica's narrative than anywhere else, which was really, really, so, like, irritating. Like, really. Ms. Pascal must have had a thesaurus at the ready, because there were big words awkwardly thrown into the narrative. While I appreciate authors utilizing lesser known or used words, some just don't blend well with the rest of the text and they pop-out unflatteringly. The structure needed fine-tuning and tenses were oddly used to differentiate the flashbacks from present day.
To put it succinctly, the writing isn't great and neither is the storyline, what there is of it. This was a bizarre read even by Sweet Valley standards and an insult to fans. Seriously, does Francine Pascal hate this universe and its readers? I think I'll stick to the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/series/58723-sweet-valley-high">Sweet Valley High</a> series and make up my own stories about what happened afterward.
Slightly spoiler-ish lesson learned from this book:
<spoiler>Betrayal is okay as long as it's "Twu Luv."</spoiler>
Second lesson learned:
Everything always turns up fucking sunshine and roses and unicorns and lollipops for the worst person (or people) in the end.
I'd like to leave you with another winning description,
<blockquote>"There were no tears, but her mouth was twisted in a silent sob."
-page 17</blockquote>
<u>A thought a few hours after having finished this book:</u>
Maybe another "sequel" will eventually come out and it'll begin with Elizabeth waking up from the nightmare that is this book and we'll get the real ten years later story. Ahh, sweet dreams.
<u>Update: April 26, 2011:</u>
Oh yes, always good to blame the fans/readers for not liking their terrible book. By pointing out minor, petty reasons, I might add. <b>Warning:</b> book spoilers in article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/business/media/17sweet.html?_r=1
Chris Sawin (602 KP) rated Halloween (2007) in Movies
Jun 19, 2019 (Updated Jun 21, 2019)
You probably already know the story of Michael Myers and the horror that took place in Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween night. How Michael Myers became one of the biggest slasher icons in horror movie history. Now we get to hear the story told by Rob Zombie, the man who brought us House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. He gives us some insight as to why Michael Myers is the way he is by showing us some of his childhood, the environment he grew up in, and how his family was. After he's institutionalized, we see how his progress continues to deteriorate as Dr. Samuel Loomis tries to do everything he can to save this young boy. Fifteen years go by when Loomis finally throws in the towel and Myers escapes Smith's Grove. Now on his way back to Haddonfield, Myers seeks his sister, Laurie, to finish what he started almost two decades ago.
There seems to be a huge debate amongst horror fans about whether this film was good or not. The results seemed to be pretty one-sided in favor of the original horror film from 1978, but now it seems the remake has almost just as many fans. I wouldn't say it was a 50/50 ratio, but 60/40 (60% of horror fans either hate the remake or prefer the original, 40% like the remake or prefer it over the original) seems about right these days. I managed to see the work print a few years ago and I wasn't impressed. With the release of Halloween 2 at the end of this month though, I promised myself I would give this film another shot. So that time has finally come and I can honestly say that the film isn't as bad as I remembered.
A few aspects of the film are actually quite good. Tyler Mane is a great Michael Myers. He's almost seven feet tall and is built like a giant. He's a total monster and the destruction and mayhem he causes is believable given his size. The adult version of Michael Myers is spot-on for a re-imagining of the film. Malcolm McDowell also does a good job as Dr. Loomis. He's no Donald Pleasance, but McDowell's take on the character isn't bad. Scout Taylor-Compton is also a worthy mention. She slips into the shoes of a modern day Laurie Strode rather flawlessly. Moving on from the acting though, the film is pretty solid from the time Michael gets his iconic mask through the finale. The way Michael made so many masks while he was in Smith's Grove was an interesting idea and the scene where you see his room fifteen years later with nothing but masks on every wall is one of the best in the film. The cinematography is also something that is often overlooked, which is a shame since it's actually pretty exceptional. It seemed to stand out most during the scenes where Michael was stalking Laurie, especially in the abandoned Myers house at the end. There's a scene right after Michael gets out of Smith's Grove where he goes to a truck stop and winds up getting the jumpsuit we're all familiar with. While there, he runs into Big Joe Grizzly in the bathroom stall and is banging Grizzly's hand, which is holding a knife, against the bathroom stall wall. As he's doing this though, the bathroom stall is just getting demolished but with every smashing blow, the camera violently shakes. The camera just always seemed to have a knack for giving a good perspective of what the character was going through, whether it was Michael or Laurie.
The disappointing part of this is pretty much everything leading up to Michael getting his mask back after his escape is pretty terrible. The dialogue, especially in the first ten to fifteen minutes of the film, is horrendous. Everything that's said between Deborah Myers and Ronnie White is just awful. The white trash upbringing just doesn't seem worthy for a horror icon like Michael Myers. It's just hard to believe that Michael Myers is the way he is because his mom was a stripper and his older sister was a whore. Logic seems to just be thrown by the way side as the film progresses. After Michael escapes from Smith's Grove, he returns to his old house where his mask and knife that he used to kill his family happen to just be lying under the floorboards. So did the police just pick up the bodies without searching the house or what? So he got his jumpsuit by stealing it from a guy taking a dump at a truck stop? Really? Hearing some of the original music return from John Carpenter's version of the film was a bit bittersweet. On one hand, it was great hearing it again. On the other, however, it just didn't seem to fit. Made me miss the original film more than anything. Giving Michael Myers a specific origin was probably Zombie's biggest mistake. The most terrifying thing about Michael Myers was that he was The Shape and had a bit of mystery to him. You knew he was going after Laurie, but other than that you had Loomis' word to fall back on. Michael was the human incarnation of pure evil. That's it. That's all you need. Humanizing the character and introducing us to his childhood only watered down the Michael Myers character.
There's a scene with Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis in Smith's Grove Sanitarium where Michael has made a mask that he's colored completely black. When Loomis asks him why it's black, Michael says that it's his favorite color. Loomis goes into an explanation about the color spectrum. Black is on one end and is the absence of color while white is at the opposite end and is every color. That's actually a great explanation of the differences between the original film and the remake. The original film would be the black segment of the spectrum. Carpenter's version leaves more to the viewer's imagination as the only explanation for Michael Myers is that he is "pure evil." While the remake would be the white segment of the spectrum as it goes into full detail why Michael Myers is the way he is and it shows every little violent and vulgar detail. Some people would say that having a little bit of mystery would be a good thing when it comes to a film like this while others like having everything laid out for them. It all depends on the viewer and which end of the spectrum they prefer. In my opinion though, that's the biggest mistake Rob Zombie made. There's no mystery left with the Michael Myers character. He's no longer The Shape, but is a psychopathic killer because he was raised by a white trash family, liked to torture animals, and whose sister didn't take him trick or treating.
The best thing Zombie can do is distance himself from the original film(s) as much as possible. To do something original with these characters. He looks like he'll do just that when Halloween 2 hits theaters on August 28th. One thing re-watching the remake accomplished was that it made me look forward to the sequel. The trailer looks really good (but to be fair, so did the trailer for the original film) and I was on the fence about it until I saw this again. The only problem I have is that Zombie seems to be telling the same story with the same initial cast with all of his films. House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects, and Halloween (first half of the film) are all way too similar. Zombie needs something new to add to his resume. Will Halloween 2 deliver that? Probably not, but a guy can hope.
There seems to be a huge debate amongst horror fans about whether this film was good or not. The results seemed to be pretty one-sided in favor of the original horror film from 1978, but now it seems the remake has almost just as many fans. I wouldn't say it was a 50/50 ratio, but 60/40 (60% of horror fans either hate the remake or prefer the original, 40% like the remake or prefer it over the original) seems about right these days. I managed to see the work print a few years ago and I wasn't impressed. With the release of Halloween 2 at the end of this month though, I promised myself I would give this film another shot. So that time has finally come and I can honestly say that the film isn't as bad as I remembered.
A few aspects of the film are actually quite good. Tyler Mane is a great Michael Myers. He's almost seven feet tall and is built like a giant. He's a total monster and the destruction and mayhem he causes is believable given his size. The adult version of Michael Myers is spot-on for a re-imagining of the film. Malcolm McDowell also does a good job as Dr. Loomis. He's no Donald Pleasance, but McDowell's take on the character isn't bad. Scout Taylor-Compton is also a worthy mention. She slips into the shoes of a modern day Laurie Strode rather flawlessly. Moving on from the acting though, the film is pretty solid from the time Michael gets his iconic mask through the finale. The way Michael made so many masks while he was in Smith's Grove was an interesting idea and the scene where you see his room fifteen years later with nothing but masks on every wall is one of the best in the film. The cinematography is also something that is often overlooked, which is a shame since it's actually pretty exceptional. It seemed to stand out most during the scenes where Michael was stalking Laurie, especially in the abandoned Myers house at the end. There's a scene right after Michael gets out of Smith's Grove where he goes to a truck stop and winds up getting the jumpsuit we're all familiar with. While there, he runs into Big Joe Grizzly in the bathroom stall and is banging Grizzly's hand, which is holding a knife, against the bathroom stall wall. As he's doing this though, the bathroom stall is just getting demolished but with every smashing blow, the camera violently shakes. The camera just always seemed to have a knack for giving a good perspective of what the character was going through, whether it was Michael or Laurie.
The disappointing part of this is pretty much everything leading up to Michael getting his mask back after his escape is pretty terrible. The dialogue, especially in the first ten to fifteen minutes of the film, is horrendous. Everything that's said between Deborah Myers and Ronnie White is just awful. The white trash upbringing just doesn't seem worthy for a horror icon like Michael Myers. It's just hard to believe that Michael Myers is the way he is because his mom was a stripper and his older sister was a whore. Logic seems to just be thrown by the way side as the film progresses. After Michael escapes from Smith's Grove, he returns to his old house where his mask and knife that he used to kill his family happen to just be lying under the floorboards. So did the police just pick up the bodies without searching the house or what? So he got his jumpsuit by stealing it from a guy taking a dump at a truck stop? Really? Hearing some of the original music return from John Carpenter's version of the film was a bit bittersweet. On one hand, it was great hearing it again. On the other, however, it just didn't seem to fit. Made me miss the original film more than anything. Giving Michael Myers a specific origin was probably Zombie's biggest mistake. The most terrifying thing about Michael Myers was that he was The Shape and had a bit of mystery to him. You knew he was going after Laurie, but other than that you had Loomis' word to fall back on. Michael was the human incarnation of pure evil. That's it. That's all you need. Humanizing the character and introducing us to his childhood only watered down the Michael Myers character.
There's a scene with Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis in Smith's Grove Sanitarium where Michael has made a mask that he's colored completely black. When Loomis asks him why it's black, Michael says that it's his favorite color. Loomis goes into an explanation about the color spectrum. Black is on one end and is the absence of color while white is at the opposite end and is every color. That's actually a great explanation of the differences between the original film and the remake. The original film would be the black segment of the spectrum. Carpenter's version leaves more to the viewer's imagination as the only explanation for Michael Myers is that he is "pure evil." While the remake would be the white segment of the spectrum as it goes into full detail why Michael Myers is the way he is and it shows every little violent and vulgar detail. Some people would say that having a little bit of mystery would be a good thing when it comes to a film like this while others like having everything laid out for them. It all depends on the viewer and which end of the spectrum they prefer. In my opinion though, that's the biggest mistake Rob Zombie made. There's no mystery left with the Michael Myers character. He's no longer The Shape, but is a psychopathic killer because he was raised by a white trash family, liked to torture animals, and whose sister didn't take him trick or treating.
The best thing Zombie can do is distance himself from the original film(s) as much as possible. To do something original with these characters. He looks like he'll do just that when Halloween 2 hits theaters on August 28th. One thing re-watching the remake accomplished was that it made me look forward to the sequel. The trailer looks really good (but to be fair, so did the trailer for the original film) and I was on the fence about it until I saw this again. The only problem I have is that Zombie seems to be telling the same story with the same initial cast with all of his films. House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects, and Halloween (first half of the film) are all way too similar. Zombie needs something new to add to his resume. Will Halloween 2 deliver that? Probably not, but a guy can hope.
Chris Sawin (602 KP) rated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) in Movies
Jul 26, 2019
Leonardo DiCaprio (1 more)
Brad Pitt
It's 2 hours and 41 minutes and feels long. (2 more)
Story elements don't seem to go together.
Charles Manson stuff feels forced.
With Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood being his ninth feature film as writer and director and a career just shy of the three decade mark, you should probably know what to expect from a Quentin Tarantino film. Amongst all of the usual Tarantino trademarks of memorable performances, long strings of dialogue, a questionable amount of dancing, the inclusion of several shots of barefoot women, interior car sequences, and a relentless tidal wave of vulgarity that drowns the audience in a sea of sharp expletives, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood lacks the one element that truly makes a Tarantino film worthwhile; coherent storytelling.
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood should be great based on its cast alone. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers one of his more complex performances as television star turned infrequent movie star Rick Dalton. Dalton made a name for himself in a western TV series called Bounty Law. Rick burned that bridge when he tried to make the jump to movies and failed. Now he only seems to get work as the TV villain. Rick gets an opportunity in Rome to star in Italian spaghetti westerns and reluctantly accepts. Rick is an alcoholic that struggles with a stutter when he speaks. He has low self-esteem and questions every decision he makes. The scene where he flubs his lines followed by his angry outburst in his trailer is extraordinary. He’s also the one person on the planet who seems to hate hippies more than Eric Cartman.
Brad Pitt portrays Rick’s stunt double Cliff Booth. Cliff is a Vietnam War veteran who may or may not have (but probably did) kill his wife without any repercussions. Cliff hardly works as a stunt double anymore and mostly makes his living driving Rick around and doing various odd jobs for him. Cliff is the exact opposite of Rick. Rick lives in the Hollywood Hills in a roomy luxurious house with a pool and an extravagant view. Cliff lives in a trailer by a drive-in theater, eats macaroni and cheese for dinner, and has amazing chemistry with his pitbull Brandy. Cliff seems like a handy and capable guy, but he’s also extremely blunt. His to-the-point demeanor keeps Rick’s wilder antics in check the majority of the time. Cliff doesn’t exactly babysit Rick and allows him to live his own life, but he’s the one to give Rick the “you’re better than that,” kind of pep talk after it’s over.
One of the things mentioned in the film by Kurt Russell (he plays Randy and does the voiceover as the narrator) is that Rick and Cliff share this bond that is practically as deep as a brotherhood yet lacks the commitment of a marriage. Their bond is the backbone of the film and it’s interesting because they both seem like half decent people. Cliff may have killed someone and Rick beats himself up harder than anyone else could, but they’re both hard working individuals who put everything into their work and they have each other’s backs through thick and thin. Their bond is almost wholesome to the minuscule extent Tarantino will allow.
Brad Pitt’s chemistry with Brandy is also quite entertaining. There’s something comical about seeing Cliff rummage through his pantry filled with nothing but cans of dog food only to pull out two specific cans; one rat flavored and one raccoon flavored. He opens the cans with a manual can opener, tips them over in mid-air after removing their lids, and lets gravity guide that slop into whatever is designated as a food bowl that particular evening in a sickening PLOP! And a meaty splash that overflows onto the kitchen floor tiles. Cliff and Brandy seem almost as close as Cliff and Rick. They have this partnership that is easy to detect as soon as they’re on-screen together.
Mike Moh’s Bruce Lee impression isn’t totally flawless, but it is fairly excellent regardless. Moh is Korean and Bruce Lee was Chinese-American, so it’s an intriguing fit that works way better than you expect. The scene Moh has with Pitt as Bruce Lee and Cliff Booth have a physical encounter is an entertaining highlight of the film. The outrageous violence you’ve come to expect in a Tarantino film isn’t present in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood until the final scene and it is a glorious display of dog biting, face pummeling, and flame throwing mayhem. If Cliff Booth hasn’t already established himself as a certified badass through the first two and a half hours, those last ten minutes certainly allow him to obtain that title with ease.
The unfortunate aspect of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is that everything doesn’t really come together in a satisfying way. You’ve got a washed up actor trying to regain the spotlight, a stunt double struggling to find work and make a living despite his troublesome reputation, and the Charles Manson stuff with Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) living next door to Rick and Cliff’s time at the Spahn Movie Ranch with the Manson Family. In 1968, Tate and four others were murdered in the home she shared with Polanski by members of the Manson Family while being eight-and-a-half months pregnant. It’s a horrendous statistic that puts a different perspective on the ending if you didn’t know beforehand. The Manson inclusion mostly feels like an afterthought that isn’t ever taken seriously.
So many recognizable names are a part of the cast and everyone outside of Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio are basically a waste. Margot Robbie has a few moments that mostly reside in her reacting to films starring Sharon Tate in a movie theater. Tate seems to represent this pure and positive light in the film while Rick and Cliff experience the uglier aspects of the Tarantino-skewed late 1960s. Robbie downright glows during that movie theater sequence with a bubbly and contagious attitude, but doesn’t do much else over the course of the film.
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood feels longer than its 141-minute duration. It drags so often in between its enjoyable moments and seems to purposely lag during every dialogue heavy sequence that is just talking without any sort of payoff. Tarantino’s attention to the music of whatever era he’s depicting has always been a staple in his films, but it is on the verge of annoyance here. The dancing in the film feels like an excuse to stretch out the story that much longer for no other reason other than to blatantly rub the audience’s nose in the time period.
There are some masterful elements to Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood that shouldn’t be overlooked. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick F’ing Dalton sequence is explosively brilliant and Brad Pitt has this abrasive charm as Cliff Booth. It’s difficult to make the argument that Quentin Tarantino has original stories still worth telling at this point in his career though since this suffers from incoherent progression and a reasonable purpose for why we should care about these characters. At one point in the film, Rick tells Cliff with tears streaming down his face and this unhealthy cough full of cancerous phlegm, “It’s official old buddy. I’m a has-been.” Maybe this is how Tarantino feels about himself now that he’s nearing the end of his filmmaking career. That struggle to find meaning and a welcome audience for something he used to care deeply about but may have lost the passion for in recent years. He had a good run, but as it stands Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is overstuffed yet bland despite its two zesty leads.
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood should be great based on its cast alone. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers one of his more complex performances as television star turned infrequent movie star Rick Dalton. Dalton made a name for himself in a western TV series called Bounty Law. Rick burned that bridge when he tried to make the jump to movies and failed. Now he only seems to get work as the TV villain. Rick gets an opportunity in Rome to star in Italian spaghetti westerns and reluctantly accepts. Rick is an alcoholic that struggles with a stutter when he speaks. He has low self-esteem and questions every decision he makes. The scene where he flubs his lines followed by his angry outburst in his trailer is extraordinary. He’s also the one person on the planet who seems to hate hippies more than Eric Cartman.
Brad Pitt portrays Rick’s stunt double Cliff Booth. Cliff is a Vietnam War veteran who may or may not have (but probably did) kill his wife without any repercussions. Cliff hardly works as a stunt double anymore and mostly makes his living driving Rick around and doing various odd jobs for him. Cliff is the exact opposite of Rick. Rick lives in the Hollywood Hills in a roomy luxurious house with a pool and an extravagant view. Cliff lives in a trailer by a drive-in theater, eats macaroni and cheese for dinner, and has amazing chemistry with his pitbull Brandy. Cliff seems like a handy and capable guy, but he’s also extremely blunt. His to-the-point demeanor keeps Rick’s wilder antics in check the majority of the time. Cliff doesn’t exactly babysit Rick and allows him to live his own life, but he’s the one to give Rick the “you’re better than that,” kind of pep talk after it’s over.
One of the things mentioned in the film by Kurt Russell (he plays Randy and does the voiceover as the narrator) is that Rick and Cliff share this bond that is practically as deep as a brotherhood yet lacks the commitment of a marriage. Their bond is the backbone of the film and it’s interesting because they both seem like half decent people. Cliff may have killed someone and Rick beats himself up harder than anyone else could, but they’re both hard working individuals who put everything into their work and they have each other’s backs through thick and thin. Their bond is almost wholesome to the minuscule extent Tarantino will allow.
Brad Pitt’s chemistry with Brandy is also quite entertaining. There’s something comical about seeing Cliff rummage through his pantry filled with nothing but cans of dog food only to pull out two specific cans; one rat flavored and one raccoon flavored. He opens the cans with a manual can opener, tips them over in mid-air after removing their lids, and lets gravity guide that slop into whatever is designated as a food bowl that particular evening in a sickening PLOP! And a meaty splash that overflows onto the kitchen floor tiles. Cliff and Brandy seem almost as close as Cliff and Rick. They have this partnership that is easy to detect as soon as they’re on-screen together.
Mike Moh’s Bruce Lee impression isn’t totally flawless, but it is fairly excellent regardless. Moh is Korean and Bruce Lee was Chinese-American, so it’s an intriguing fit that works way better than you expect. The scene Moh has with Pitt as Bruce Lee and Cliff Booth have a physical encounter is an entertaining highlight of the film. The outrageous violence you’ve come to expect in a Tarantino film isn’t present in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood until the final scene and it is a glorious display of dog biting, face pummeling, and flame throwing mayhem. If Cliff Booth hasn’t already established himself as a certified badass through the first two and a half hours, those last ten minutes certainly allow him to obtain that title with ease.
The unfortunate aspect of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is that everything doesn’t really come together in a satisfying way. You’ve got a washed up actor trying to regain the spotlight, a stunt double struggling to find work and make a living despite his troublesome reputation, and the Charles Manson stuff with Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) living next door to Rick and Cliff’s time at the Spahn Movie Ranch with the Manson Family. In 1968, Tate and four others were murdered in the home she shared with Polanski by members of the Manson Family while being eight-and-a-half months pregnant. It’s a horrendous statistic that puts a different perspective on the ending if you didn’t know beforehand. The Manson inclusion mostly feels like an afterthought that isn’t ever taken seriously.
So many recognizable names are a part of the cast and everyone outside of Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio are basically a waste. Margot Robbie has a few moments that mostly reside in her reacting to films starring Sharon Tate in a movie theater. Tate seems to represent this pure and positive light in the film while Rick and Cliff experience the uglier aspects of the Tarantino-skewed late 1960s. Robbie downright glows during that movie theater sequence with a bubbly and contagious attitude, but doesn’t do much else over the course of the film.
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood feels longer than its 141-minute duration. It drags so often in between its enjoyable moments and seems to purposely lag during every dialogue heavy sequence that is just talking without any sort of payoff. Tarantino’s attention to the music of whatever era he’s depicting has always been a staple in his films, but it is on the verge of annoyance here. The dancing in the film feels like an excuse to stretch out the story that much longer for no other reason other than to blatantly rub the audience’s nose in the time period.
There are some masterful elements to Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood that shouldn’t be overlooked. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick F’ing Dalton sequence is explosively brilliant and Brad Pitt has this abrasive charm as Cliff Booth. It’s difficult to make the argument that Quentin Tarantino has original stories still worth telling at this point in his career though since this suffers from incoherent progression and a reasonable purpose for why we should care about these characters. At one point in the film, Rick tells Cliff with tears streaming down his face and this unhealthy cough full of cancerous phlegm, “It’s official old buddy. I’m a has-been.” Maybe this is how Tarantino feels about himself now that he’s nearing the end of his filmmaking career. That struggle to find meaning and a welcome audience for something he used to care deeply about but may have lost the passion for in recent years. He had a good run, but as it stands Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is overstuffed yet bland despite its two zesty leads.
A Bibliophagist (113 KP) rated Wuthering Heights in Books
Feb 12, 2020
Stands up (2 more)
Enthralling
Unique
Dislikable characters (1 more)
Difficult accents without translations
I will do my best to review this, however, I didn't heed the intro, this tour de force really does leave you as quickly as it comes, and reading another book before reviewing this one was a mistake.
In reading reviews prior to reading this book, I learned three major things; 1, people either love or hate this book, 2. I had no idea what I was actually in for, and 3. this may have not been the romantic pick for February I was expecting it to be.
So yes, PSA for anyone out there considering going into this thinking it's a romance. It is NOT. There are love stories in this, absolutely, powerful love stories that made me read quotes to my boyfriend with snarky statements like "if you don't say this at my funeral, did you ever really love me?". But it is NOT a romance. If anything this has more in common with "The Count of Monte Cristo" than it does "Pride and Prejudice". Honestly, the only thing it has in common with other, romantic books of this time, is the time period. But beware, no balls and high society and Mr. Darcy's await you in this novel. I feel a number of the reviews decrying the book, calling the characters "monstrous" both were the orchestrators of their own disappointment by assuming it to be like an Austin, and really need to look in the mirror and reflect on if they are really as perfect as they think they are. Especially if they were in the circumstances that surround this tale.
I find that Heathcliff himself addresses this mistake many readers had going into this book.
"picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and actin gon false impressions she cherished."
SO many readers went into this expecting Heathcliff to be some misunderstood brute or one harsh but salvaged by the purity of his love of Catherine. But this isn't the case.
Wuthering Heights tells the story of (I guess technically 3) but really 2 generations of families. Living in the Yorkshire Moors, isolated from high society. We have the Liptons, primmer and properer and more in touch with society, and the Earnshaws which become a little rough around the edges in their isolation and loss. Papa Earnshaw has two children, Catherine and Hindley, and adopts a small boy of unknown heritage but is implied to be Romani or of mixed race (sorry Tom Hardy and nearly every portrayal of Heathcliff), that he names, simply, Heathcliff. He loves Heathcliff, and dotes on him greatly, much to the chagrin of Hindly who grows to resent Heathcliff, treating him terribly until Hindly leaves for school. Catherine and Heathcliff become great playmates, their care is given primarily to a maid scarcely older than them, as Papa Earnshaw is a single daddy. They are wild things, as children I would assume would be, in such isolation as the Yorkshire Moors in a time before the creature comforts and entertainment we have. They grow very close, obsessively close. Upon Papa Earnshaw's death, Hindley returns (at around the age of 23) to run the household, and take over the care of these two youngsters, one of which, he hates. So, Cinderella-style, Heathcliff gets treated worse and worse and treated like a servant rather than the adoptive child that Papa Earnshaw loved so dearly. Suddenly Heathcliff is nothing, treated terribly, and has the most important thing in his life banned from him, Catherine. Meanwhile, the Liptons also have two children, not wild, but spoilt in their own ways, Edgar and Isabella, close in age to Heathcliff and Catherine. When H and C run off on a camping adventure and find themselves at the Lipton's house, Catherine is injured and stays with the Liptons, in their higher society for 5 weeks. Leaving Heathcliff to the abuse of her brother and further isolation. She returns much more a lady and with her connection to Heathcliff slightly burned. In an attempt to protect Heathcliff, and because Heathcliff is now no more than a servant and not an option to marry, Catherine intends to marry Edgar. Causing our resident bad boy to run off for a number of years. Only to return a proper, but still broody gentleman, and confuse Catherine's affection much to the displeasure of Edgar.
Now, this is where a number of shows and movies end things. With a focus on Catherine and Heathcliff's whirlwind romance, obsession. It has some of the most to the point and beautiful lines regarding love, not all flowery, not "I love you most ardently" but rather cries of "I am Heathcliff" by Catherine. Absolutely heart-rending, even though I didn't like Catherine. But this is not where the book ends. The book goes on to follow Heathcliff's obsession with revenge, with his treatment as a child, his rage against Hindley, and against losing Catherine to Edgar. He spends years slowly ruining everyone's lives. Not that you could really ruin Hindley's life, he was a mean drunk. But he even goes as far as to meddle with the next generation, Hindley's son Hareton is raised terribly and is a bit of a wild thing (those his redemption and love story is quite beautiful), Catherine's daughter Cathy and Heathcliff's son Lipton are whisked up into a big scheme by Heathcliff to take everything. Heathcliff even marry's out of pure spite.
Love does not redeem this man, he's barely an antihero without his youth story. He is angry and passionate and obsessed. Which for the first half of the book I didn't fault him for, but he does do some damnable things in the second half that you cannot argue away. No matter how romantic and beautiful and heartrending his lamentations can be. I was quite the character arc, quite the tale of revenge and loss. He was unredeemable because of his big sprawling schemes and harsh intentions. Catherine for me was unredeemable because she was an obnoxious, selfish thing, that honestly if Heathcliff had stopped thinking about two minutes would have found a better woman in every town. She whined and treated Edgar (who was honestly super sweet) so terribly, she had an anger problem and would work herself up until she was sick. But it is in this imperfection that I fell in love more with the book. Here is something unique and real, this is no Elizabeth Bennett. The isolation and hermetic lifestyle created very different characters than what we see in Jane Austin or even in Emily's sister's novel.
It's no wonder this book was harshly critiqued upon release, here is a woman, writing a revenge story, with love stories in it. That based on the biographical intro had some parallels to her own life. She lived an isolated existence, surrounded by the death of the majority of her family young. She was in her late 20s when she wrote this and died a year after publication. She made humans of monsters and monsters of humans and wrote something unexpected and truly unique.
It's hard for me to explain, amongst the harshness and bleakness of this novel, why I loved it so much. But I did, I loved every bit. The anger, the passion, the love, the scheming, I loved it all.
I also feel it's important to note that this whole story is told by a maid to a new tenant. So the narrator is unreliable. Were these people truly this way? Or is it clouded by this maid's opinions of them? How much is omitted due to the maid not being privy to an event?
Truly a fantastic read, that punched me in my chest and gut, grabbed and twisted my insides and refuses to let go. I would argue it's a cult classic rather than a classic. So please, shed all preconceived notions of what this book is, shake that Austin out of your mind and read this tale of obsession and revenge. It's well worth it.
In reading reviews prior to reading this book, I learned three major things; 1, people either love or hate this book, 2. I had no idea what I was actually in for, and 3. this may have not been the romantic pick for February I was expecting it to be.
So yes, PSA for anyone out there considering going into this thinking it's a romance. It is NOT. There are love stories in this, absolutely, powerful love stories that made me read quotes to my boyfriend with snarky statements like "if you don't say this at my funeral, did you ever really love me?". But it is NOT a romance. If anything this has more in common with "The Count of Monte Cristo" than it does "Pride and Prejudice". Honestly, the only thing it has in common with other, romantic books of this time, is the time period. But beware, no balls and high society and Mr. Darcy's await you in this novel. I feel a number of the reviews decrying the book, calling the characters "monstrous" both were the orchestrators of their own disappointment by assuming it to be like an Austin, and really need to look in the mirror and reflect on if they are really as perfect as they think they are. Especially if they were in the circumstances that surround this tale.
I find that Heathcliff himself addresses this mistake many readers had going into this book.
"picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and actin gon false impressions she cherished."
SO many readers went into this expecting Heathcliff to be some misunderstood brute or one harsh but salvaged by the purity of his love of Catherine. But this isn't the case.
Wuthering Heights tells the story of (I guess technically 3) but really 2 generations of families. Living in the Yorkshire Moors, isolated from high society. We have the Liptons, primmer and properer and more in touch with society, and the Earnshaws which become a little rough around the edges in their isolation and loss. Papa Earnshaw has two children, Catherine and Hindley, and adopts a small boy of unknown heritage but is implied to be Romani or of mixed race (sorry Tom Hardy and nearly every portrayal of Heathcliff), that he names, simply, Heathcliff. He loves Heathcliff, and dotes on him greatly, much to the chagrin of Hindly who grows to resent Heathcliff, treating him terribly until Hindly leaves for school. Catherine and Heathcliff become great playmates, their care is given primarily to a maid scarcely older than them, as Papa Earnshaw is a single daddy. They are wild things, as children I would assume would be, in such isolation as the Yorkshire Moors in a time before the creature comforts and entertainment we have. They grow very close, obsessively close. Upon Papa Earnshaw's death, Hindley returns (at around the age of 23) to run the household, and take over the care of these two youngsters, one of which, he hates. So, Cinderella-style, Heathcliff gets treated worse and worse and treated like a servant rather than the adoptive child that Papa Earnshaw loved so dearly. Suddenly Heathcliff is nothing, treated terribly, and has the most important thing in his life banned from him, Catherine. Meanwhile, the Liptons also have two children, not wild, but spoilt in their own ways, Edgar and Isabella, close in age to Heathcliff and Catherine. When H and C run off on a camping adventure and find themselves at the Lipton's house, Catherine is injured and stays with the Liptons, in their higher society for 5 weeks. Leaving Heathcliff to the abuse of her brother and further isolation. She returns much more a lady and with her connection to Heathcliff slightly burned. In an attempt to protect Heathcliff, and because Heathcliff is now no more than a servant and not an option to marry, Catherine intends to marry Edgar. Causing our resident bad boy to run off for a number of years. Only to return a proper, but still broody gentleman, and confuse Catherine's affection much to the displeasure of Edgar.
Now, this is where a number of shows and movies end things. With a focus on Catherine and Heathcliff's whirlwind romance, obsession. It has some of the most to the point and beautiful lines regarding love, not all flowery, not "I love you most ardently" but rather cries of "I am Heathcliff" by Catherine. Absolutely heart-rending, even though I didn't like Catherine. But this is not where the book ends. The book goes on to follow Heathcliff's obsession with revenge, with his treatment as a child, his rage against Hindley, and against losing Catherine to Edgar. He spends years slowly ruining everyone's lives. Not that you could really ruin Hindley's life, he was a mean drunk. But he even goes as far as to meddle with the next generation, Hindley's son Hareton is raised terribly and is a bit of a wild thing (those his redemption and love story is quite beautiful), Catherine's daughter Cathy and Heathcliff's son Lipton are whisked up into a big scheme by Heathcliff to take everything. Heathcliff even marry's out of pure spite.
Love does not redeem this man, he's barely an antihero without his youth story. He is angry and passionate and obsessed. Which for the first half of the book I didn't fault him for, but he does do some damnable things in the second half that you cannot argue away. No matter how romantic and beautiful and heartrending his lamentations can be. I was quite the character arc, quite the tale of revenge and loss. He was unredeemable because of his big sprawling schemes and harsh intentions. Catherine for me was unredeemable because she was an obnoxious, selfish thing, that honestly if Heathcliff had stopped thinking about two minutes would have found a better woman in every town. She whined and treated Edgar (who was honestly super sweet) so terribly, she had an anger problem and would work herself up until she was sick. But it is in this imperfection that I fell in love more with the book. Here is something unique and real, this is no Elizabeth Bennett. The isolation and hermetic lifestyle created very different characters than what we see in Jane Austin or even in Emily's sister's novel.
It's no wonder this book was harshly critiqued upon release, here is a woman, writing a revenge story, with love stories in it. That based on the biographical intro had some parallels to her own life. She lived an isolated existence, surrounded by the death of the majority of her family young. She was in her late 20s when she wrote this and died a year after publication. She made humans of monsters and monsters of humans and wrote something unexpected and truly unique.
It's hard for me to explain, amongst the harshness and bleakness of this novel, why I loved it so much. But I did, I loved every bit. The anger, the passion, the love, the scheming, I loved it all.
I also feel it's important to note that this whole story is told by a maid to a new tenant. So the narrator is unreliable. Were these people truly this way? Or is it clouded by this maid's opinions of them? How much is omitted due to the maid not being privy to an event?
Truly a fantastic read, that punched me in my chest and gut, grabbed and twisted my insides and refuses to let go. I would argue it's a cult classic rather than a classic. So please, shed all preconceived notions of what this book is, shake that Austin out of your mind and read this tale of obsession and revenge. It's well worth it.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Lonely Undead in Tabletop Games
May 24, 2021
“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.” Now, this is an acceptable saying that one might utter flippantly to anyone around them. However, “I’m so lonely I could bite the town Mayor” is generally something that would raise some eyebrows or nervous smiles from eavesdroppers. But why, I ask. Why are we okay with eating horses but not simply biting another human? Probably because of laws. I get that. But sometimes you just need a friend. Someone… like you.
Lonely Undead is a hand management, grid movement, zombie adventure game for one to four players with a super crazy theme. In it, players are Zs looking to make some friends in the neighborhood, but most unturnt neighbors are keeping their distance. So what’s a Z to do? Go bite and infect people so they can be friends forever, of course!
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. This preview will be highlighting the co-op mode with two players. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup, lay out the board somewhere on the table (thankfully the rules do not specify where, so go ahead and be a bit off-center this time). Zs (the players) all start in “Dead Center” of the board. The rulebook indicated how to construct the Living deck, and each deck of different types of cards should be shuffled and put in their place either on the board or just off it. For sake of ease, use the rulebook’s suggested placement of Living (so, NOT the Zs) tokens. Each player receives or chooses a Z to embody, receives two Aid cards, four Limbs, and the game is setup and ready to begin!
Lonely Undead is played over a series of rounds, with each round consisting of two phases: Z Phase and Town Phase. During the Z Phase, the active player will have four actions they may take from the following choices: Movement, Draw an Aid Card, Equip a Card, Sound Check, Attack, and Bite. Each Z has their own unique card with their special actions and other stats. A Z may move up to their Movement amount,including diagonally, for one action.
Aid Cards are very helpful to Zs, and for an action a Z may Draw an Aid Card to their hand. Aid Cards could be stat modifiers, or other special actions available to be used. Some Aid Cards are free to use, but if that text is not on the card, a Z will need to spend an action to Equip a Card to their Z.
When the Z is adjacent to a Living token, they must Sound Check it in order to identify the kind of Living they are stalking. To do this a Z rolls the Chance Die and applies any modifier rolled to their base stat on their card for hearing. This is compared against the Living card that is drawn to see if the Living notices the hunting Z. If the Z is successful in this Sound Check (winning all ties), then the Z may continue with their turn. If the Z fails the check, however, the Z will suffer the consequence detailed on the Living’s card. Once the Living has been identified through a Sound Check (successfully or not), the Z may next Attack the Living by rolling the Chance Die again and applying the modifier to the base attack stat. If successful, the Z flips the Living token over to reveal the injured side, notating that the Living does not need to be Sound Checked again, and is ripe for the bitening. If the Z fails an Attack, though, they will suffer any consequences detailed on the Living’s card. When a Living is injured, they are vulnerable to a Z’s Bite. The Z will roll the special Bite die in an attempt to meet their Bite range on the Z’s character card. A successful Bite means the Z collects a friend and moves that much closer to victory! A failed Bite means the Z must place a color-matched Bite token on the Living standee to signify they cannot be Bitten by that same Z again.
Once a Z has taken their turn, they will draw a Reaction card from its pile. Reactions could be either beneficial to the Z, or could be very very bad news. Some Reaction cards bring Dogs into the game, and these Dogs chase and bite the Zs that drew them. Every Dog bite causes damage to the Z and after all their Limbs are gone, they are perma-dead and out of the game. Other Reactions could cause a Car to zoom down the street, mowing over anything in their path (Zs, Dogs, Living, etc).
In the cooperative mode, players work together to gain 15 friends before 10 Living perish and are placed on the Death Toll tracker. Every two Living tokens on the Death Toll tracker forces the players to draw and enact a Death Toll card. Once the win condition is met the players win!
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, so components will probably be a bit different in the final version. That said, I do have some opinions here. Firstly, there are a LOT of components included in this game. I am sure that they will all receive some kind of improvement in the final copy, so I will not comment on quality. I was able to play the prototype several times and had no problems with the components doing their job. I do have a comment on the art style. It’s just not my favorite. Now, this is obviously personal opinion, and it certainly does does not turn me off from the game at all. I just need to get it out to the aether that a different art style or genre may fit the game a bit better.
That all said, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed all my plays of Lonely Undead. Once the turns start cookin, you just don’t want to stop playing. Yes, there are random events or spawns that cause some chaos for our heroes, chief of which are the Dogs. Those little buggers will chase you all over town to get that juicy bite off and take one of your Limbs. I hate to say this, but there were many times I hoped to draw a Car card so that it could run over the Dogs (now, in real life I love dogs, but they are perfectly annoying in Lonely Undead). The variety of Z special powers lead to interesting combinations when playing co-op or competitively. However, I honestly prefer the co-op mode here.
In co-op, players are (obviously) working together to Bite and infect as many Living as they possibly can. This makes for some strategic placement between players, as well as combat tactics when Livings are clustered together in a building. Perhaps one Z is better at handling Officers, while another can more easily prey upon Livings from outside areas. Being able to set strategies and tactics by working together has made for some very excellent gaming experiences.
I’m going to be honest, as I always try to do. When I opened up Lonely Undead and saw the art style, I was a bit turned off. But, as I learned the game and played through it several times, I grew to really enjoy the game. I think it’s a great example of taking a tired theme and breathing a bit of new life into it. Yes, zombies are trying to eat people, but typically in zombie games the players are working AGAINST the zombies, not AS the zombies. I think this is a very clever spin. I have certainly and purposefully left out a few rules as surprises for gamers who decide to back this one, and I would recommend that you at least check out the Kickstarter campaign. This may not be for everyone, and even if the art doesn’t change, it is definitely for me. Kudos to Shelby Matussak and Dead Lemon Games for a fine first entry into the gaming world.
CHOMP!
Lonely Undead is a hand management, grid movement, zombie adventure game for one to four players with a super crazy theme. In it, players are Zs looking to make some friends in the neighborhood, but most unturnt neighbors are keeping their distance. So what’s a Z to do? Go bite and infect people so they can be friends forever, of course!
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. This preview will be highlighting the co-op mode with two players. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup, lay out the board somewhere on the table (thankfully the rules do not specify where, so go ahead and be a bit off-center this time). Zs (the players) all start in “Dead Center” of the board. The rulebook indicated how to construct the Living deck, and each deck of different types of cards should be shuffled and put in their place either on the board or just off it. For sake of ease, use the rulebook’s suggested placement of Living (so, NOT the Zs) tokens. Each player receives or chooses a Z to embody, receives two Aid cards, four Limbs, and the game is setup and ready to begin!
Lonely Undead is played over a series of rounds, with each round consisting of two phases: Z Phase and Town Phase. During the Z Phase, the active player will have four actions they may take from the following choices: Movement, Draw an Aid Card, Equip a Card, Sound Check, Attack, and Bite. Each Z has their own unique card with their special actions and other stats. A Z may move up to their Movement amount,including diagonally, for one action.
Aid Cards are very helpful to Zs, and for an action a Z may Draw an Aid Card to their hand. Aid Cards could be stat modifiers, or other special actions available to be used. Some Aid Cards are free to use, but if that text is not on the card, a Z will need to spend an action to Equip a Card to their Z.
When the Z is adjacent to a Living token, they must Sound Check it in order to identify the kind of Living they are stalking. To do this a Z rolls the Chance Die and applies any modifier rolled to their base stat on their card for hearing. This is compared against the Living card that is drawn to see if the Living notices the hunting Z. If the Z is successful in this Sound Check (winning all ties), then the Z may continue with their turn. If the Z fails the check, however, the Z will suffer the consequence detailed on the Living’s card. Once the Living has been identified through a Sound Check (successfully or not), the Z may next Attack the Living by rolling the Chance Die again and applying the modifier to the base attack stat. If successful, the Z flips the Living token over to reveal the injured side, notating that the Living does not need to be Sound Checked again, and is ripe for the bitening. If the Z fails an Attack, though, they will suffer any consequences detailed on the Living’s card. When a Living is injured, they are vulnerable to a Z’s Bite. The Z will roll the special Bite die in an attempt to meet their Bite range on the Z’s character card. A successful Bite means the Z collects a friend and moves that much closer to victory! A failed Bite means the Z must place a color-matched Bite token on the Living standee to signify they cannot be Bitten by that same Z again.
Once a Z has taken their turn, they will draw a Reaction card from its pile. Reactions could be either beneficial to the Z, or could be very very bad news. Some Reaction cards bring Dogs into the game, and these Dogs chase and bite the Zs that drew them. Every Dog bite causes damage to the Z and after all their Limbs are gone, they are perma-dead and out of the game. Other Reactions could cause a Car to zoom down the street, mowing over anything in their path (Zs, Dogs, Living, etc).
In the cooperative mode, players work together to gain 15 friends before 10 Living perish and are placed on the Death Toll tracker. Every two Living tokens on the Death Toll tracker forces the players to draw and enact a Death Toll card. Once the win condition is met the players win!
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, so components will probably be a bit different in the final version. That said, I do have some opinions here. Firstly, there are a LOT of components included in this game. I am sure that they will all receive some kind of improvement in the final copy, so I will not comment on quality. I was able to play the prototype several times and had no problems with the components doing their job. I do have a comment on the art style. It’s just not my favorite. Now, this is obviously personal opinion, and it certainly does does not turn me off from the game at all. I just need to get it out to the aether that a different art style or genre may fit the game a bit better.
That all said, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed all my plays of Lonely Undead. Once the turns start cookin, you just don’t want to stop playing. Yes, there are random events or spawns that cause some chaos for our heroes, chief of which are the Dogs. Those little buggers will chase you all over town to get that juicy bite off and take one of your Limbs. I hate to say this, but there were many times I hoped to draw a Car card so that it could run over the Dogs (now, in real life I love dogs, but they are perfectly annoying in Lonely Undead). The variety of Z special powers lead to interesting combinations when playing co-op or competitively. However, I honestly prefer the co-op mode here.
In co-op, players are (obviously) working together to Bite and infect as many Living as they possibly can. This makes for some strategic placement between players, as well as combat tactics when Livings are clustered together in a building. Perhaps one Z is better at handling Officers, while another can more easily prey upon Livings from outside areas. Being able to set strategies and tactics by working together has made for some very excellent gaming experiences.
I’m going to be honest, as I always try to do. When I opened up Lonely Undead and saw the art style, I was a bit turned off. But, as I learned the game and played through it several times, I grew to really enjoy the game. I think it’s a great example of taking a tired theme and breathing a bit of new life into it. Yes, zombies are trying to eat people, but typically in zombie games the players are working AGAINST the zombies, not AS the zombies. I think this is a very clever spin. I have certainly and purposefully left out a few rules as surprises for gamers who decide to back this one, and I would recommend that you at least check out the Kickstarter campaign. This may not be for everyone, and even if the art doesn’t change, it is definitely for me. Kudos to Shelby Matussak and Dead Lemon Games for a fine first entry into the gaming world.
CHOMP!
Kirk Bage (1775 KP) rated Tales from the Loop in TV
Jan 22, 2021
Such is the competition for our attention on the major streaming services, and such is the daunting depth of choice, that sometimes something of real quality can slip through the net for a while. I like to think that eventually, everything gets the audience it deserves, because eventually enough people that appreciated it will find it and pass it on. But it is apparent that good things can go under the radar very easily for one reason or another.
Everything about the production and presentation of Amazon’s Tales From the Loop suggests they thought it might be a bigger hit, or at least they had enough faith in it to let it be different from the mass appeal conventions that apply to sci-fi shows. They have proved this many times in recent years, with shows like The Man In the High Castle and The Expanse favouring patient and mature story-telling over interminable flashbangs and whizzpops usually found in the more action based sci-fi on Netflix and others (The Handmaid’s Tale being another notable exception).
Having raised myself auto-didactically on the oldest traditions of science fiction writing in novel and short story form since my teenage years, I can say with some amateur authority that the point of using sci-fi ideas was always about the people and the parallels to social reality and politics that could be highlighted by putting them in a “what-if” situation. The lazer guns and spaceships and evil aliens were much more a product of Hollywood, and still are. Great science fiction writing can and usually does revolve around a very simple change to the world we know, an inversion or a convention or a technology that turns how we live on its head. At its best it is philosophical and moral poetry.
Tales From the Loop, inspired by the beguiling paintings of Swedish Artist Simon Stålenhag aspires to return to these principles, eschewing breakneck pace and unnecessary exposition at every turn – it is entirely content to confuse and sometimes even bore you with its patient, melancholy approach, testing almost if you are worthy to reach the prize of deeper meaning buried away in the final few episodes.
The idea of Stålenhag’s work is to juxtapose a familiar and mundane landscape with a detail of technology that does not exist in our reality. Often it is something broken, run-down or neglected, leaving a strange sadness and beauty behind that has you wondering who once made this and what was it for, and why is it no longer loved? The untold stories objects and hidden lives, secrets and desires that have been lost, is what this sensitive and delicate show is about. It is about the interconnection of lives caught in time, and the sci-fi / tech conceit is only the hanger that coat is put on. Which… I love.
The surface idea is that we are looking at the inhabitants of a small American town that once relied on farming and community, but now has been changed by the presence of an underground facility that deals with experimental physics and finding ways to make impossible things possible. They call it The Loop. It is never fully explained where it came from, or why, or what it is truly capable of – the mystery is always allowed to remain mostly a mystery – which, again, I love!
Many people in the town work at The Loop and rely on it for their livelihoods and collective economy, including Jonathon Pryce and Rebecca Hall, who are ostensibly the show’s main characters. But most folk have no idea what is really going on. Each episode focuses on one or two members of the community that interweave with one another; several important people begin as background dressing and become more prevalent as the full story of their lives and connections unfolds. But no one character is in every episode… which, you know, I love.
Their lives, that seem simple at first glance, are revealed to be complex tapestries of emotion and personal history, revolving around how The Loop has affected them and the things they love. The progression and unfolding of the detail is so deliberate and usually under-explained that very often you don’t realise the effect the full image will have. And when it does catch up with you it becomes a very moving and meaningful experience. Characters that you don’t understand or even like at first come into sharper focus as we reach the climax of the season and grow to learn why they are the way they are. The story arcs of Pryce and Hall in particular are very satisfying, tragic yet utterly beautiful to comprehend.
A lot of the criticism you will see about the show will concentrate on how slow it all is. I am totally convinced this is a deliberate artistic choice to weed out the thrill junkies. They are very welcome to go elsewhere, and it sounds as if many of them did, basing their reviews on one or two half watched episodes they couldn’t be bothered to engage with or wonder at. Which is why I think in time the respect for this as a work of art will come back around.
There is nothing to fault in the production at all. From the opening credits to the end of each episode, what you get is a very highly polished and considered look and feel, designed to evoke certain feelings over others – a wistfulness, an ennui, a bittersweet smile of knowing, perhaps. It invites you to watch patiently and relate, not to watch eagerly and expect… which, you know, I love.
The photography is crisp and well framed always; the music is subtle but effective; the dialogue is often sparing and well chosen (no detail is merely thrown away); and the direction is of a remarkably uniform vision, considering each episode is a different guest professional, including such prestigious names as Jodie Foster, Mark Romanek and Andrew Stanton.
I absolutely urge anyone that isn’t put off by a little sentiment to give this one a try. Sadness and regret in life is not something to shun and be afraid of, they are parts of human experience, and I love art that explores them as concepts. Put that art in a science fiction context and I am bound to love it even more. Like the final moments of Blade Runner, we know that one day all these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. We have to take time to see the beauty while we can, even if that beauty is painful.
It may not be for you – I don’t think it is better or worse than other things, just more… me. There is every chance that if it isn’t you… you will hate it. If you do begin, however, please see it to the finish before casting judgement – the final episode directed by Jodie Foster is truly wonderful: a pay-off of such emotion after your investment of seven previous stories, tying it all together perfectly. Rarely have I felt so stupid for not understanding the point of something sooner, or been more pleased that I hadn’t. The final moment of the season is literally unforgettable, and gets richer in my imagination by the day.
Will there be a second season? There certainly could be. Was it enough of a success to justify the investment? Hmm, not sure. Either way, it either sits as a perfect self contained collection of fine, old-fashioned sci-fi stories, or I’d be happy to see it expand, as long as the temptation isn’t to listen to the negative reviews and pander to the fast-food mentality that has already rejected it without fully understanding it. Because nothing needs to change here. A thing of beauty, recommended to those who like beautiful and delicate things.
Everything about the production and presentation of Amazon’s Tales From the Loop suggests they thought it might be a bigger hit, or at least they had enough faith in it to let it be different from the mass appeal conventions that apply to sci-fi shows. They have proved this many times in recent years, with shows like The Man In the High Castle and The Expanse favouring patient and mature story-telling over interminable flashbangs and whizzpops usually found in the more action based sci-fi on Netflix and others (The Handmaid’s Tale being another notable exception).
Having raised myself auto-didactically on the oldest traditions of science fiction writing in novel and short story form since my teenage years, I can say with some amateur authority that the point of using sci-fi ideas was always about the people and the parallels to social reality and politics that could be highlighted by putting them in a “what-if” situation. The lazer guns and spaceships and evil aliens were much more a product of Hollywood, and still are. Great science fiction writing can and usually does revolve around a very simple change to the world we know, an inversion or a convention or a technology that turns how we live on its head. At its best it is philosophical and moral poetry.
Tales From the Loop, inspired by the beguiling paintings of Swedish Artist Simon Stålenhag aspires to return to these principles, eschewing breakneck pace and unnecessary exposition at every turn – it is entirely content to confuse and sometimes even bore you with its patient, melancholy approach, testing almost if you are worthy to reach the prize of deeper meaning buried away in the final few episodes.
The idea of Stålenhag’s work is to juxtapose a familiar and mundane landscape with a detail of technology that does not exist in our reality. Often it is something broken, run-down or neglected, leaving a strange sadness and beauty behind that has you wondering who once made this and what was it for, and why is it no longer loved? The untold stories objects and hidden lives, secrets and desires that have been lost, is what this sensitive and delicate show is about. It is about the interconnection of lives caught in time, and the sci-fi / tech conceit is only the hanger that coat is put on. Which… I love.
The surface idea is that we are looking at the inhabitants of a small American town that once relied on farming and community, but now has been changed by the presence of an underground facility that deals with experimental physics and finding ways to make impossible things possible. They call it The Loop. It is never fully explained where it came from, or why, or what it is truly capable of – the mystery is always allowed to remain mostly a mystery – which, again, I love!
Many people in the town work at The Loop and rely on it for their livelihoods and collective economy, including Jonathon Pryce and Rebecca Hall, who are ostensibly the show’s main characters. But most folk have no idea what is really going on. Each episode focuses on one or two members of the community that interweave with one another; several important people begin as background dressing and become more prevalent as the full story of their lives and connections unfolds. But no one character is in every episode… which, you know, I love.
Their lives, that seem simple at first glance, are revealed to be complex tapestries of emotion and personal history, revolving around how The Loop has affected them and the things they love. The progression and unfolding of the detail is so deliberate and usually under-explained that very often you don’t realise the effect the full image will have. And when it does catch up with you it becomes a very moving and meaningful experience. Characters that you don’t understand or even like at first come into sharper focus as we reach the climax of the season and grow to learn why they are the way they are. The story arcs of Pryce and Hall in particular are very satisfying, tragic yet utterly beautiful to comprehend.
A lot of the criticism you will see about the show will concentrate on how slow it all is. I am totally convinced this is a deliberate artistic choice to weed out the thrill junkies. They are very welcome to go elsewhere, and it sounds as if many of them did, basing their reviews on one or two half watched episodes they couldn’t be bothered to engage with or wonder at. Which is why I think in time the respect for this as a work of art will come back around.
There is nothing to fault in the production at all. From the opening credits to the end of each episode, what you get is a very highly polished and considered look and feel, designed to evoke certain feelings over others – a wistfulness, an ennui, a bittersweet smile of knowing, perhaps. It invites you to watch patiently and relate, not to watch eagerly and expect… which, you know, I love.
The photography is crisp and well framed always; the music is subtle but effective; the dialogue is often sparing and well chosen (no detail is merely thrown away); and the direction is of a remarkably uniform vision, considering each episode is a different guest professional, including such prestigious names as Jodie Foster, Mark Romanek and Andrew Stanton.
I absolutely urge anyone that isn’t put off by a little sentiment to give this one a try. Sadness and regret in life is not something to shun and be afraid of, they are parts of human experience, and I love art that explores them as concepts. Put that art in a science fiction context and I am bound to love it even more. Like the final moments of Blade Runner, we know that one day all these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. We have to take time to see the beauty while we can, even if that beauty is painful.
It may not be for you – I don’t think it is better or worse than other things, just more… me. There is every chance that if it isn’t you… you will hate it. If you do begin, however, please see it to the finish before casting judgement – the final episode directed by Jodie Foster is truly wonderful: a pay-off of such emotion after your investment of seven previous stories, tying it all together perfectly. Rarely have I felt so stupid for not understanding the point of something sooner, or been more pleased that I hadn’t. The final moment of the season is literally unforgettable, and gets richer in my imagination by the day.
Will there be a second season? There certainly could be. Was it enough of a success to justify the investment? Hmm, not sure. Either way, it either sits as a perfect self contained collection of fine, old-fashioned sci-fi stories, or I’d be happy to see it expand, as long as the temptation isn’t to listen to the negative reviews and pander to the fast-food mentality that has already rejected it without fully understanding it. Because nothing needs to change here. A thing of beauty, recommended to those who like beautiful and delicate things.
James P. Sumner (65 KP) rated Joker (2019) in Movies
Oct 7, 2019
An unapologetic masterpiece.
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this film. I'm a huge comic book fan, so the controversy and scepticism surrounding this movie, as well as the fact it's based within an established story world, had me doubting how it would work and how good the execution of it would be.
I certainly didn't expect the film I saw.
The basis for this movie is simple and effective: Arthur Fleck (played with a career-defining performance by Joaquin Phoenix) is a mentally unstable and depressed wannabe stand-up comedian working as a clown in a 1980's Gotham City. The movie is set against a backdrop of civil unrest, worker strikes and city-wide poverty, with each being exaggerated to highlight both the severity of each one for the purposes of the film, but also to shine a spotlight on how tough the real world was back then.
A potentially fatal encounter on a late-night subway acts as a catalyst for Fleck, who is shown throughout the first 20 minutes to be a man living on a knife's edge - balancing his own pitiful existence with the way society believes he should act. You get the sense that it would take nothing more than a gentle push to send him one way or the other. The subway was that push.
In a city that very much reflects the character's state of mind, this served to push more than just Arthur Fleck over the edge. Because he happened to be dressed as a clown at the time, and because the *cough* victims *cough* worked for Wayne Enterprises (ran by Thomas Wayne himself), it's seen by many as a vigilante act - someone standing up to the rich elite. This sparks outrage and rioting across the city. The idea of a man dressed as a clown standing up for the little guy becomes the poster child for a civil movement, much in the styling of "V For Vendetta (2005)".
The more Arthur Fleck struggles personally, the worse the streets of Gotham seem to get, as if society's increasing tension and unrest is somehow linked to his own state of mind. He finally realises what he has inadvertently created and begins to transform himself into the vigilante icon people already believe him to be.
Despite the slow pace of the movie, it never seems to drag. The story of Fleck's inevitable descent unfolds patiently, showing you exactly what it wants you to see, when it wants you to see it. It's a very bold and confident step for a movie which would've known how controversial it was going to be before it was even released.
The style of the film is extremely clever. The soundtrack is little more than a low-frequency hum, which plays almost constantly throughout. The camerawork is also exceptional. In every shot of Arthur Fleck, the camera centres on him before very slowly closing in on him. It's subtle, perhaps only a few millimetres per shot, but it's noticeable enough that you feel yourself being pulled in, being legitimately gripped by what you're watching. This contributes to what is, overall, a claustrophobic and sometimes unnerving experience.
There has been initial controversy about the film, with reports of people leaving the cinema during the screening for varying reasons. You see this from time to time, and the cynic in me thinks this is rarely more than clever marketing tactics. And then you see the comments from people who say they were disgusted or sickened or disturbed or whatever. I usually think it's a load of rubbish. That people are just saying that for attention. I don't honestly believe people who are that easily offended by a movie would choose to see something that is clearly going to show you all the things you don't like.
However, with "Joker (2019)", I can actually understand it. This is a truly disturbing film. Not for the violence, which has been the subject of much debate. There's actually very little violence in the movie, but when it's there, it's pretty graphic, admittedly. But honestly, it's not anywhere near as bad as a lot of things you see nowadays. No, it's disturbing because of how believable Arthur Fleck is. Seeing how unstable he is. Seeing how easy he can choose to do terrible things. It's... uncomfortable to watch at times, but only because it's so well done, so well written, you hate yourself for sympathising with him.
If I had to draw comparisons for this movie, I would have to say it's more subtle than "Watchmen (2009)", it's grittier and darker than "Taxi Driver (1976)" or "Fight Club (1999)" and much more uncompromising and unapologetic than "Natural Born Killers (1994)". It is truly a modern-day masterpiece. There are two major plot twists, both occurring in the second act, which really highlight the genius behind the screenplay. This movie is written perfectly, and executed the same way on-screen by Phoenix, who draws from both Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger to create this unique take on the character which more than holds its own.
Now, before I summarise, we do need to address the whole... y'know... Batman thing. This is the Joker's origin story, after all.
So, first thing's first: this isn't a comic book movie. Not by a long way. This belongs in the same conversation as Goodfellas, not Guardians of the Galaxy. Director Todd Phillips has even stated that this is simply a stand-alone movie telling a story that needed to be told. Yes, it has references to the DC comic universe (which I will omit here for fear of venturing into spolier territory), but it's unlikely to ever cross over with DC's attempt to mimic the MCU.
The nods to the comics are infrequent but clever, touching on themes and events we already know, and in some cases, re-writing them entirely - which definitely will draw controversy with the hardcore comic fans. For example, I did question why they used the civil unrest subplot and backdrop to essentially try and make Wayne Enterprises the villain of the story, but like it or not, it was necessary and it worked like a charm.
I don't know if this was intentional or not, but there was one scene in particular towards the end of the movie where the Joker (as he is now) is riding in the back of a car with his head leaning against the window. The camera was on the wing mirror, focused on his face, and almost frame-for-frame it reminded me of the iconic scene in "The Dark Knight (2008)" where Heath Ledger's Joker is driving with his head out of the window. I'd like to think this was a gracious tribute to the performance of this character that will never be topped.
For a film that breaks the conventions of story-telling by having no real build-up or climactic ending, I have to say I can't remember a time when I was so blown away, so moved, and so affected by a movie. As close to perfect as you'll see this year.
10/10
A quick side note:
The show "13 Reasons Why" has a disclaimer at the beginning of each series from the cast that essentially warns viewers that, due to the sensitive nature of the content, it's inadvisable to watch it if you're struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts. I genuinely think this film should carry a similar notice. It's a dark, grim, unrelenting journey into one man's depressive life. While I won't ever believe listening to Marilyn Manson can make you want to shoot schoolchildren, I do think that if someone is struggling with suicidal thoughts or depression, this movie probably isn't for them. The story focuses on the media glorifying the terrible acts of someone who is mentally unstable. Yes, it's a movie. It's not real. But for someone in a very bad place themselves, this probably isn't the kind of thing you need to, or should, watch.
I certainly didn't expect the film I saw.
The basis for this movie is simple and effective: Arthur Fleck (played with a career-defining performance by Joaquin Phoenix) is a mentally unstable and depressed wannabe stand-up comedian working as a clown in a 1980's Gotham City. The movie is set against a backdrop of civil unrest, worker strikes and city-wide poverty, with each being exaggerated to highlight both the severity of each one for the purposes of the film, but also to shine a spotlight on how tough the real world was back then.
A potentially fatal encounter on a late-night subway acts as a catalyst for Fleck, who is shown throughout the first 20 minutes to be a man living on a knife's edge - balancing his own pitiful existence with the way society believes he should act. You get the sense that it would take nothing more than a gentle push to send him one way or the other. The subway was that push.
In a city that very much reflects the character's state of mind, this served to push more than just Arthur Fleck over the edge. Because he happened to be dressed as a clown at the time, and because the *cough* victims *cough* worked for Wayne Enterprises (ran by Thomas Wayne himself), it's seen by many as a vigilante act - someone standing up to the rich elite. This sparks outrage and rioting across the city. The idea of a man dressed as a clown standing up for the little guy becomes the poster child for a civil movement, much in the styling of "V For Vendetta (2005)".
The more Arthur Fleck struggles personally, the worse the streets of Gotham seem to get, as if society's increasing tension and unrest is somehow linked to his own state of mind. He finally realises what he has inadvertently created and begins to transform himself into the vigilante icon people already believe him to be.
Despite the slow pace of the movie, it never seems to drag. The story of Fleck's inevitable descent unfolds patiently, showing you exactly what it wants you to see, when it wants you to see it. It's a very bold and confident step for a movie which would've known how controversial it was going to be before it was even released.
The style of the film is extremely clever. The soundtrack is little more than a low-frequency hum, which plays almost constantly throughout. The camerawork is also exceptional. In every shot of Arthur Fleck, the camera centres on him before very slowly closing in on him. It's subtle, perhaps only a few millimetres per shot, but it's noticeable enough that you feel yourself being pulled in, being legitimately gripped by what you're watching. This contributes to what is, overall, a claustrophobic and sometimes unnerving experience.
There has been initial controversy about the film, with reports of people leaving the cinema during the screening for varying reasons. You see this from time to time, and the cynic in me thinks this is rarely more than clever marketing tactics. And then you see the comments from people who say they were disgusted or sickened or disturbed or whatever. I usually think it's a load of rubbish. That people are just saying that for attention. I don't honestly believe people who are that easily offended by a movie would choose to see something that is clearly going to show you all the things you don't like.
However, with "Joker (2019)", I can actually understand it. This is a truly disturbing film. Not for the violence, which has been the subject of much debate. There's actually very little violence in the movie, but when it's there, it's pretty graphic, admittedly. But honestly, it's not anywhere near as bad as a lot of things you see nowadays. No, it's disturbing because of how believable Arthur Fleck is. Seeing how unstable he is. Seeing how easy he can choose to do terrible things. It's... uncomfortable to watch at times, but only because it's so well done, so well written, you hate yourself for sympathising with him.
If I had to draw comparisons for this movie, I would have to say it's more subtle than "Watchmen (2009)", it's grittier and darker than "Taxi Driver (1976)" or "Fight Club (1999)" and much more uncompromising and unapologetic than "Natural Born Killers (1994)". It is truly a modern-day masterpiece. There are two major plot twists, both occurring in the second act, which really highlight the genius behind the screenplay. This movie is written perfectly, and executed the same way on-screen by Phoenix, who draws from both Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger to create this unique take on the character which more than holds its own.
Now, before I summarise, we do need to address the whole... y'know... Batman thing. This is the Joker's origin story, after all.
So, first thing's first: this isn't a comic book movie. Not by a long way. This belongs in the same conversation as Goodfellas, not Guardians of the Galaxy. Director Todd Phillips has even stated that this is simply a stand-alone movie telling a story that needed to be told. Yes, it has references to the DC comic universe (which I will omit here for fear of venturing into spolier territory), but it's unlikely to ever cross over with DC's attempt to mimic the MCU.
The nods to the comics are infrequent but clever, touching on themes and events we already know, and in some cases, re-writing them entirely - which definitely will draw controversy with the hardcore comic fans. For example, I did question why they used the civil unrest subplot and backdrop to essentially try and make Wayne Enterprises the villain of the story, but like it or not, it was necessary and it worked like a charm.
I don't know if this was intentional or not, but there was one scene in particular towards the end of the movie where the Joker (as he is now) is riding in the back of a car with his head leaning against the window. The camera was on the wing mirror, focused on his face, and almost frame-for-frame it reminded me of the iconic scene in "The Dark Knight (2008)" where Heath Ledger's Joker is driving with his head out of the window. I'd like to think this was a gracious tribute to the performance of this character that will never be topped.
For a film that breaks the conventions of story-telling by having no real build-up or climactic ending, I have to say I can't remember a time when I was so blown away, so moved, and so affected by a movie. As close to perfect as you'll see this year.
10/10
A quick side note:
The show "13 Reasons Why" has a disclaimer at the beginning of each series from the cast that essentially warns viewers that, due to the sensitive nature of the content, it's inadvisable to watch it if you're struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts. I genuinely think this film should carry a similar notice. It's a dark, grim, unrelenting journey into one man's depressive life. While I won't ever believe listening to Marilyn Manson can make you want to shoot schoolchildren, I do think that if someone is struggling with suicidal thoughts or depression, this movie probably isn't for them. The story focuses on the media glorifying the terrible acts of someone who is mentally unstable. Yes, it's a movie. It's not real. But for someone in a very bad place themselves, this probably isn't the kind of thing you need to, or should, watch.
Haley Mathiot (9 KP) rated Crime and Punishment in Books
Apr 27, 2018
**spoilers**
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. read by Anthony Heald.
Genre: Fiction, classic
Rating: 5
Sin, Sentence, and Salvation
The allegory of Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment, one of the more famous works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, is considered “the first great novel of his mature period,” (Frank, 1995) and is one of his more famous books, rivaled only by The Brothers Karamazov. What makes Crime and Punishment such a classic? Perhaps because it is a picture of the only classic, and greatest story of all time. Crime and Punishment is an allegory of Salvation.
Self-justified
The main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, was a poor student at a university, and was overcome with hate toward an old pawnbroker, and decided to rid the world of her for the greater good of everyone. He believed that she was a “louse,” and since everyone would be happier without her, his actions would be justified. He believed that he had broken the letter of the law only, but that it didn’t have any authority over him anyway because it was written by people just as low as himself. He didn’t believe in God, and in prison he was convinced that he didn’t deserve his treatment, and that it was something he simply needed to get over with. He had no higher authority, so he said “my conscience is at rest.” This is a picture of man before he is touched by the merciful salvation of Christ.
A Troubled Man
Although Raskolnikov justified his actions in killing the old woman, he still felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and fear over what he did. He worked very hard at keeping it a secret, and at first he thought he could live with the guilt that sat in back of his mind, but he was wrong. Raskolnikov had horrible dreams, was always sick, and one of the other characters noticed that he was constantly “set off by little things” for no apparent reason (though the reader knew that it was only because it reminded him of his crime). This represents a man who knows in his heart that he is a sinner, but who will not turn and repent from his sin.
Unending Love
Sonya Semyonovna Marmeladov was the daughter of a drunkard who “took the yellow card” and prostituted herself to support her family. Throughout the book, Sonya began to love Raskolnikov. Eventually, Raskolnikov told Sonya his secret. Sonya was horrified, but still loved him and forgave him after her initial shock wore off. As Raskolnikov was fighting inside with his conscience and his sins, he repeatedly snapped at her, refused her comfort, yelled at her, and so on. He was a bitter, angry, hateful man—and yet Sonya forgave him for everything he did to her, and everything he had done in his past. What redeeming quality Sonya saw in the wretch and why she forgave him, one cannot begin to comprehend; aside from the simple truth that Sonya was a loving, gentile, merciful girl. She saw that Raskolnikov needed someone to love him and she reached out to him, even when he repeatedly pushed her away. Sonya’s love for him is a picture of Christ’s unending and perfect love to His sinful people.
A Silent Witness
When Raskolnikov finally broke down and confessed his crime, Sonya moved to Siberia with him. Raskolnikov expected this, and knew that telling her not to come would be fruitless. She visited him often in prison and wrote to his family for him. But although Raskolnikov expected her to preach to him and push the Gospel in his face, she did not. Sonya followed the scripture’s instruction to Christian wives with non-Christian husbands in 1 Peter 3:1—“ Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives…” The verse tells women to be good examples of Christ to their non-Christian husbands rather than to preach to them and try to convert them, and that is exactly what Sonya did, even though she was not married to him. She did not try to convert him with words; rather she won him with her love. She did not push the Testament into Raskolnikov’s hands, he asked for it. When she did bring it, she did not pester him to read it. She had faith, and showed Raskolnikov the love of Christ through her actions. In the end, it paid off. Although Dostoevsky does not specifically say that Raskolnikov was converted, he does imply that he eventually became a Christian when he mused “Can not her own convictions now be mine?”
The truth will set you free
When Raskolnikov finally realized that he loved Sonya, he accepted that he was a criminal, and a murderer. When he finally accepted that he was a sinner, he repented and had a new life in him. He said he felt like “he had risen again” and that Sonya “lived only in his life.” By life, Dostoevsky refers to his mentality. Before, he had been a living dead man in prison. He was hated by his inmates, was almost killed by them in an outbreak, was unaffected by anything that happened to him or his family, and eventually became ill from it all. But after his resurrection, he repented from his sins, learned to move on with his life, and started to change. He began to converse with his inmates, and they no longer hated him. Sonya was alive in his “life” because of her love for him. When he was changed, she was so happy that she became sick with joy, to the point that she was ill in bed. Dostoevsky paints a picture of a redeemed man at the end of his novel—redeemed both by the law, and by God. This picture symbolizes the miracle of salvation through Christ.
An amazing Allegory
Dostoevsky was a wonderful writer because of his use of dialogue to tell the story, his descriptive scenes, his powerfully developed characters, and their inner dialogue. He often times told you that something was happening by only telling you what the character who was speaking at the time said in response to what was going on. For example, if Sonya was standing up, Dostoevsky would write “… ‘hey, what do you stand for?’ for Sonya had stood.”
He also painted such good descriptions of his characters, that by the middle of the book he didn’t have to say that Raskolnikov was musing in the corner of the room, glaring at anyone who was brave enough to look at him, while he stewed in grief under his old ratted cap, because you knew from how well he was described earlier and how well his character was developed from the dialogue, that he was doing exactly that.
His characters are so real, they almost frighten you because you see the things they do and feel and experience reflected in your own life. They are not perfect—in fact they are all incredibly flawed, but they are a joy to read.
His ending is superb, because he closes the story without actually telling you everything. He never says that Raskolnikov was converted, he never says when he got out of prison, and he never says that Sonya and he were married, but you know that it happened. The last scene of the story is so superb, it makes you want to read it again, just to experience the joy all over again.
But what really made Crime and Punishment the classic that it was is the picture of the best story in the world, the classic story of the world, showing through. The story of the Gospel, of Jesus Christ’s unending love and sin and salvation is clearly portrayed, and makes a joyous read.
Works cited:
Quotes are from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1886
Frank, Joseph (1995). Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865–1871. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01587-2. (source found and taken from Wikipedia.com)
1 Peter 3:1 New International Version of The Holy Bible
Audio review: I had a hard time reading the book, simply because it was so huge that it was intimidating. I bought (ouch) the audio book of Crime and Punishment, recorded by Anthony Heald who did a fantastic job reading. His voices for the characters perfectly matched them, he felt for them, and he acted them. None of them were cheesy (yeah you all know how lame some male readers are at acting female voices). He read fast enough that the story didn't drag at all, but not so fast that you'd feel like you'd miss something if you didn't listen hard. I will definitely re-listen to the audio book.
Content: some gruesome descriptions of blood from the murder
Recommendation: Ages 14+
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. read by Anthony Heald.
Genre: Fiction, classic
Rating: 5
Sin, Sentence, and Salvation
The allegory of Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment, one of the more famous works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, is considered “the first great novel of his mature period,” (Frank, 1995) and is one of his more famous books, rivaled only by The Brothers Karamazov. What makes Crime and Punishment such a classic? Perhaps because it is a picture of the only classic, and greatest story of all time. Crime and Punishment is an allegory of Salvation.
Self-justified
The main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, was a poor student at a university, and was overcome with hate toward an old pawnbroker, and decided to rid the world of her for the greater good of everyone. He believed that she was a “louse,” and since everyone would be happier without her, his actions would be justified. He believed that he had broken the letter of the law only, but that it didn’t have any authority over him anyway because it was written by people just as low as himself. He didn’t believe in God, and in prison he was convinced that he didn’t deserve his treatment, and that it was something he simply needed to get over with. He had no higher authority, so he said “my conscience is at rest.” This is a picture of man before he is touched by the merciful salvation of Christ.
A Troubled Man
Although Raskolnikov justified his actions in killing the old woman, he still felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and fear over what he did. He worked very hard at keeping it a secret, and at first he thought he could live with the guilt that sat in back of his mind, but he was wrong. Raskolnikov had horrible dreams, was always sick, and one of the other characters noticed that he was constantly “set off by little things” for no apparent reason (though the reader knew that it was only because it reminded him of his crime). This represents a man who knows in his heart that he is a sinner, but who will not turn and repent from his sin.
Unending Love
Sonya Semyonovna Marmeladov was the daughter of a drunkard who “took the yellow card” and prostituted herself to support her family. Throughout the book, Sonya began to love Raskolnikov. Eventually, Raskolnikov told Sonya his secret. Sonya was horrified, but still loved him and forgave him after her initial shock wore off. As Raskolnikov was fighting inside with his conscience and his sins, he repeatedly snapped at her, refused her comfort, yelled at her, and so on. He was a bitter, angry, hateful man—and yet Sonya forgave him for everything he did to her, and everything he had done in his past. What redeeming quality Sonya saw in the wretch and why she forgave him, one cannot begin to comprehend; aside from the simple truth that Sonya was a loving, gentile, merciful girl. She saw that Raskolnikov needed someone to love him and she reached out to him, even when he repeatedly pushed her away. Sonya’s love for him is a picture of Christ’s unending and perfect love to His sinful people.
A Silent Witness
When Raskolnikov finally broke down and confessed his crime, Sonya moved to Siberia with him. Raskolnikov expected this, and knew that telling her not to come would be fruitless. She visited him often in prison and wrote to his family for him. But although Raskolnikov expected her to preach to him and push the Gospel in his face, she did not. Sonya followed the scripture’s instruction to Christian wives with non-Christian husbands in 1 Peter 3:1—“ Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives…” The verse tells women to be good examples of Christ to their non-Christian husbands rather than to preach to them and try to convert them, and that is exactly what Sonya did, even though she was not married to him. She did not try to convert him with words; rather she won him with her love. She did not push the Testament into Raskolnikov’s hands, he asked for it. When she did bring it, she did not pester him to read it. She had faith, and showed Raskolnikov the love of Christ through her actions. In the end, it paid off. Although Dostoevsky does not specifically say that Raskolnikov was converted, he does imply that he eventually became a Christian when he mused “Can not her own convictions now be mine?”
The truth will set you free
When Raskolnikov finally realized that he loved Sonya, he accepted that he was a criminal, and a murderer. When he finally accepted that he was a sinner, he repented and had a new life in him. He said he felt like “he had risen again” and that Sonya “lived only in his life.” By life, Dostoevsky refers to his mentality. Before, he had been a living dead man in prison. He was hated by his inmates, was almost killed by them in an outbreak, was unaffected by anything that happened to him or his family, and eventually became ill from it all. But after his resurrection, he repented from his sins, learned to move on with his life, and started to change. He began to converse with his inmates, and they no longer hated him. Sonya was alive in his “life” because of her love for him. When he was changed, she was so happy that she became sick with joy, to the point that she was ill in bed. Dostoevsky paints a picture of a redeemed man at the end of his novel—redeemed both by the law, and by God. This picture symbolizes the miracle of salvation through Christ.
An amazing Allegory
Dostoevsky was a wonderful writer because of his use of dialogue to tell the story, his descriptive scenes, his powerfully developed characters, and their inner dialogue. He often times told you that something was happening by only telling you what the character who was speaking at the time said in response to what was going on. For example, if Sonya was standing up, Dostoevsky would write “… ‘hey, what do you stand for?’ for Sonya had stood.”
He also painted such good descriptions of his characters, that by the middle of the book he didn’t have to say that Raskolnikov was musing in the corner of the room, glaring at anyone who was brave enough to look at him, while he stewed in grief under his old ratted cap, because you knew from how well he was described earlier and how well his character was developed from the dialogue, that he was doing exactly that.
His characters are so real, they almost frighten you because you see the things they do and feel and experience reflected in your own life. They are not perfect—in fact they are all incredibly flawed, but they are a joy to read.
His ending is superb, because he closes the story without actually telling you everything. He never says that Raskolnikov was converted, he never says when he got out of prison, and he never says that Sonya and he were married, but you know that it happened. The last scene of the story is so superb, it makes you want to read it again, just to experience the joy all over again.
But what really made Crime and Punishment the classic that it was is the picture of the best story in the world, the classic story of the world, showing through. The story of the Gospel, of Jesus Christ’s unending love and sin and salvation is clearly portrayed, and makes a joyous read.
Works cited:
Quotes are from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1886
Frank, Joseph (1995). Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865–1871. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01587-2. (source found and taken from Wikipedia.com)
1 Peter 3:1 New International Version of The Holy Bible
Audio review: I had a hard time reading the book, simply because it was so huge that it was intimidating. I bought (ouch) the audio book of Crime and Punishment, recorded by Anthony Heald who did a fantastic job reading. His voices for the characters perfectly matched them, he felt for them, and he acted them. None of them were cheesy (yeah you all know how lame some male readers are at acting female voices). He read fast enough that the story didn't drag at all, but not so fast that you'd feel like you'd miss something if you didn't listen hard. I will definitely re-listen to the audio book.
Content: some gruesome descriptions of blood from the murder
Recommendation: Ages 14+
Mandy and G.D. Burkhead (26 KP) rated Banewreaker in Books
May 20, 2018
Shelf Life – Banewreaker Will Make You Feel Bad for Sauron
Contains spoilers, click to show
Very few fantasy fans can get away with admitting that they aren’t all that big into sweeping, high epic fantasy à la Lord of the Rings or the Pern stories or everything that Terry Brooks writes. Many non-fantasy fans, however, can point to these tales as examples of why they aren’t into fantasy. Like it or not, it’s hard not to see the latter group’s point, as a lot of high fantasy is riddled with confusing terminology, rehashed stories, and genre clichés. This is not to say that these stories are bad, per sé, just that they can easily turn off readers who aren’t in the right kind of crowd.
Banewreaker, the first book in Jacqueline Carey’s two-part volume The Sundering, will probably not change any opinions in this respect, then, as it’s sweeping high fantasy to the core. This, as it turns out, is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.
There are some reviews out there that laud Banewreaker as a masterful examination of subjective viewpoints in an epic fantasy turned into a human tragedy by a simple change of perspective. And they are absolutely correct.
There are other reviews, however, that call the book out as a heap of all of the stalest fantasy clichés piled one atop the other in a confusing and pretentious jumble with a shellacking of purple prose for good measure. And they are also absolutely correct.
Let me explain.
For starters, it would be inaccurate to say that this story is full of clichés. This story is clichés. This story is every familiar and used-up trope you would expect from a high fantasy, all of those details that have been done to death in thousands of other versions until almost nothing that happens seems original anymore.
This is what’s going to turn off a lot of people. But the thing is, Banewreaker has to be this way. It wants the reader to look at all of the things that they’ve come to expect from a fantasy epic and then, by shifting the narrative focus, realize that all of these beloved tropes are actually, when you think about it, tragic as hell.
In other words, it’s Lord of the Rings from Sauron’s point of view.
It’s not a riff, though. It’s not goofy like most of the stuff I go in for. It takes its subject just as seriously as the stories that it’s mirroring, and this is what makes the whole story ultimately so gripping and so moving.
The story starts out like many stories of this magnitude, with exposition stretching back to the Dawn of This Particular Creation. In this case, we have a protogenos world god named Uru-Alat who died and gave rise to seven smaller godlike beings called Shapers. First comes Haomane, who becomes the Lord of Thought and sets himself up as head honcho for this ensuing pantheon. Second is Arahila, the Basically a Love Goddess; and third is Satoris, whose purview was “the quickening of the flesh,” which is high fantasy speak for sexy times. Four more Shapers come after this who, for the sake of brevity, we’ll be glossing over.
To summarize the important godly exposition, the Seven Shapers set about shaping the world to the surprise of no one. Haomane creates elves (here called Ellyl, but if you’ve ever even looked at a fantasy, you know that they’re the elves here), Arahila creates humans, and Satoris doesn’t create anything because he’s busy hanging out with dragons and learning their wisdom. Satoris grants his fleshy quickening to the humans but not the elves, because Haomane didn’t want his elves to do that. Then Haomane decides he doesn’t want the humans to do that either, but Satoris refuses to take the gift away again. Conflict escalates, god wars ensue, and the world splits into two continents, with Satoris ostracized from his brethren on one and the remaining Shapers on the other. By the time the dust has settled, Satoris is scarred and burned pitch black, living in a mostly dead land thanks to Haomane’s wrath, but with a dagger in his possession that is the only weapon capable of killing any of the Shapers.
The story itself picks up thousands of years later, with Satoris as the Satan/Sauron stand-in living in a forbidding land surrounded by classically evil things like trolls, giant spiders, and insane people. Since Haomane is the head god, the rest of the world believes Satoris to be a terrible figure of evil and betrayal, while Satoris’s few allies know him as a pitiable and misunderstood figure who only ever wanted to honor his word and do right by his own sense of morality rather than the dictates of his elder brother god king.
From here the plot becomes the typical Army of Good vs. Army of Evil adventure, but with the protagonistic focus on Satoris and his allies. His trolls we see not as a mindless horde but as a simple, honorable people who happily serve their lord because he happily serves them right back. The mad individuals inhabiting his fortress are castaways from normal society with nowhere else to go. And the giant spiders just happen to live there and be bigger than normal, with no sinister intentions beyond that.
And just like that, by actually showing us the home life of the ultimate in evil fantasy tropes, we see how easily one side’s view of evil is another’s view of good. In doing so, Banewreaker becomes perhaps the first sweeping fantasy epic with no real bad guy, just two sides of an unfortunate conflict. Both sides have their likeable characters, both sides seem from their view to be in the right, and pretty soon you, as the reader, will stop cheering for either one, because whenever one person that you like succeeds it means that another person whom you also like is failing.
In fact, the closest thing that this story has to a clearly-labeled “evil” character is the sorceress Lilias, and even then, she’s not evil so much as a woman who has done some bad things for completely understandable reasons. Lilias, in fact, is one of the most pitiful characters in this whole saga of pitiable characters, with her fears and attachments closely mirroring those of most readers, only amplified by her immortality and magical powers. She is afraid of dying. She wants to be more in the grand scheme of things than just another man’s wife or another country’s momentary ruler, both of which would just be tiny moments in a long history. She likes her youth. She likes having pretty things and pretty people around her. And from her interactions with her dragon mentor and apparently only friend, Calandor, we see that she is also capable of intense affection and even love just as she is capable of indulging in self-centered self-interest that, if not particularly a good trait, is also one that she is not alone in possessing.
Banewreaker, then, is a story with a large cast of characters but very few actual heroes or innocents as well as very few outright villains, which is exactly what it sets out to be. Those who love it and those who hate it both seem to blame this quality in particular for their feelings. The biggest complaint leveled against it (that I have read, anyway) is that the people we should be rooting for do not deserve our sympathy, while the people we should be rooting against are more misguided and unwilling to see things in another light than deserving of our scorn.
This is true. But if it’s a flaw, it’s an intentional one. And if it makes you feel like you shouldn’t be cheering for either side at all in this conflict, that’s the point. This is a story of clichés, yes, but it has something that it needs to say about these clichés and, in doing so, about the subjective and impossibly nebulous quality of morality in general.
In short, here again is another fantasy story about the Forces of Good wiping out an entire nation dedicated to their “evil” enemy. And as the story points out, even if you believe in that cause, you’re still wiping out an entire nation of people. No way is there not a downside to that. Seeing things in a black-and-white morality just means crushing a whole lot of important shades of gray underfoot.
Whether or not you like Banewreaker, then, depends in large part upon how much you realize that Carey as an author is being self-aware. As someone who read and still hasn’t stopped being awed over her Kushiel series, I can’t claim complete objectivity in this area, because I came to Banewreaker already in love with her. I can say, however, that unless you have an intense and searing aversion to ornate and sweeping style, this book is worth any fantasy-lover’s time – especially if you’ve ever felt a pang of empathy for all of the poor villainous mooks that fantasy heroes tend to mow down without a thought because they were the wrong kind of ugly.
Banewreaker, the first book in Jacqueline Carey’s two-part volume The Sundering, will probably not change any opinions in this respect, then, as it’s sweeping high fantasy to the core. This, as it turns out, is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.
There are some reviews out there that laud Banewreaker as a masterful examination of subjective viewpoints in an epic fantasy turned into a human tragedy by a simple change of perspective. And they are absolutely correct.
There are other reviews, however, that call the book out as a heap of all of the stalest fantasy clichés piled one atop the other in a confusing and pretentious jumble with a shellacking of purple prose for good measure. And they are also absolutely correct.
Let me explain.
For starters, it would be inaccurate to say that this story is full of clichés. This story is clichés. This story is every familiar and used-up trope you would expect from a high fantasy, all of those details that have been done to death in thousands of other versions until almost nothing that happens seems original anymore.
This is what’s going to turn off a lot of people. But the thing is, Banewreaker has to be this way. It wants the reader to look at all of the things that they’ve come to expect from a fantasy epic and then, by shifting the narrative focus, realize that all of these beloved tropes are actually, when you think about it, tragic as hell.
In other words, it’s Lord of the Rings from Sauron’s point of view.
It’s not a riff, though. It’s not goofy like most of the stuff I go in for. It takes its subject just as seriously as the stories that it’s mirroring, and this is what makes the whole story ultimately so gripping and so moving.
The story starts out like many stories of this magnitude, with exposition stretching back to the Dawn of This Particular Creation. In this case, we have a protogenos world god named Uru-Alat who died and gave rise to seven smaller godlike beings called Shapers. First comes Haomane, who becomes the Lord of Thought and sets himself up as head honcho for this ensuing pantheon. Second is Arahila, the Basically a Love Goddess; and third is Satoris, whose purview was “the quickening of the flesh,” which is high fantasy speak for sexy times. Four more Shapers come after this who, for the sake of brevity, we’ll be glossing over.
To summarize the important godly exposition, the Seven Shapers set about shaping the world to the surprise of no one. Haomane creates elves (here called Ellyl, but if you’ve ever even looked at a fantasy, you know that they’re the elves here), Arahila creates humans, and Satoris doesn’t create anything because he’s busy hanging out with dragons and learning their wisdom. Satoris grants his fleshy quickening to the humans but not the elves, because Haomane didn’t want his elves to do that. Then Haomane decides he doesn’t want the humans to do that either, but Satoris refuses to take the gift away again. Conflict escalates, god wars ensue, and the world splits into two continents, with Satoris ostracized from his brethren on one and the remaining Shapers on the other. By the time the dust has settled, Satoris is scarred and burned pitch black, living in a mostly dead land thanks to Haomane’s wrath, but with a dagger in his possession that is the only weapon capable of killing any of the Shapers.
The story itself picks up thousands of years later, with Satoris as the Satan/Sauron stand-in living in a forbidding land surrounded by classically evil things like trolls, giant spiders, and insane people. Since Haomane is the head god, the rest of the world believes Satoris to be a terrible figure of evil and betrayal, while Satoris’s few allies know him as a pitiable and misunderstood figure who only ever wanted to honor his word and do right by his own sense of morality rather than the dictates of his elder brother god king.
From here the plot becomes the typical Army of Good vs. Army of Evil adventure, but with the protagonistic focus on Satoris and his allies. His trolls we see not as a mindless horde but as a simple, honorable people who happily serve their lord because he happily serves them right back. The mad individuals inhabiting his fortress are castaways from normal society with nowhere else to go. And the giant spiders just happen to live there and be bigger than normal, with no sinister intentions beyond that.
And just like that, by actually showing us the home life of the ultimate in evil fantasy tropes, we see how easily one side’s view of evil is another’s view of good. In doing so, Banewreaker becomes perhaps the first sweeping fantasy epic with no real bad guy, just two sides of an unfortunate conflict. Both sides have their likeable characters, both sides seem from their view to be in the right, and pretty soon you, as the reader, will stop cheering for either one, because whenever one person that you like succeeds it means that another person whom you also like is failing.
In fact, the closest thing that this story has to a clearly-labeled “evil” character is the sorceress Lilias, and even then, she’s not evil so much as a woman who has done some bad things for completely understandable reasons. Lilias, in fact, is one of the most pitiful characters in this whole saga of pitiable characters, with her fears and attachments closely mirroring those of most readers, only amplified by her immortality and magical powers. She is afraid of dying. She wants to be more in the grand scheme of things than just another man’s wife or another country’s momentary ruler, both of which would just be tiny moments in a long history. She likes her youth. She likes having pretty things and pretty people around her. And from her interactions with her dragon mentor and apparently only friend, Calandor, we see that she is also capable of intense affection and even love just as she is capable of indulging in self-centered self-interest that, if not particularly a good trait, is also one that she is not alone in possessing.
Banewreaker, then, is a story with a large cast of characters but very few actual heroes or innocents as well as very few outright villains, which is exactly what it sets out to be. Those who love it and those who hate it both seem to blame this quality in particular for their feelings. The biggest complaint leveled against it (that I have read, anyway) is that the people we should be rooting for do not deserve our sympathy, while the people we should be rooting against are more misguided and unwilling to see things in another light than deserving of our scorn.
This is true. But if it’s a flaw, it’s an intentional one. And if it makes you feel like you shouldn’t be cheering for either side at all in this conflict, that’s the point. This is a story of clichés, yes, but it has something that it needs to say about these clichés and, in doing so, about the subjective and impossibly nebulous quality of morality in general.
In short, here again is another fantasy story about the Forces of Good wiping out an entire nation dedicated to their “evil” enemy. And as the story points out, even if you believe in that cause, you’re still wiping out an entire nation of people. No way is there not a downside to that. Seeing things in a black-and-white morality just means crushing a whole lot of important shades of gray underfoot.
Whether or not you like Banewreaker, then, depends in large part upon how much you realize that Carey as an author is being self-aware. As someone who read and still hasn’t stopped being awed over her Kushiel series, I can’t claim complete objectivity in this area, because I came to Banewreaker already in love with her. I can say, however, that unless you have an intense and searing aversion to ornate and sweeping style, this book is worth any fantasy-lover’s time – especially if you’ve ever felt a pang of empathy for all of the poor villainous mooks that fantasy heroes tend to mow down without a thought because they were the wrong kind of ugly.
5 Minute Movie Guy (379 KP) rated Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) in Movies
Jun 29, 2019
There's a lot of good, fun, over-the-top, explosive action! (2 more)
Age of Extinction features an incredible showcase of special effects.
Great acting from Tucci and Grammar, and a solid new star for the franchise with Mark Wahlberg.
With a 2 hour and 45 minute run-time, the movie goes on far too long and loses steam before the finale. (1 more)
The plot is completely overloaded with enough content to easily cover two films.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is a fun summer movie that sticks to Michael Bay's usual mode of operation, but it's jam-packed and overly ambitious, stretching the run time far longer than it ever should.
After the events of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, referred to in the film as The Battle of Chicago, the surviving Autobots are being hunted to extinction. The United States government is bent on exterminating all Transformers, good and bad, believing them to be an unwelcome global threat. All the while, the hypocritical government has simultaneously partnered with a wealthy inventor who is trying to create his own superior, man-made variations of Transformers. Furthermore, they’re working with the help of the Transformer bounty hunter Lockdown to search out and annihilate Optimus Prime, the famed leader of the Autobots. Prime has been forced into hiding and has sent out a distress call encouraging his comrades to follow suit. When amateur inventor Cade Yeager inadvertently stumbles upon a disguised Optimus Prime, he helps to repair the damaged Transformer who must reunite with his remaining allies to fight for their right to live.
Before I dive into this review, I think I should inform you that I have not seen any of the previous Transformers movies. I should also note that I’m something of a Transformers hater. Despite pressure from family and friends who have praised the movie series, I have deliberately avoided every single one of the films. I never liked the cartoon as a kid, and while Transformers’ amalgamation of cars and robots may be a dream combination for most guys, I have very little interest in either. However, as a critic, I cannot let my own biases get in the way of giving fair judgment. After having watched Transformers: Age of Extinction, I can thankfully report that the film actually wasn’t half bad. While it’s not going to make a Transformers fan out of me, it was an entertaining, albeit overly-long, movie-going experience.
Age of Extinction is an action-packed ride, filled with the kind of over-the-top entertainment you would expect from a Michael Bay film. While Bay has developed something of a bad rap, there’s no denying his knack for fun and ridiculous action sequences. He’s a man who spares no expense when it comes to explosions and special effects, and this is where Bay is at his best. Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue with his results as he’s surely one of the most successful directors of all time. However, clocking in at two hours and forty-five minutes, the high-speed action of Age of Extinction is exhausting and becomes tiresome long before the finale. Even when Bay slows things down, he keeps the camera overly busy with particle effects and constant movement. While all of that looks great in IMAX 3D, it feels like an endless visual barrage that is frankly a lot to take in. How many lens flares must a man endure in one movie? I understand the desire to make every shot exciting and visually striking, but I think Bay is trying to tackle too much on camera.
Similarly, Age of Extinction is trying to squeeze too much into its plot, which could almost be broken up into two entirely separate movies. We have the hunt for Optimus Prime and the Transformers by Lockdown and the CIA; Cade Yeager’s discovery of Prime and their ensuing alliance; the love story between Cade’s daughter and her boyfriend; the emergence of the Dinobots; as well as the man-made construction of new Transformers. The result is a fast-paced action movie that is convoluted and far too long. That’s not to say that what is there is bad, though. Awful love story aside, all of the other components of the story are solid and even pretty interesting. Kelsey Grammer puts in a good performance as the head of the CIA who is responsible for the extermination of the Transformers. Similarly, Stanley Tucci is great as Joshua Joyce, the brilliant inventor who is recreating human-controlled Transformers for military use. Yet I can’t help but think that Joyce’s plot would have been perhaps been better to save for a sequel. Sure, it offers a nice parallel between the two inventors and it also creates an opportunity for them to introduce some all-new Transformers, but aren’t the Dinobots enough? There’s so much going on in the film that the eagerly-anticipated Dinobots aren’t given much screen time at all. There is just an unreasonable amount of narratives going on in this movie, to the point where it’s hard to follow, and even harder to stay interested in. Instead of sitting on the edge of your seat during the climactic showdown, you’re probably going to be looking at your watch and wondering how much longer this movie can possibly go on.
While I’m no expert on Transformers, I think the film does an admirable job in bringing the robotic characters to life. Their appearance and animation are both impressive, and they’re typically a pretty fun bunch. I have to admit, though, that I was a bit jarred by the angry and violent demeanor of Optimus Prime. I thought he was supposed to be the good guy everyone looked up to? In Age of Extinction, he clearly has some anger management issues. While he might be the most skilled warrior out there, he sure doesn’t seem like much of a role model. Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime, has one again returned to voice the character. John Goodman gives a stand-out voice performance as Hound, in a role he seemed to have a lot of fun with, and Ken Watanabe voices the Samurai-like Transformer known as Drift. All in all, there are a lot of Transformers in the movie, but there is hardly ample time to get to know most of them. I imagine many of them have been introduced in previous films, but for a newcomer like myself, I had a hard time distinguishing between quite a few of them. Then there are the Dinobots, which look awesome, but we’re not given a chance to know much of anything about them. It’s a shame that they’re reduced to feeling like unnecessary bookends to an already overly-crammed movie.
On the human side of things, Mark Wahlberg is enjoyable as the struggling inventor who scavengers through whatever he can to try to create a breakthrough invention. He brings a charming and heroic presence to his role, making him a character we can identify with and root for as he tries to assist the highly-targeted Transformers. T.J. Miller’s Lucas makes for a mildly humorous companion to Cade, although much of the film’s attempts at comedy feel forced and aren’t very funny. Then there’s Nicola Peltz as the skimpily-dressed, rebellious but brainy and innocent, party girl daughter Tessa. She fits right into Bay’s stereotypical sexist female lead who serves as little more than a damsel in distress and eye candy. Still, I don’t know who is worse; Tessa, or her rally car racing boyfriend Shane, played by Jack Reynor. I felt just as frustrated by them as Wahlberg does playing Tessa’s disgruntled and disapproving father. These two lovebirds are an annoying and unwanted addition that only further drag out the plot. While it was at first vaguely amusing to watch Cade freak out as the over-protective father, that shtick ended up getting old real quick. While Wahlberg makes a good new face for the franchise, I hope to God that he comes alone for the next one.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is a fun summer movie. Director Michael Bay sticks to his usual mode of operation with ridiculous action sequences, top of the line special effects, and a whole lot of explosions. If you’re looking for a movie with more flash than substance, Age of Extinction should be right up your alley. It’s jam-packed and overly ambitious, stretching the run time far longer than it ever should, but if offers plenty of dumb, fun entertainment. Transformers fans should be pleased, although the series still has yet to make a fan out of me.
(This review was originally posted at 5mmg.com on 9.22.14.)
Before I dive into this review, I think I should inform you that I have not seen any of the previous Transformers movies. I should also note that I’m something of a Transformers hater. Despite pressure from family and friends who have praised the movie series, I have deliberately avoided every single one of the films. I never liked the cartoon as a kid, and while Transformers’ amalgamation of cars and robots may be a dream combination for most guys, I have very little interest in either. However, as a critic, I cannot let my own biases get in the way of giving fair judgment. After having watched Transformers: Age of Extinction, I can thankfully report that the film actually wasn’t half bad. While it’s not going to make a Transformers fan out of me, it was an entertaining, albeit overly-long, movie-going experience.
Age of Extinction is an action-packed ride, filled with the kind of over-the-top entertainment you would expect from a Michael Bay film. While Bay has developed something of a bad rap, there’s no denying his knack for fun and ridiculous action sequences. He’s a man who spares no expense when it comes to explosions and special effects, and this is where Bay is at his best. Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue with his results as he’s surely one of the most successful directors of all time. However, clocking in at two hours and forty-five minutes, the high-speed action of Age of Extinction is exhausting and becomes tiresome long before the finale. Even when Bay slows things down, he keeps the camera overly busy with particle effects and constant movement. While all of that looks great in IMAX 3D, it feels like an endless visual barrage that is frankly a lot to take in. How many lens flares must a man endure in one movie? I understand the desire to make every shot exciting and visually striking, but I think Bay is trying to tackle too much on camera.
Similarly, Age of Extinction is trying to squeeze too much into its plot, which could almost be broken up into two entirely separate movies. We have the hunt for Optimus Prime and the Transformers by Lockdown and the CIA; Cade Yeager’s discovery of Prime and their ensuing alliance; the love story between Cade’s daughter and her boyfriend; the emergence of the Dinobots; as well as the man-made construction of new Transformers. The result is a fast-paced action movie that is convoluted and far too long. That’s not to say that what is there is bad, though. Awful love story aside, all of the other components of the story are solid and even pretty interesting. Kelsey Grammer puts in a good performance as the head of the CIA who is responsible for the extermination of the Transformers. Similarly, Stanley Tucci is great as Joshua Joyce, the brilliant inventor who is recreating human-controlled Transformers for military use. Yet I can’t help but think that Joyce’s plot would have been perhaps been better to save for a sequel. Sure, it offers a nice parallel between the two inventors and it also creates an opportunity for them to introduce some all-new Transformers, but aren’t the Dinobots enough? There’s so much going on in the film that the eagerly-anticipated Dinobots aren’t given much screen time at all. There is just an unreasonable amount of narratives going on in this movie, to the point where it’s hard to follow, and even harder to stay interested in. Instead of sitting on the edge of your seat during the climactic showdown, you’re probably going to be looking at your watch and wondering how much longer this movie can possibly go on.
While I’m no expert on Transformers, I think the film does an admirable job in bringing the robotic characters to life. Their appearance and animation are both impressive, and they’re typically a pretty fun bunch. I have to admit, though, that I was a bit jarred by the angry and violent demeanor of Optimus Prime. I thought he was supposed to be the good guy everyone looked up to? In Age of Extinction, he clearly has some anger management issues. While he might be the most skilled warrior out there, he sure doesn’t seem like much of a role model. Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime, has one again returned to voice the character. John Goodman gives a stand-out voice performance as Hound, in a role he seemed to have a lot of fun with, and Ken Watanabe voices the Samurai-like Transformer known as Drift. All in all, there are a lot of Transformers in the movie, but there is hardly ample time to get to know most of them. I imagine many of them have been introduced in previous films, but for a newcomer like myself, I had a hard time distinguishing between quite a few of them. Then there are the Dinobots, which look awesome, but we’re not given a chance to know much of anything about them. It’s a shame that they’re reduced to feeling like unnecessary bookends to an already overly-crammed movie.
On the human side of things, Mark Wahlberg is enjoyable as the struggling inventor who scavengers through whatever he can to try to create a breakthrough invention. He brings a charming and heroic presence to his role, making him a character we can identify with and root for as he tries to assist the highly-targeted Transformers. T.J. Miller’s Lucas makes for a mildly humorous companion to Cade, although much of the film’s attempts at comedy feel forced and aren’t very funny. Then there’s Nicola Peltz as the skimpily-dressed, rebellious but brainy and innocent, party girl daughter Tessa. She fits right into Bay’s stereotypical sexist female lead who serves as little more than a damsel in distress and eye candy. Still, I don’t know who is worse; Tessa, or her rally car racing boyfriend Shane, played by Jack Reynor. I felt just as frustrated by them as Wahlberg does playing Tessa’s disgruntled and disapproving father. These two lovebirds are an annoying and unwanted addition that only further drag out the plot. While it was at first vaguely amusing to watch Cade freak out as the over-protective father, that shtick ended up getting old real quick. While Wahlberg makes a good new face for the franchise, I hope to God that he comes alone for the next one.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is a fun summer movie. Director Michael Bay sticks to his usual mode of operation with ridiculous action sequences, top of the line special effects, and a whole lot of explosions. If you’re looking for a movie with more flash than substance, Age of Extinction should be right up your alley. It’s jam-packed and overly ambitious, stretching the run time far longer than it ever should, but if offers plenty of dumb, fun entertainment. Transformers fans should be pleased, although the series still has yet to make a fan out of me.
(This review was originally posted at 5mmg.com on 9.22.14.)